Timekeeping/Transcription: Stephanie Young
I was asked to give a reading at Small Press Traffic. Small Press Traffic is a longstanding, well-respected Bay Area literary arts center now housed at California College of the Arts in San Francisco; it presents all of its events in the Timkin Lecture Hall there. The Timkin Lecture Hall is a dark, rectangular, temperature-controlled space often indicted as unsuitable for poetry readings, notoriously unwelcoming, often cold. The room is large, poetry audiences there can be small. Normally—although it has been handled variously*—the poet is confined to a large white plastic obelisk, a podium, stage left. The large podium hides all but head and shoulders of the presenting body. From the stage one can see some shapes of figures, very few faces. The audience is in dim—not dark—light, and is significantly separated from the presenting body.
It is an honor to be asked to read at Small Press Traffic. I wanted to find a suitable method for altering our experience together in it.
I wanted to find a way to top the space but submit to my audience completely. I wanted to create a sense of emotional and physical proximity in a space well-designed to deny or prohibit that. I wanted to see if I could strip the room of its [our] affect and gesture. I wanted everyone awake.
I wanted to be unable to predict, control, or script. I wanted to erase, for myself, any method of pre-production or preparation. I wanted to arrive scriptless. I often over-construct my performances, I cock the space, so to speak; I dictate the terms. I wanted to dictate myself termless. I wanted to make something that could exist for its unfolding duration in that time, in that space, and with those beings only but which nevertheless constructed both the practice of poetry and its result: the intimate, portable, flexible, permeable, container.
ie., it should be
durational
phenomenological
truthful, given the limits of truth
site-specific
generous
witholding
dependent on all others not myself
Open Plan:
1. Step on to the stage carrying standing mic with me, and position myself stage right—across from the podium.
2. Ask that the lights be taken all the way down, including sidelights and emergency lights, with the exception of a strong spot on myself, directed wholly at my face. [Myself unable to see anything but light, and the audience contained in an enveloping darkness which is also a position of witness, And.]
3. Announce the duration: 25 minutes; request assistance by audience member in keeping time. Wait for volunteer.
4. Announce my intention: “I thought I would take questions”; wait.
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
fffffffffffffffffffffffffff
The questions, as transcribed by Stephanie Young:
ffffffffffffffffffffffffff
Did you write that stuff on the board behind you?
What kind of questions did you expect to be asked?
How long did it take you to decide what to wear?
Do you like cats?
What did you eat today?
Are there any questions you won't answer?
What is your favorite thing about the san francisco poetry community?
What's your least favorite thing about the san francisco poetry community?
Does that have anything to do with public transportation? (in response to your answer fffffffffffto previous question)
What is it like to be onstage doing this right now?
Why did you choose this method of performance?
Are you thirsty?
How bad? (in response to your answer to previous question, answer was "I have to fffffffffffpee") (answer: "I'm not thirsty")
How do you think Drew Gardner used the space last week
What did you think of his reading?
How did the apple logo function in his piece?
What are you doing after the reading?
What constitutes a reading?
Are there any questions you wanted to be asked?
What is heaven like?
Are there questions there?
Would you mind if I made a phone call real quick?
What did you dream about last night?
What poets have you ever dreamed of?
What have you been reading lately?
How is this performance site specific?
Do you think you would have done something like this if you didn't know most of the fffffffffffpeople in the room?
Can you give us some examples of that? (in response to your answer to previous fffffffffffquestion)
Do you think you'll be making up answers to the point of lying?
What was the process of writing the last poem that you wrote?
If you had to guess how much time had passed since you started what would you guess?
Do you want to know the answer to that?
How do you think of what you're doing right now as writing?
How do you feel about us right now?
When this room starts to disappear is that a little like heaven?
And are there people in heaven?
Why did you feel the need to qualify the question?
Is this something you've wished for, that other poets would take questions?
Do you think there should be more vulnerability in poetry readings?
How do you imagine you would have felt about a 25 minute performance in which no fffffffffffquestions were asked?
What's a comparison that you can make between the vulnerability you want to experience and the fear that you felt before?
What is the difference between intimacy and vulnerability?
Why do you think everybody's asking you questions about why you're doing this, fffffffffffinstead of questions about movies or politics?
***
[Pre-performance notes][entire]
I am a poet who resents the demand and the assumption that an inscribed form is a written one.
strategies/non binaries
say “fucked” on stage
thank everyone for participating
have no affectation
the preparation is invisible and requires no or little writing at all, all preparation is of the internal state/being
no notes possible, no devising of scheme
allowing/insisting the audience provide/indicate/direct the content, performing body must be porous & reflect back only via what is provided
poetry without speech/language, or poetry without written language, or poetry without written or spoken/read text
* I have seen various iterations of use of that stage space. ex: Stacy Doris once sat on a folding chair beside the podium. Taylor Brady stood center stage. kari edwards sat on the edge of the concrete stage with a digital timer clipped to her shirt.
