ghosts of Aprils past
Very often April gets me thinking about April's past, especially when it comes to poetry and poem-ish things. Not just because its the officially designated month for verse, but more since some of the best poetry things have happened in April. It's usually flush with readings and events and other ways that poetry shows up in the world and I am here for it. I've been invited to sit on panels, teach workshops, and participate in far many more readings during the month of April than others, plus NaPoWriMo drafting exploits, so it's always a month that is poetry-rich, even if I have nothing official planned.
But today I found myself thinking of one April in particular. 2002. It was a year that I felt, for the first time, settled into city life and working full-time at the library. A year in which I was beginning to publish more frequently in online journals, a medium that were still very new and shiny on the poetry horizon, so much so that I had started my own with wicked alice the previous fall. I had also assembled my first chapbook that spring of '02, The Archaeologist's Daughter, a manuscript that before the end of the year would be picked up my Moon Journal Press. It was the same small local feminist press that issued the same-named journal that had been my first ever publication that wasn't a "vanity" project or academic publication. The first acceptance letter I had opened in early 1999 that had taken two poems, and then over the next year, two more for another issue.
By April 2002, these things were in the works. I was also writing a lot more than I had been, largely urged on by my publication success, which was happening at a frequent pace. I had not yet dipped my foot into the local poetry community, but found much of a community online through list-servs and corresponding with other poets directly. I did not yet have a blog and social media wasn't a thing. That's not to say I wasn't aware of Chicago poetry happenings. When I was in grad school at DePaul, I loved reading small local weeklies or monthlies you'd find in stacks at bookstores and cafes. The reading series and publications, and even in some case, poets by name I later met, were often mentioned. There were certain higher profile local events that were poetry-related I zeroed in on, including the Gwendolyn Brooks Open-Mic Award I would participate in a couple years later. The other was mentions of the Poetry Center of Chicago, which in 2002 would offer me my very first reading opportunity in front of an audience.
Each year, the Center offered a Juried Reading Prize, usually judged by a big-name poet. That year, the prizes were modest. I'm pretty sure the first place winner only took home around $250-300. The finalists were announced at the beginning of April, with two readings (the second one the prize announcement at CPL's annual Poetry Fest, another, a smaller reading at the Evanston Public Library.) I was terrified before both, especially this first one. While I had taken classes in theater and oral interpretation of lit as an undergrad, and read books daily to kids while working at the elementary school, reading my own poems aloud in front of an actual audience seemed especially harrowing. These were my words, so not only would I be judged on delivery and performance, but possibly the words themselves.
I showed up on a rainy Saturday with my sister in tow for moral support to find a small audience, most friends and family brought along by the participating poets, all of of whom I felt seemed more polished and precise than I. I made it through without garbling anything, but it may have taken a couple years off my life. I was also nervous before the second reading, which had a much larger audience (well, larger for poetry.) You could have knocked me over with a feather when they handed me third prize and a cool 75 bucks. And then again, two years later, when I netted the first prize and $1000 (I've always guessed the infusion of money into the org's coffers via The Poetry Foundation that landed the Lilly endowment the previous year.) By then, I had been doing readings all over the city, and while not an old pro by any means, it made me far less nervous on stage. As winner in 2004, I gave my first reading where I actually had a book in tow, my scrappy little copies of Bloody Mary that were one of the first books for dgp when I was figuring out the logistics of a chapbook press. It was the first time I sat behind a table and actually signed copies that for some amazing reason people wanted to buy. It was glorious.
In the decades since I've done many readings in many different kinds of places. From tiny groups in bookstore basements to a good crowd in the Field Museum on an afternoon amid the bird specimens. From relatively quiet book release parties at Quimby's to raucous open mics. My last few readings were via zoom, but I am hoping to plan more in-person readings soon. For one thing, they still remain the best way to move books, be they inexpensive chapbooks or full-length titles. On the other, nervous as I get even still after two decades, I miss the performance part.
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