I Wanna Be the Next American Idol

My guitar if I were a rock star

I’m an “American Idol” super fan. I watch every single week, and if I have to go somewhere one night, I dvr it. After all these years, it’s still a show I wouldn’t miss. I even vote for my favorites. I don’t care about the declining numbers, unless that means the show gets cancelled. This year was extra special as my favorite contestant, Caleb Johnson, won.

As I watched the judges, Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez, and Harry Connick, critique the contestants this year, I kept thinking how relevant their comments were for poets as well as musicians. I took some notes as the weeks went by:

If the delivery is too introspective, you may keep the audience out.

You need to know what the words mean or you won’t feel them or communicate them to the audience.

Match your body to the words.

There must be emotional dynamics in the delivery.

Know who you are, what kind of artist you want to be—but from time to time, surprise us.

Get out of your comfort zone.

Get out of your wheelhouse. Show us a new version of you. Do what you haven’t done before.

If you’re giving us what we know, put a twist on it.

If you always do the same thing, you become predictable. Take risks. You can’t grow as an artist if you don’t.

Be dependable without being predictable.

You need both the yin and the yang. You can’t be all one or the other.

Give us authenticity.

Rehearse to get rid of the nerves.

Be self-assertive. Come out and own it.

Sing your song to someone. Imagine someone.


All good advice for poets, yes? Poetry is our singing.

Tribute to Lincoln

Chuck and Lisa

This past Sunday I participated in a tribute to Abraham Lincoln in honor of his bicentennial. The event was held at my local library with the support of a grant from the NJ Council for the Humanities. It was a surprisingly wonderful program. It began with a brief lecture about Lincoln's life and presidency. This was delivered by Dr. Larry Greene, history professor at Seton Hall University. Then various dignitaries—a congressman, assemblymen, local mayor, school superintendent—read Lincoln's speeches. Other people read poems about Lincoln. I was asked to read Edwin Markham's "Lincoln, The Man of the People" and an excerpt from Bayard Taylor's "The Gettysburg Ode."

Also included were two musicians, Chuck Winch and Lisa Godino, known as Plum Run. They were dressed in authentic clothing from the period and sang a number of Civil War songs. My favorite song was "The Vacant Chair," about a boy killed in the war. His family anticipates the first Thanksgiving dinner without him: "We will meet, / but we shall miss him. / There will be one vacant chair." I found a wonderful video of the song:

After a local councilman read the poem, "Three Hundred Thousand More," Lisa addressed him and told him how touched she'd been by the poem. Boys and young men going off to war is a topic she often writes about. As she spoke, she began to cry. I think she did not know that the man to whom she was speaking had lost his son this year, in the war against cancer. For those of us who did know, her tears were all the more poignant.

Lisa got herself together and was able to sing her song, "Chaplain," about a boy going to war and wondering what will happen to him and what he will have to do to others and where will he go if he dies. I could not stop thinking about how relevant the speeches, the poems, and the songs are to our lives today as young men continue to go off to battle. Here's Lisa singing the song which she wrote:

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The Beginning of My Movie Career

I've been practicing what Todd Boss preaches (see my previous post), i.e., sitting at the computer and making a video with audio of me reading my poem, "The Fruitful Woman," from my book, Eve's Red Dress. I decided to begin with a short poem so I'd get less frustrated when things bombed and I had to begin over. But really, the whole thing was pretty easy.

I also decided that for this one I'd make a video from photos that fit my poem. So first I had to round up a boatload of photos. In the end I ended up with many more than I needed and had to do some strategic cutting. I'd previously used an external microphone to record myself reading some poems, but with my new iMac I now have a good quality internal mic so thought I should learn how to use that.

I first put the photos in what seemed like a sensible order. Then I did a voice over which could not have been easier. I wasn't satisfied with my first several efforts—frog in throat, AC kicking on in the background, too fast, etc. But that was no problem. Just delete the voice over and make a new one. Once I had one that I thought was decent, I fiddled around with the order of the photos and the length of time each would be displayed. Again, very easy. Added a credit page at the beginning and end. Sent the whole thing off to YouTube.

After I was well into this project, the new Snow Leopard arrived at my front door. This upgrade for the Mac includes a new Quick Time which enhances your ability to make videos and audios. I wanted to see how that worked even though I was already set with my finished project. Again, easy to make an audio. One problem I had, though, was saving the recording to iTunes as an audio so that it could be dragged and dropped into a movie project. I eventually figured it out, but I think that's one unexpected glitch in the new program.

Now my next project is to make a movie of me reading one of Shakepeare's sonnets. I want to send that to the Our Daily Sonnet project.

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Using Audio to Spread the Word

I've recently become increasingly interested in the various ways that poets might use audio and video production to put their poetry out into the world. If you can't get to California to give a reading, how about bringing California to your website or blog where you've posted some podcasts and videos? After all, historically, poetry is an oral art form. How hard do we work to get music into our lines? And yet, most often we encounter poetry only on the page.

So I was really pleased to get the new Poets & Writers and find an article, "The Audio Revolution," by poet Todd Boss, whose first collection, Yellowrocket, was published by Norton in 2008. Todd's thesis is that while we have at our disposal many ways to quite easily make our poems available in audio forms we continue to rely almost exclusively on print forms, a practice that Todd sees as outdated and not in our best interests. With the internet and its limitless audio opportunities, we could reach a much wider "listening" audience. He suggests that we follow the model used by musicians. By the way, although this article focuses on audio, I think the same points apply equally well to video presentations. In fact, many of the examples Todd points us to combine audio and video.

Todd has a cousin who is a musician, so he used him and his studio to get started. If you visit Todd's website, you'll find examples of his audio and video recordings. When Todd's manuscript was published by Norton, review copies were sent out with CDs featuring some of the poems. What a great way to get people interested in your book!

Todd has since worked with other musicians and has given several readings accompanied by musicians. I've long been wishing that more venues would combine poetry with music. One reading I especially enjoyed giving was at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania where I was booked along with jazz musicians, Nancy and Spencer Reed. I'd like more of those! Todd also points out that musicians tend to get paid more often and just plain more than poets get paid. True again—Northampton remains one of the best-paying readings I've had.

The article also provides a number of online sites for readers to visit. One is Motion Poems where audio files have been combined with animated videos. Although the article suggests that you might have the same thing done with your poems, the site has only 6 videos posted—5 of them by Todd and one with a poem by Major Jackson. And there's a note that poems are taken by solicitation only. Nevertheless, the site is worth a visit to see what can be done.

Todd also provides some of the technical information you might need. Most new computers now come with the capacity to make audio and video. If you're not satisfied with your computer's audio, Todd suggests a few inexpensive microphones. He also recommends a call-in site, drop.io, where you can phone in or upload audio files that will be hosted at the site. I know that gcast.com provides the same service but no longer offers the phone-in option for free. This site appears easier to use, but drop.io also appears to offer storage space for video and web pages as well. If you have a poem in an online journal and that poem is about to disappear, you can preserve it at this site.

Finally, Todd does not suggest that audio options will replace the printed page, but suggests that they can be used to supplement the printed page. Makes sense to me. So now I'm working on a few practice videos with audio.

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