I recently attended a poetry reading as part of the Montana Festival of the Book. To be honest, the poet I most wanted to see, a former professor of mine, wasn’t there and initially I felt sort of disappointed. I am so penurious with my time lately – I feel like I have so little of it to give right now, even to myself. The two poets who read were quite different from one another – one is a well-known Peruvian poet, a former Spanish teacher of mine, who read in English for the first time. The other woman has presented to various classes of mine – she’s one of the star poets of the English department, recently returned from a couple of years on the East coast.
Their readings were quite wonderful. Some poems were funny, some were poignant, some were intense.
But more than anything, what stuck with me was the poets’ courage. Their exposure.
I am not a risk taker. And I’m a really private person, despite posting thinly veiled emotions here, relying on some strange sense of anonymity I can’t quite put my finger on.
He read in a language not his own, despite an almost impenetrable accent made stronger by his limited hearing. He was shaking and sweating – so nervous after having written almost 20 books, after countless readings in his native tongue – and there was something so endearing about his discomfort. I don’t mean endearing as in cute, but as in humanizing – he seemed like any other guy, except that he was reading his funny and sometimes really beautiful poems, poems few could write. All of this from a man who intimidated me so much at first that I almost dropped his class. I wanted to hug him.
The next readings have stayed with me this week. She read from a couple of books, her newest about a breakup, and so many people in the room knew just who she was referring to, her former love who is well-known around town. She spoke of loneliness and disappointment and longing, emotions we’ve all felt, sometimes in the same combination, but are ashamed to admit for fear of seeming weak. She seemed, at times, weakened by all that’s come to her in recent years. But in being so honest, so out there, sometimes seeming almost on the verge of tears, she also appeared so strong, so gutsy, steely at her core. Someone not to be trifled with. I was sort of in awe of the whole thing. It’s not easy in a small town to speak about love and loss, about homesickness and isolation.
I was totally inspired.
After not putting myself out there for a long time, I’ve been trying to be a bit braver lately. Walk up and talk to people who pique my interest. Express how I’m really feeling to friends. Admit to my weaknesses, my exhaustion, my fear. And I’ve fallen on my face a couple of times. It’s sucked. But I’m OK. A while ago, I read somewhere “I’d rather be fearful than regretful” and that has sort of stuck with me lately. There’s a strange power in vulnerability.
In the next months, I’m going to need to be brave, to be open to new experiences, to see where new adventures may take me. I feel like a bird, scared but ready to leave the nest, just looking for the next branch to which I’ll fly.
I like writing, photography, reading, music, design, typography, paper products, days in the seventies and sparkly snow, Spanish wine and cans of PBR. I spent a year in Córdoba, Spain, working as a 
This reminded me of the scene from one of my favorite movies – Ten Things I Hate About You – when Julia Stiles was brave enough to stand up and read her poem, although the person it identified was in the class. How powerful and humbling.