Last spring, I was graduating and finishing up my work at the Evergreen Writing Center. I spent much of the time curled up into a ball in my shed-office, like if I closed my eyes and held my breath *whatever* was waiting for me on the other side of graduation and my job ending– that threshold between myself and *the future*– would just keep waiting for me. It was as if I ignored it long enough, the inevitable passing of time would wait for me to come to it, for me to pick up my feet and walk over to it. Instead, time was coming for me, chasing me, and I knew eventually it would overtake me.
I wasn’t at all ready, because, honestly, I was pretty happy, at least in that way we have to adjust to a really great situation, the best really I had been in in my life, even if it wasn’t the end game. I was incredibly tired– working at a state university was exhausting in many, many ways. I felt both deeply in community, and often isolated. I had found a queer workplace, but now confused why I wasn’t invited to my coworkers’ graduation parties, still that 7th grade wallflower. I couldn’t blame it on being queer, because everyone was queer there.
But I felt incredibly beautiful. I had a great date, a great dress, a few weeks left with a great boss. I was weird and ready for… something. I wasn’t actually ready, even though I had been working towards that moment for many, many years.
And, I was a feature reader at the 4th Annual Cultivating Voices Poetry Pride Parade.
I honestly texted a few poet friends rather quickly, like “Dude, I’m reading alongside… xyz famous person we all looked up too… I feel so excited but also I might barf…” The most honest of them wrote back like “Thats nutso! I remember when that happened to me, you got this tho!”
We are all so supportive of each other, ultimately, in queer-poetry-land.
And I held myself up. All those weeks leading up to the reading– of waiting, of filling out graduation forms, of trying on and then changing what I was going to wear, of assembling friends to join me as I read over zoom. Of soaking in the time with my really great boss (are we even allowed to have those in late stage capitalism?), of not taking Elvie-dog on enough walks, of licking my teeth and being surprised that I could taste something else, especially something that wasn’t fear.
I wasn’t just leaving Evergreen; I was shattering through the cozy isolation I had adjusted to during the early days of Covid. While I was sad and grieving pretty much the entire time during the first few years of Pandemic, the world was also on my same page– alone, also sad, staying home, dealing with death all of the time. This was the work I had known during the most genuine period of my life– would could possible come after it?
I realized later that I was ready for completion, but not release. I had been done for a while at Evergreen– comfortable with my voice and my process, now able to suss out who to work with, making new and newer things. I wasn’t ready to get thrown out into “the world”; I was still that wallflower, that shy kid, but I had to buff myself up, take all that tenderness, and read alongside many of my heroes. Poetry readings are like drugs: take a medium that you work from because you are so, so quiet, and then put yourself in a room of other very, very quiet people who will coo and clap for you at the end, and maybe fall in love with you. Even if they shuffle, and are awkward and don’t really like what you wrote, often they will come up to you afterwards with something they appreciated about it. Heck, I even had a very terrible, not-queer boss (not Sandy!) come up to me after I read once and said “Hey, I appreciate you reading– I’ve been up there.”
Unconditional love really makes you come back for more. And, we’re really often supportive in queer-poetry-land.
And you know what? I got on that not-ready train. I recorded my poems to practice, speaking into a microphone that wasn’t really as good quality as what I paid at Best Buy (I was rushed, and didn’t read the reviews– ok?!). I listened to them on playback in my shed-office, drinking coffee and losing track of time. I listened to my own voice over and over again until I could fall into it, until I knew it wouldn’t freak me out when I heard it out there.
Meanwhile, the team assembled: my friend from the Writers’ Circle I held organized an in-person component where we hung out and ate chips in it’s parents’ garage at a long folding table. On the day of the reading, it was raining (well, yea, it’s Oly in Spring). We all wore jackets, and you could see my mus-tache on the screen.
I delivered my words to the zoom room from a swivel chair, into the microphone I’d spent too much on, in a room full of people (some famous, some not so, every poet and listener important in queer-poetry-land), the amazing boss, my date, my friend, and all those chips. Afterwards, I went and bought some essential oils at Barnes and Noble because wow– I was gonna pass out and just needed to be around a bunch of empty journals and tell the cashier I had had a long day and go home and sniff some stuff.
So, yeah, I did it. We all should all do this. We should all be celebrated enough and honor each other enough that we should get the courage to read. We should all have enough readings that we are asking and inviting each other to read. And I’ll do it again hopefully someday. And I’ll know what to say if someone writes me telling me they are excited but might barf: I can write them back in a good way, because “Hey, I’ve been there”.
Did I mention Cultivating Voices is a really super supportive space in queer-poetry land? International, intersectional, and made me feel well at home.
You can watch me not-barf, here:
MoonLit Fern 