From March to this past Friday, I was the Second Friday host in the poetry hosting rotation of The Rapp Saloon reading in Santa Monica CA. Earlier last week, I resigned my volunteer position.
This is the statement I posted Saturday on Facebook:
One comment on stepping down from hosting at The Rapp Saloon: it gets very disheartening to book poet/multiple poet bills and have few (or in one case, zero) people in attendance. And, yes, I'm aware that other venues cope with this too. In the Rapp's case, I'm also aware of years past when attendance on a weekly basis was good-to-excellent. I did my best in booking and promoting, and that's all I can say.
In addition, I was booked by another Rapp Saloon host (Joe Camhi) as a feature. No one came to see me. I'll make no further comment on this--except to say it happens to other poets too.
How much of this under-or-non-attendance is due to aging of certain poets, reluctance to drive long distances when gasoline is over $4.00 a gallon, or the reduction of the SoCal scene to Literary Pantheon Aspiration with gradual weeding out of Folk Art (something that certain prominent people in the scene dearly wanted) is a question that only you, the reader of this post, can answer.
That is, if you truly care about answering it.
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