The Best Poetry Reading in Town

is at the prison where I teach. Granted, it is a bit out of town, but each week I go, the guys' poetry kicks me in the jaw. I'm often left short of breath. I often leave with more love in my whole self for poetry than I can remember having for so long.

The poetry read is so rich because it's read without pretension, and without ego, and sometimes it's even read without confidence, and all are equally perfect. And if poems are read with confidence, they are aways gracious and grateful. In fact, it may be simply gratitude in each poem and joy, even when the poems aren't joyful. When the poems deal with the terrible, they are still alive. And maybe, then, I appreciate the life of it. The poems read at prison are alive. How rare to find living poems.

By which I mean poems that are at once of a person and of themselves. Because many poems are lively, but I have a hard time finding poems that communicate between the writer and the poem written in any concrete way... those are the poems that live. Poetry as survival.

I've stopped reading lit mags, I've been avoiding facebook, I've stopped submitting things and looking at Duotrope. And now, finally, after giving up those things, I remember poetry, and I miss it. I want it back.

Hopefully the birds haven't devoured my trail of breadcrumbs...