slammin'

I don't like poetry readings.
Reading something that I felt over a year ago to people who just came for the free food and drink

it's more than demeaning.
It's not enough I feel inferior anyway.
But I have to impress myself and my 'poetry' unto others in this room,
this stuffy, quiet, and tense
room.

Perhaps I should just get more practice in. If this is what I want to do for a living and all. But,

honestly, I've always felt a sense of dignity in writing things down and having people read and interpret it themselves.

So that my readers can feel what they feel without the author getting in their way.

Poetry slams are different.
Slam poetry is different.
In that case you write a poem for the specific reason TO sway your audience with your point of view.

And in that case, I would have liked it more. Feeding off of an audience on a stage is so fulfilling.

But in a cramped, stuffy studio where everyone is dressed to the nine's and I'm standing at a podium so tall that I almost can't see the audience..

when I'm reading a poem I wrote for paper and interpretation,
I feel as if I should be hiding.