Post-Pub or Perish Report

Well, the 2008 Pub or Perish is in the books, and it went pretty well overall. I opened the show (after a brief and very poetic and heartfelt essay by organizer David Koon), and the place was packed and the crowd responsive. "Noir, #28" got a big reaction, as did the limericks I threw in to break up the "serious/literary" stuff. Click here for the poems I read this year (not in reading order, but you get the gist--just scroll down past the prose posts till the poetry starts).

There were open mic readers, festival guests, memoirists and poets. The biggest draw was Jill Conner Brown, who read from one of her half-dozen "Sweet Potato Queen" guides. She brought a lot of the crowd with her (and took them with her too, leaving immediately after she read--so it was just as well I read early), and brought the room to guffaws with her detailed essay on how a woman can get anything she wants by promising (not delivering, but promising) a blow job. Very tongue-in-cheek (wahey!) and a crowd pleaser. Other featured readers included PoP regular S. Y. Hoawah and newcomer Kelly Corrigan, who both brought the good stuff.

Other readers included a few brave first-timers reading prose and poetry--one man reading a story about a duck-hunting trip gone wrong, an earnest New Yorker reading about the power of music to bring folks together in Memphis, a poet who missed her first call by taking an ill-time bathroom trip but came back strong later to read a satirical poem about futuristic anti-depressants, a musically-inclined woman performing a memorable spoken word piece, and others who were just as brave and wonderful. Probably my favorite was the Australian-Arkansan Georgia Ashmore reading a chapter from her novel in which the protagonist attends a very unusual wedding ceremony. I'm sorry I didn't write down anyone else's name--you were all great.

In fact, the writing was great across the board this time--no hilariously well-meaning-but-bad stuff that's been a staple of open mic readings from time immemorial, unless I was the bad one and didn't catch on. But I got several compliments after the reading, so maybe I was okay. :) David even brought the show in under time this year, which is no mean feat.

So thanks to all my wonderful friends who came out to hear me read, thanks to David and the Arkansas Times, thanks to the audience for listening and clapping, and thanks to Sticky Fingerz for the venue and the booze. I already can't wait till next year.