In the
twenty-first century, reading series, open mics, and slams have been integral to the poetry scene. Although some poets prefer their work to be
read on the page, most poetic rites of passage include reading one’s work aloud
in public. One welcoming place to read
was R. Michael Oliver and Elizabeth Bruce’s Performetry, held once a month on
Sunday nights at Columbia Heights’ BloomBars from 2012 to 2015. The cozy storefront with its hand-painted
signs and home-made vegan food was just large enough to provide a diverse
audience but small enough not to intimidate.
Elizabeth, a native Texan, always greeted one warmly, and the event was
an opportunity to catch up with friends and poets as well as to meet a variety
of people over soup, bread and poetry. It is not surprising that both Michael and
Elizabeth frequently spoke about their efforts to build community through
Performetry and, even more importantly, bring together different communities
and philosophies of poetry, if only for one evening each month. Elizabeth, in particular, mentioned how
compatible BloomBars’ mission was with Performetry’s.
Performetry
approached poetry from a different perspective, one grounded in Michael and
Elizabeth’s background in the theater.
As Michael stated, “Performetry emphasized performance,” and his
reflections on the series often touched on audience and community as much as on
language and expression. Indeed, the
series could be considered very much a part of Michael and Elizabeth’s life
together, which began, not with a poetry magazine or manuscript, but with Sanctuary Theater in the 1980s, a company that she characterized as “a marriage of art
and politics.” Based in Columbia
Heights’ Calvary United Methodist Church, this company shared its space in the
“desperately poor” church with refugees from the civil wars in El Salvador and
Guatemala, the Committee for Creative Non-Violence’s free food store with its
“rotting lettuce” from supermarkets’ dumpsters, and even raucous parties that
rented out the church hall. In the
meantime, as Elizabeth notes, Columbia Heights itself was experiencing both
extreme poverty and the Crack Wars. She
recalled finding people sleeping in the church’s loft and even the
sanctuary. Michael and Elizabeth’s
company emphasized international, politicized theater, not only following their
own inclinations but also reflecting the community that they had chosen. After a long hiatus, Sanctuary Theater
continues today through Michael and Elizabeth’s involvement with DC’s Capital Fringe
Festival, evolving to encompass his performance of classic literature. This summer he will be performing both Embodying Poe: Poetry-in-Performance and
Song of Myself: The Whitman Project at
the Fringe. All shows will be at
Brookland’s Dance Place.
Unsurprisingly,
when I asked Michael and Elizabeth about the highlights of Performetry, they
mentioned the moments when the community they built came together. One such moment was a final performance of
their Acting for Writers workshop in which poets presented their work. In the seven weeks prior to this performance,
local poets had learned about acting techniques and philosophy from Michael, a
playwright and director whose Ph.D. is in Theater and Performance Studies;
engaged in various exercises to become more comfortable with performance; and
practiced the presentation of their work, turning their attention from the page
to the stage. Elizabeth emphasized the
“tremendous leaps” that the poets had made over the course of seven weeks. Later she reminisced about the connections
that poets made with the audience as well as their “collective
investment.” Another moment that Michael
mentioned was a reading from the anthology Before
There is Nowhere to Stand, a reading that not only drew the audience’s
attention to the Israeli and Palestinian experience but also featured a
different group of readers who were new to Performetry. They specifically mentioned Virginia author
Mike Maggio and Montgomery College professor Stephen Bass. Unfortunately, this reading was held on
Father’s Day, which limited the audience.
The third moment mentioned was a very moving farewell party for D.C.
Poetry Project member Akasha Wordsmith (Laneta J. Hill) who was moving to
Newark, NJ. Elizabeth praised the young
poet for the polish and sophistication of her artistic presentation. Jae October’s very powerful and personal work
drew her attention as well. She also
remarked on how much Performetry complemented Sanctuary’s work with the Fringe
Festival, since Michael’s one-man shows on Poe and Whitman were developed
through Performetry.
Despite
these moments, as Michael observed, the audience was “never as full” as he had
wanted it to be. He compared the theater
community and poetry community, noting that the former had a stronger grasp of
its role in supporting its members. Both
Elizabeth and Michael also commented that the diversity of the styles in poetry
community may have been a factor in this difficulty in generating an audience. However, Michael also offered some ideas on
how Performetry might be revived, potentially in the Brookland neighborhood
where the husband and wife have lived and raised their family for many years.
Although
Performetry’s run at BloomBars has only just ended and the forces behind it are
currently diverted by numerous other
projects, the D.C.-area poetry scene could certainly use another open mic as
friendly and welcoming as Performetry, especially for writers who may not fit
into more established venues or more youth-oriented spaces. Such a space is also essential in highlighting the diversity of D.C. and
perhaps even resisting the force of gentrification and homogenization.
