Naked and Afraid

Showing up for our poems

Do you like poetry readings? I have to admit, as a poet, I dread reading my work in public. I heard someone who knew Robert Bly say recently that Bly said the person that showed up at the reading was not the person who wrote the poems. This feels true for me, at least the kind of poems that I write where I am in search of my own—and sometimes ours— secret wounds, those places I can bathe with the tenderness of words.

I also heard Li-Young Lee say how difficult it was for him to read his work in public, because he wasn't satisfied unless he was able to go into the state he was in while writing the poems when reading them in public. I saw him do exactly this a few times, and it was a wonder to behold, and also very painful. We’re not used to seeing someone so naked. Truly witnessing the soul of another human being is not something to be taken casually. It shouldn’t be seen as entertainment, which essentially a poetry reading is.