At The Albert pub readings in Huddersfield, which is otherwise a very good
place to read - small room, so it's usually full even if there's only 25
people there, with a door (it took us several years to find a venue in
Middlesbrough that would let us use their function room AND had a door on
it!) - you read with your back to the wall which houses the hand-dryer in
the gents toilet. When it's used it sounds like a plane taking off.
Fortunately men don't wash their hands that often in Huddersfield...
My worst/best experience was a reading in a pub in Leeds where I had to read
with my back to the bar - which opened out into another room, where a pub
quiz was being held. It wasn't too bad until they got to the Pop Quiz
section... Sold a stack of books that night though, so maybe it helped.
On the subject of unusual venues though, I did once organise a poetry
reading at Middlesbrough Football Club, in front of 34,000 people. Went down
well actually. (all the poems were about the Boro.)
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Caddel <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 18 June 1999 11:34
Subject: Re: Windy Stair?
>On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 12:20:50 -0600 (MDT), you wrote:
>
>>The espresso machine. I have read and been to numerous
>>readings this last year where poems battled and lost to the agressive
>>swoosh of frothing milk.
>
>Well, I suppose one could try to incorporate the swoosh into the
>performance... We had a poetry reading next to the Cathedral in Durham
>once, little knowing that it was bell-ringing-practice night. Unequal
>contest - Roy Fisher introducing a section of A Furnace with "here's a
>piece I really wrote to be sounded against a peal of bells..."
>
>Bookshops have weird acoustics (carpets and books swallow sound -
>Maggie O'Sullivan found she got no sense of her own voice at her
>Waterstones reading, and I certainly know that feeling). Then there's
>the traffic noise through big glass windows: I did one once where for
>the poet (deep in the shop) there seemed to be no problem - but from
>the back of the audience (by the windows) all they could hear was
>traffic. Reading second, I became aware of the problem and pitched my
>voice up - to the mystification of the front row, who couldn't work
>out why I was shouting...
>
>The simple space where everyone including the reader can hear and be
>included seems so very hard to achieve.
>
>RC
>
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|