Ray Bianchi suggests that sucking up to poets at readings, once an exclusively New York activity, has come to Chicago. I’m a little confused, though, because he seems to think the answer to this is for poets to do a better job of marketing themselves–I guess so that they could focus on that kind of public success rather than competing for scraps of attention from their elders.

I hate approaching readers at poetry readings, in part from shyness, in part from a feeling of sleaziness. Sometimes I’ll work up the courage to go up to get a book signed and then I’ll flee as quickly as possible, probably so that the reader doesn’t think I want anything else. I love readings in unconventional locations–like Stephanie’s apartment or even oxygen bars–because the setting (and size) breaks down the hierarchy a little, so that the post-reading can be more in the spirit of a conversation or a hanging-out than a supplication.

I did once go up to John Ashbery after a reading, but only after a friend and I had concocted an elaborate scheme to present Ashbery with the text of two poems we had written (these poems, in fact)–signed, of course, by the authors. Ashbery was polite about the whole thing and even seemed a little amused, but remembering doing it still makes me want to hide under a chair.