Michael and I went to the Cantab’s poetry open mike yesterday evening; he drove into town and invited me to join him because ex-Cantabrigian Jack McCarthy was featuring afterwards, and Jack (whom I’ve heard read just a few times before) is a tremendous performer — full of warmth and life and humor and openness. If you visit his site, click on “audio” and choose, say, Cartalk: A Love Poem. You’ll see why he’s such a pleasure to listen to. He’s like a fireside storyteller — hands speaking, eyes speaking, old stringy hair speaking, every word welling up as if it’s the first time he’s ever said it and his attention given equally to what he’s delivering and the people he’s delivering it to. It’s funny because some people seem to think his writing’s apparent lack of formal structure, and his ineffably charismatic style of delivery, make what he does somehow other than poetry — as if poetry doesn’t deserve the name unless it’s inscrutable. As if the distinction between poetry and prose exists to diminish, not to expand, the power of language.

Anyway, it was terrific. And if I had to sit through almost three hours of open mike poetry to get to Jack, some of which was utterly delightful and some of which was — well — open mike poetry — still, that was all to the good. Because it really takes a good four hours of poetry to really put a brain in the sort of pleasant crushed-fruit state mine was in by midnight last night.