My favourite story along these lines is Roger McGough visiting Edith Cowan
University in Perth here. He did it a number of times because the weather is
so good and the atmosphere is sooooo laid back as to be comatose. Anyway,
long story short, the uni has a campus in a regional capitol way down south
called Bunbury. It has a small student population, and even smaller creative
student pop.  Roger took a uni car down there for a special reading and
workshop one day ... about a three hour drive or so. When he got there, the
guy who was meant to arrange that end hadn't, and nobody much expected him.
So the English lecturer escorted Roger to a lecture room, deposited him, and
said he'd be back in a few minutes. About ten minutes later Roger heard this
same guy down the hallway yelling, 'I don't care if you are fucking art
students, you're coming to this fucking poetry reading!' Hee hee hee ...
Roger rather liked telling that story.

I have read to audiences of two and three - but as long as I was enjoying
myself, I didn't care :-) Up in Singapore Writers Week (some years ago, with
Jon Silken and Ian Wedde), we had more poets on the bill than audience -
because Doris Lessing was talking over the way in another hall! She was a
graceful lady though - I shared a panel with her the next night, and my job
was to put together her sculpture from the school she'd visited that
afternoon while she talked to the audience. I just shut up and let her speak
:-)

Andrew

----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 10:48 PM
Subject: Re: Sukarina the patron


>
>> and that 90 miles to read one poem,
>> eek! a tie with the worst reading story I've yet heard, a woman poet
>> about 7
>> months pregnant who went 3 hours by train to give a talk, arrived,
>> and found no
>> one had announced the talk, so there was nobody there, or she hoped
>> there
>> would be nobody so she could go home, when one person walked in a
>> moment
>> or two late, and she had to give the talk anyway!
>>
>>
> I am amazed this woman didn't freak out and run amok.  A talk to ONE
> person?  They could have gone out for coffee or a drink and at least
> turned it into a social event.
>
This has happened to others. There's a story about Earle Birney, at the
time one of Canada's most famous poets, who went to give a Canada
Council sponsored reading in northern Manitoba, was met by the
organizer, who told him he couldn't stay, left him in an empty room, to
which one person came, & since it was in a hotel, Birney took him for a
drink. And read him some poems....

I've read to as few as four, at another badly advertised gig.

Doug


Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton  Alberta  T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm

We both know the reason why you called
So stop wastin’ time tryin’ to soften up my fall
I know you wanna sweeten up the taste
But if you don’t mind I’ll just take my sorrow straight

                Iris DeMent