you incite me to chorus

here goes

So.

Just got out of a realllyyyyy hot bath - used as a muscle relaxer. Working 60ish hours a week aint no joke!

anyways, back to the purpose of this blog.

Yesterday was my feature at Monday Night Blues. May I just say that Charleston's literary scene has embraced me like none other, and as far as my art and writing life is concerned, I think I definitely chose the right place to be.

This poet guy, marcus, is in charge of Charleston's poet's webpage . He has been so graciously helping me get acclimated to the area, we have poetic rap sessions, and he will be the one to help me design Sage in the upcoming month (Look for a late September or Oct 31 release!). Anyways, so they hype me up, which is cool...telling everyone that i'm the "most talented, beautiful poet to grace the local poetry scene in a while." *blushes*.

Anyways. If you're interested, or know any of the poems, here's the set list. It was divided into two sections. I think I did somewhere near a full hour of just pure delana entertainment:

set moja (one, in swahili).

Back where I come from

My dream for the misbegotten

These hands

Teaching to fish

A meeting

Letters of consolation for the grieving, (pts I & II)

Vicious Cycles


Set mbili (two, in swahili)

Poetic Rhapsody

The water’s fine

Reality TV (behind the scenes)

Nightmares

Connectivity

To my grandmother

Yellow rose

Israelites




So, again, if you know many of my pieces, you'll know that a lot of these are 1) from my book, Sage and 2) Written on a page.
I tried to give a nice even mix of written and memorized pieces, but then I realized as i was performing that the first set was heavily written, where as the second, only the last two pieces were read from the page.

The performance of it all, however, i must say (and this is the part where i brush my own shoulders off) was pretty flawless. The room of about 30-40 people (at max, people of course, coming in and out) was totally silent, like, i could hear EVERYTHING goin on around me. Usually, if the poetry isn't too interesting, or the music, people will be at their tables chatting, or doing something. I looked around and saw everyone was just fixed on me. It made me wonder if they were just gazing out of boredom - i wondered if my set was too long. Ellie - the organizer, and person who scooped me up - said it was perfect. That i was phenomonal. lol, so i know this just may sound like i'm just tooting my own horn, but i guess it's sort of exciting to me, really. Like, this is part of the reason i came down here, to get my career off on the right foot, and there you have it.

the best part? working at a coffee shop, and seeing some people come in the next morning and sit down and talk to you about your work, and its impact, and i think it's wonderful to be able to connect with people who you would never connect to on any other level. He said he was a financial banker (older, white guy) and that he was "never exposed to those kind of things, but decided to check them out, to give him a chance to expand his mind" and said that i "raised the bar, and blew him out of the water." then we just talked about some of the subject matter i raised - single parenting (poems - to my grandmother, vicious cycles), charleston segregation (the water's fine) to just how he talked to one of the more respected poets who he said had the misforturne of reading right after me, and he was like he was still mesmerized and impressed by my work (both the poet and the guy) that he didn't feel right reading. (ironically, i remember, that's when the talking started back up again).

it was also cool to see some people in the audience that were moved by my open mic performances, and i told them about my feature, (and they're not regular attendees) and they showed up.

anyways. I'm excited. I'm starting a yahoo group as a mailing list-of-sorts to keep incontact with my audience members (and people i know) who will be interested in buying a book (or ten) and attending my book signing, i want to be able to keep in contact with them.

book signing: Ellie Davis demands I do a book signing. I wasn't going to push the issue, being that 1/2 of the stuff i read monday night (or have read at all at the open mics) have been pieces from Sage. So i didn't want it to be a repeat of Monday night, but then again, I guess I would like for people to become familiar with my work, have "favorites", make requests. Who knows. More details on that special night later (and Stacy, you BETTER not have excuses for that!).

Anyone want to feature a young, budding poet, let a sista know. As long as you're within driving distance, we're good.

here's to the writing life.

posted by De'La @ 7/27/2005 10:01:00 AM