Subtext Anniversary Reading

Last night I attended the Subtext Reading Series 13th anniversary reading. Subtext recently moved from it's world headquarters at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle to The Good Shepherd Center's Chapel Performance Space. There were over 20 readers! Fortunately for the audience, each reader was allowed a maximum of 2 minutes to read. Since Chris has been deeply involved with the subtext series he was a featured reader. Some of the other readers included were Curtis Bonney, Joseph Bradshaw, Daniel Comiskey, Christine Deavel, April Denonno, Diana George, Adriana Grant, Marion Kimes, Drew Kunz, Sarah Mangold, Ezra Mark, Bryant Mason, Robert Mittenthal, Paul Nelson, Mickey O’Connor, John Olson, Roberta Olson, Willie Smith, Craig Van Riper, Nico Vassilakis, and Maged Zaher.

Chris (because his name was drawn from a hat first) went firt. He was--of course--great. He read from his "Bunny" series and I had a blast listening to some newer parts of it.

As I was sitting there waiting for the reading to begin, I realized that it was exactly a year ago to the day that I had read in the subtext series. Here are two poems from that set (just to shake it up a bit).

Cardboard Fact

Adjectives tell you what to think
of what you remember of this conversation.
Someone deep inside the mountain is a bully.

Someone who wants to play with you,
but won’t say they want to play with you.
Those we know and don’t know

but mostly don’t know.
Blood, in this exploratory scenario, is spilled
and always a defiant so-and-so when Secret

Idea finds absent a in language
while befuddled b wallows around in the circuit
architecture of corporate aggravation. And so on…

Indie Screenplay

On a landscaped island in the lush
middle of the office park parking lot
a focus group talks about Zeno

and his paradox. The tiny plastic toys
cry “Open wide” and wide I open
to the nefarious lollipops of pulp magazines.

You only missed me by minutes.
Stealing ideas for bikinis,
Secret Idea is charting it all down.

“Eiffel Towers in those fish-nets.
Fish nets in the Eiffel Tower.” Advance the frame
in order to remember what you remember.