The Barbaric Yawp: Giving a Good Reading (Part II)
(read part 1 of the advice on how to give a good poetry reading here.) This has been excerpted with permission from Soft Skull Press’ How to Make a Living as a Poet, by Gary Mex Glazner.
4. Know your poems. It is a good idea to memorize at least a few of your poems, if not all of the work you will be reading on a given night. There is a world of difference between reciting a poem by heart and having to actually read the material. Having the poem memorized will allow you to concentrate on the performance of the poem. It allows you to have greater eye contact and a more powerful connection with the audience. Having your poems memorized and being able to watch the audience during the reading will give you a good idea of whether or not they are engaged.
Find out from the organizer how long they want you to read.
Practice your set. Make sure you have the intended poems timed out so
that you can do your presentation in the allotted time. Poets are famous time hogs. It is always better to end with the audience wanting to hear more from you, rather than wondering when you are going to stop.
5. Visualize yourself reading well. Imagine yourself performing your poems, with your voice loud, clear, and assured. For many years now top athletes having been using the technique of visualization to enhance their performances. When you visualize yourself performing well and reading your poems powerfully, you will increase your chance of reaching full barbaric yawp speed. One caveat: I have often wondered what happens when all the athletes who are involved in a particular competition visualize success. I guess then it comes down to who has the most beefed up subconscious. Lie down. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. You are feeling very relaxed. See yourself on stage. See yourself as one with the words. You are the poem, you shining star! Careful with your ohming now or you might just levitate.
6. Realize that people want you to be a famous immortal poet.
Audiences want you to succeed. They want to have a good time, want
you to be interesting, stimulating, informative, entertaining, and perhaps they even want you to be sexy in an intellectual-tweed-jacket kind of way. One technique often mentioned is to envision the audience naked. The audience knows this and they, in fact, are often envisioning you naked. Let this be a source of comfort to you.
7. Being a performer is never having to say you’re sorry. Don’t call attention to the fact that you are a nervous wreck. Don’t apologize for being a virgin reader. Let them guess that it is your first time. If they do guess that you have never done this before, at least not here, in this bar, like this, ask them to be gentle. Don’t promise you will come back and read again unless you mean it.
8. Release the inner beast. Think of your nervous energy as Longfellow’s arrow. As Shakespeare’s summer’s day. Build a nest in your heart and let your poems hatch their little eggs. Think of your nervousness as foreplay. Now tell me, how excited are you?
Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online 
