We spurn interactivity here on DanielNester.com–since I am always one incident away from a nervous breakdown at all times, on anonymous comment is all it takes for a this writer to jump out a window in his pajamas.*
Over on the Book of Faces, however, some interaction is allowed. Here, from the readers, are 10 more worst things someone can do at a group reading. With a couple of mine thrown in.
1. Read for half-an-hour and then ask the crowd if you have time to read a new “longish” poem.
2. Says that you are so excited to be reading with 1 of the 2 other readers on the line-up.
3. Sort through your work and say “Well, maybe I will read this poem, or maybe I won’t….let’s see.” Then pause and sort through your manuscript.
4. If given ten minutes read for twenty, if given twenty minutes read for thirty,
5. Don’t thank the host/organizer/audience for coming out.
6. Even though the reading is a small, community-based series that doesn’t pay readers, ask organizer if you can apply for Poets & Writers funding, which requires that the organizers match its funds.
6a. Provide all your necessary information in a pre-filled-out form, emailed to the organizer, along with your initial request.
6b. Don’t ask about the Poets & Writers funding. Instead, ask for money for reading at a small indie press bookstore that loses money as an operation. Then, when the organizer, in his star-worshipping naivete, does apply for Poets & Writers funding and receives it, and you are informed that you will be getting a check for $50 at the reading, say “Well, that’s something.”
6c. When offered a stack of free books from the small indie press bookstore as the matching funds, worth well over $50, tell the organizer that you would “rather have the cash.”
7. At a benefit reading: make joke about the cause or occasion for the event. Example: Performing opening monologue from Patton at a Poets Against the War reading.
8. Complain about the lighting, the heat, the intellectual qualities or number of the crowd.
8a. Tell host that the halogen spot lighting in the venue needs to be turned off or else he said he might have a seizure.
9. Fuck host, then ask for your check.
9a. Fart in front of host while reading, then ask for your check, even though you’re not getting one.
10. Read in a child’s voice before an audience of hipsters, get drunk within moments of reading, then leave early.
*Although, if you are reading this an know how to put a third-party site’s code into my template to bring comments here, I would very much appreciate the help. There’s some free books in it for you.
