Tonight was yet another stimulating evening of chat, interview, poetry and music with Danielle Notaro and Ann Michaels, two friends and poets. This was the first DNO with poets instead of musicians (or kids performers). I actually relish going into these encounters with few projections and let the evenings unfold.
I always start with a folk song, and since there were more poets than musicians in the audience, I started with a standard – Green, Green Rocky Road. I enjoyed having a poet audience hanging on the words, so it was fun to do the Hooka tooka soda cracker verse. Setting a low bar for the event.
Danielle and Ann did an array of challenging poems, talked about growing up as a writer, various influences. In fact, it was curious that these women dropped so many poetry names that I was in a fog. Refreshing. No Robert Johnsons, Blind Lame Cripples, Muddy Waters, etc.
We actually went close to two hours, and the questions, comments from both ladies and the audience was, as always, intoxicating.
I snuck in It’ll Be Me and Pinto Pony, tunes I consider great examples of terse verse. I finished up the evening with Lessons from Pete which was really a big experiment on my part, playing my original poetry for poets. It was a good thing.
Again, I got some rave reviews from the folks in the audience and they are all very gratifying, coming from fellow artists. It’s a great and unique format that challenges the artists and the audience at the same time.
I wish more folks would come out, but it continues to be artistically satisfying.