Reprinting this tidbit from Sander Roscoe Wolff's interview with Derrick Brown re the Lightbulb Mouth Radio Hour's resurrection (highlighting by me):
I asked him why he decided to abandon the open mic segment.
[DERRICK BROWN]"The audience didn't like it, but the poets did. As a writer and promoter, the audience is master [a comment that G. Murray Thomas--also a titan of LBC--has duplicated in the past]. But now we have a contact button on our site so any writer can request to join one of our 'found object' battles. The themes change monthly. Instead of one author for 20 minutes, each contestant competes to get a 7-10 minute feature slot that night, 50 bucks, and all the found objects. Only one can win. The audience decides."
In the late 90s and the first half of the 2000s, when there was an abundance of readings, it wasn't all that bad when certain poetry hosts did no-open-allowed showcases on occasion.
Nowadays, you can ingratiate yourself with certain SoCal literati by badmouthing the oh-so-uneven quality of open mikes at poetry readings. And you may well increase popularity by doing this.
But I hate to see a resurgence of the bite-sized invited guest reader trend. Larry Jaffe, during his 2002 venture into hosting a sedate literary poetry reading at the Autry Museum in Griffith Park, did this--though Larry didn't make people jump like dogs eager to be fed by asking them to compete in a "found object" battle.
Perhaps Derrick Brown thinks he's being semi-generous by giving poets/writers a "request to join" option and presenting them $50 if they meet his win-the-crowd-like-a-slam-gladiator standards.
I'm just worried that, in an environment of rising gas prices and diminishing venue attendance (not to forget fewer extant venues), that literati of both the page and stage may get the idea to kill open mikes in greater quantities--thinking that it's a sure way to woo more nonpoet audience members to "community" and showcase readings.
its bs. The audience doesn't decide, the host does.
ReplyDeleteAnd the audience always votes for popularity and / or friends. Slammers won when they brought the most friends. That's all it is. And why I'm happily skipping all of it.