Came out to the "Speak Your Piece" reading at New Age Dine and Dance tonight, to see Alan Reese do his poetry thing. Alan, a fine and formidable poet, was my middle school English teacher, and the man responsible for my introductions to Mark Twain, zazen, Howard the Duck, and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
A few years after I moved back to Baltimore, I was doing an open mic reading at the original Minas Gallery in Fells Point. They had a shelf of local poets, and I found a chapbook, Reports From Shadowland, written by some guy named Alan Reese. Huh, that's funny, I thought, I had a teacher named Alan Reese, ain't that a coincidence. Then I read the author bio, and saw he used to be a teacher in the Baltimore County school system...so I sent him a quick note and got back in touch, and we see each other around in the poetry scene from time to time. (He runs a small press these days, and I'm hoping to get some advice on the book from him.)
Hanging out now at the comedy hour that follows the poetry reading. It's interesting to try to figure out the structure of a comedy routine, the relationship between poetry/spoken word and comedy.