On Reading Work Publicly

The real read aloud

Someone reading this thinks they’ve seen live performances. You know what? You probably have. But unless you're from the South, were forced to listen to Gospel Rap, sat inside a sanctuary longer than you’d like to admit to escape Summer heatwaves, and hopped around from church to church (all the while having a home church), you haven’t seen a true live performance, the real read aloud.

*Somebody saying ‘What’s Gospel Rap got to do with this?’ Nothing. Just needed y’all to know I was forced to listen to that genre of music, in Atlanta, in the early 1990s*

Long before I ever cared to hold a microphone and stand in front of a group of people, I was captivated by the art of public speaking or the sermon. Actually had no idea the term public speaking was a label till high school.

You see, I grew up in the church. Whether I wanted to or not (most Sundays not) I had to go to church. The schedule was Wednesday night bible study, Friday morning prayer, and Sunday service. Sundays were also a pain, literally. From the age of 9 till about 16 I’d get migraines that day every week. They’d last morning to evening, for years. But when I went to church and had a good time, it was because a pastor, any pastor, put on a show in the pulpit. Screaming, shouting, joking, dancing, humming hymns. What I loved most was the build-up to it all.

It was a game of how long they could hold the room and then pull at our strings, get us to scream, get us to shout, get folks running, get folks around me dancing (I never danced). Sometimes the pastor would rift off of one scripture. 2-4 hours of service off the back of 2-3 lines. It was nothing short of impressive. They’d oftentimes throw in a personal story, then project it on to us, because if universal enough, someone in the congregation, sometimes me (as I matured), could relate.

Anyway, sometime in those early years, my pops would take me to annual men’s fellowship conferences. I believe I was 8 or 9 years old. Don’t quote me on that. Those conventions were for men only. They’d program a lineup of pastors from across the country, mostly Black. Much of the conference would be about the lives of men, how we exist in the world, how we maintain the household, how we treat each other, etc. When those pastors hit the pulpit, they performed. Oh man, did they perform.

My uncle would sometimes fly in from Bermuda to attend with us. I always felt this sense of pride going to those services with them. I was well before my time, in a chapel packed with grown men, listening to sermons on how to be a man. I felt grown. We’d often have to sit in the balcony because we were never on time.

When things stirred up and everyone stood to holler, my pops would hold me up in his arms, sometimes his shoulders. Wild to me how one person’s delivery could send hundreds of people into a frenzy. Even in the softest moments, when all was still, the lightest crack of a joke sent a ripple through the room. I was not even 10 years old; it was magic. Pastors were magicians.

Anyone could read from a book anywhere, but to say it… For someone on a stage with a mic to bring scripture from within their body, with every bone, muscle, and fiber, and send that text, those words, the pronunciation of those letters into the wild, to me, a child sitting/standing in the back of a chapel moved me. I’d get chills.

One thing you should know about me is I consider myself a magician too. Not the kind that speaks to a congregation at a church, but the kind that gifts stories to readers and the like in bookstores, classrooms, bars, auditoriums, and elsewhere. And I don’t play about speaking to an audience of any size in public. Don’t care if it’s a 1,000-seat gymnasium or 3 people on wooden stools in a coffee shop. I don’t play about performance. I don’t play about people’s time. No longer attend church (another SubStack for another day) but on my favorite days I was entertained. Your time is yours and I’m not trying to waste it. So if you see me speak in public, whether you paid for entry or not, whether you came to see me or not, you will remember the time.

A few years ago I gathered the courage to start a milkshake interview series called Milkshake Scholar. The idea was to have on people whose work I admired. I reached out to a guy who was doing some great work in the criminal justice space. He responded with interest and added that he’d attended a reading once. Mentioned that I’d read, me. He said it was “a beautiful series of vignettes. Funny and clean writing!  Never forgot that evening.” That email came 2-3 years past the time of the reading.

I’d be playing myself not to mention the magicians I’ve seen operate in the book space, who I learn from, every time they take the stage.

Jason Reynolds reading GHOST

Till the day I leave this rock, I’ll be telling people about Jason Reynolds reading from his novel GHOST at the 2016 National Book Awards Finalists Reading. How he held the room the moment he spoke his first words into that mic. How he pulled at our strings. Used cadence to move while keeping us still. By the end, we were all on our feet clapping, shouting, screaming. A standing ovation. By that point, I’d been in New York for 2 years (MFA program) and had seen more readings than I care to admit. I’d never witnessed anything of the like. 

Gratitude to Anne Carson who, at the launch of the Freeman’s Journal, created an atmosphere I can only describe as the scene from a Friday Night basketball game in South Atlanta. The room was packed. Students sat in the aisles, on the floor. Some stood in their seats. Anne read poetry, some about street signs. You’d thought Steph Curry had shot his 4th three-pointer straight from 30 feet behind the arc. Anne Carson.

To Fred Moten, who, last year read at Lampblack Lit’s Summer Reading series in Brooklyn; I hosted. Folks in the room ooo’d and awe’d as he made his way in and out of stanzas, bar after bar after bar. When he was done he slammed his pages on the podium and walked off. Not only had we witnessed destruction, he was aware of it. I did not stand at that podium for the rest of the night.

If Fred, ever reads aloud to someone, anyone, anywhere again, I want to hear it, even if it’s standing room only and I’m in the back of the room with no view. My pops would love Fred’s reading. He doesn’t read poetry but he’d love to hear it. At my age, there’s no way pops is putting me on his shoulders, but I have no doubt Moten’s words would lift him up, as all good writing should.

R.W.