Setting the Tone, an Offering

This is a guest post by Georgia Johnson

For the last two years or so, I have had the honor and pleasure to emcee the Madrona Poetry Series, a monthly community poetry reading at Pelican Bay Books in Anacortes that usually draws an audience of 30-75 folks.

After the readings, our guest poets and performers frequently send me emails to say how welcomed, attended to, and loved they felt, far beyond any expected audience response.

How does this — does any — event move us closer to ecstasy? How do we narrow the gap between presenter and audience?

We might train ourselves to notice vibrations occurring around and through us. This may mean identifying and even unlearning or ignoring the wash of familial and cultural information we live with every day. It might mean letting go on emotional levels, and holding a frequency that feels clear. This may take practice; it is a practice. Suddenly, at a reading, or a concert, we are elevated, feeling what seems like electricity, immense joy. We make profound connection.

We are matter. All matter is made up of energy fields, diverse and hopefully friendly frequencies. This is good! I have found that inviting a collective moment of gratitude, humor, and perhaps a bit of humility — actually seeing those in the room, using very particular words to invite blending of frequencies — helps to set this tone. Perhaps you were there and contributed to the tone. Thank you.

These ideas are evolving through a study of esoteric texts, through meditation, asanas, and breath work, by my limited understanding of physics, and my own practice in poetic expression. My poems, the ones that sparkle with something I didn’t know I knew, that take that wild perfect turn just when I think I can’t find any more to say, that point to or are grounded in the huge collective universe, come by this practice.

On occasion I use a prompt to wake up the sleepy poet. Mostly I’m called by that rush of words that might land in my lap at any moment, day or night. I write down that transmission as best I can; if it has a tail, I hang on. Sometimes it bites. I have a file for those.

To waken this attunement, this resonance — in myself, in my poetry, in our audiences — is my mission. Sometimes I succeed. Always, I believe, it’s worth another try.

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Georgia Johnson
Food Wrangler Poet, Rebel

Poet Georgia Johnson lives on a farm, on Fidalgo Island, on the Salish Sea. She lives with a husband, cat, and all the resident critters 80 acres might hold. The author of Just Past Dew Point, she has found purpose as chef, teacher, meddler and rebel over around 70 years. You might find her in the audience, at the podium, or in the kitchen, most days.

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top photo: Madrona Poetry Series reading at Pelican Bay Books, photo by Georgia Johnson