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Hosts: The Good, The Bad, and The Just Plain Ugly
Originally published in Tunnel Rat (December 1997)
By David Gecic
The history of MC's begins in Medieval Europe. The Master of Ceremonies was the official who stood at the doorway during court functions and announced the guests as they entered. He would stand at the doorway screaming "The Count D'Puy of France," for instance, so nobles would be given the necessary respect and guests who might cause problems could be prepared for. Eventually the responsibilities of the MC expanded to include scheduling many court functions.
When the Dark Ages came to a close, people began to travel more and inns sprang up along popular trade routes. These inns provided entertainment for overnight guests and the people who announced the events began to mock the style of the court Master of Ceremonies.
Enventually, these traditioons evolved into what poetry host do today.
There are many functions that a poety host provides beyond introducing performers. A host must be aware of his show and the ebbs and tides of the audiences attention. When there is a slack period, a host must put the audience back on track.
There are three changing components of a poetry venue: the poets, the audience and the host(s). It is the mesh between these three that give a poetry reading its flavor and strength.
Beyond introducing poets, hosts must create interest in the audience for the performer. The best hosts have their own techniques for doing this. The hosts introductions should say "hey listen to this, this is something special." Every performer should be made world famous. Thsi is both for the audinece and for the poets. Each poet has a reason for being on the stage, a special need or talent which gives him a reason to read poetry to a bunch of potentially disinterested people. Most, if not all, poets have a moderately large need for some sort of ego recognition - not necessarily a large ego, but a desire for recognition by the audience. Whatever the host can do to aid this improves the interaction.
More basically, a good introduction lets the audinece know who they are listening to. It is hard for a host to tell the audience that they are just about to hear the best poet in the Midwest if the host does not know the poet, at least through reputation. A host must know something about the people he is introducing. Often a host will simply ask, "what do you want me to say about you?" These introductions tend to be flattering and safe - and appear this way to the audience.
Hosts should keep their noses low. They should be connected with the Poetry Scene and know who poets are and where they perform. They must understand complex interactions between perfomers.
A heartfelt genuine word of praise, informational tidbit, or personal insight about a poet will always create more interest for an audience than information gleaned from the poets themselves. The audience realizes that the host knows the poet and will listen more attentively.
If an introduction is too long, listing too many publication credits or the life story of the poet, the audience will often tune out. Introductions must be of the approprioate length, which will vary greatly from audience to audience.
Too often a performer will go on stage, perform, leave the stage and the audience will say, "who was that?" It is important to let the audience know a performers name. The host should use the first and last name of the poet. There may be more than one poet performing in Chicago under the name "Bill." The audience should be able to tell one "Bill" from another.
Just as importantly, hosts must know their audiences. Audiences always change and a host has to know what the present one wants and must change hosting to match the moment.
A host must understand his own hosting style. At one extreme, the host is the show and the performers are as invisible as possible. At the other extreme, the host is as invisible as possible. Still, at open mic shows the few performers the audience connects with, the host sometimes wants the performers invisible and must become more of an entertainer himself.
A good host takes the time to create a good format for his reading. A good format should not change lightly. The audience does change and hosts should not be afraid to adapt. What works at one venue does not necessarily work at another.
The audience needs little more than an overview of a reading's format. Performers, however, need a better understanding. Optimally, a host should recognize new poets and give them format details prior to their going on stage - how many poems they can read, how long they can read, etc.
It is important that hosts understand what they do, actively and passively. Active things are choosing the order of the poets, giving solid introductions, enforcing time limits and being part of the entertainment. Passive things are letting poets read in the order they signed up, giving quick, simple introductions, having no time limits and not being part of the entertainment.
Too often, the order that poets sign up in is not the best one. Often friends with similar poetry styles or backgrounds, will sign up together and there will be a run of similar performances. Sometimes poets with grudges may try to sign up as close to or as far away from each other as possible, which can sometimes turn a show into a disaster.
There is an optimal order for poets to read in. Some poets complement one another so well or clash against each other so much that they should perform together.
The easiest way for a host to control the order in which poets read is not to have a sign up sheet but have a sign up list that never leaves the host's hands. A host can approach poets, add them to the list and chooses where to put them. This also assures that the host talks to every poet on the list prior to the show.
This process sometimes causes bad feelings when a poet is called up late. You should not take a poet that signed-up early in the list and put them on late in the list (don't fudge too much). Sometimes a poet is pushed down the list and becomes upset. (I need to apologize to about 100 poets for my failing in this.)
One of the worst problems a host encounters is the "I don't want to go first" syndrome. On numbered sign-in sheets, the first slot is rarely filled in and sometimes someone who signs up number five winds up going first. Much of the poetry audience does not arrive on time and the first poets usually read to fewer people. The host should try to convince people to take their turn going first, or tell them it is a matter of honor. They may also have to resort to bribes or blackmail.
Flow is the important thing. It is possible for a reading to be going extremely well, every poet performing wonderfully, and the audience suddenly loses interest, begins talking and the remaining performers cannot get the audience back. A host needs to be conscious of this and it is his duty to get the flow re-established.
An audience will tolerate nervous, inexperienced or downright bad poets. An audience will not tolerate ten in a row. Audiences love intense perfomances but can burn out if there are too many. The host is the only one who can give the audience a break. Some poets are excellent "break" poets. If they read at the proper time, these poets get their message across better. Otherwise, they are lost in the shuffle.
A host should also perform his own work. The host may have to fill in gaps if he does not have the proper poet to fill a spot.
I used to run a weekly venue where up to thirty-five poets a night peformed. Because I had a large pool of poets, I did not always read my own work. I once went ten weeks without performing, I was still highly involved from a hosting standpont, but my involvement as a poet was not nesccessary. As hosts, poets must make the show more important than their work. If a host wants to be the sole entertainment for an event, he should literally get his own show. However, someone who does not want to get involved at all should not be a host.
A host need to look back on his show often and ask if he is doing things properly. He should try to be objective. Numbers, such as attendance records or sign-in sheets, can help a host analyaze what he is doing, what works and what doesn't.
If the host has featured readers, she should look back at this list of features and see if there is a slant to the selections. Are there too many or too few minorities, are there too many men, is one ethnic group under-represented or not represented? Is the profile of the typical feature the profile that the host wants?
When I hosted Estelle's I would keep my lsists of poets who read for each show. I would later come up with a master list. When I quit hosting, that list had over 300 poets, for an average of two new poets per show.
Hosts have total control of the poets they feature and should take extreme care with them. A feature should be chosen that will be popular with an audience. A feature should not repeat often. It is good to draw features from the pool of poets who attend the venue regularly.
At Puddin'head Books, I once tried to invigorate the readings by having unusual performers. One of these was an Elvis impersonating poet. This disaster proved to me that a host must always see performers before they feature them - or at least book them on the highest recommendation from a poet they trust.
Hosts should keep in close communication with the feature poets and discuss the feature with the poets poets prior to the show. If a host cannot communicate in the days before the show with the feature, he should think about lining up and alternate performer.
Once I could not talk to a feature prior to a show. He was not able to be there and sent a replacement. The replacement poet was not featured that evening and the original poet was never featured at any of my venues again. I encourange every host to handle a no-show in this way.
The location of a venue is not the major criteria for its success, but it can aid a venue greatly. It helps if there is access to public transportation. Nonetheless, venues with excellent locations fail just as readily as those with bad locations and the nature of a venue's owners is often far more important. Owners often don't know what they are getting into and new hosts often do not know what to realistically expect from them.
With a few notable exceptions, readings are not, or just barely are, commercial ventures. Business owners should not bring poetry readings to their establishments expecting finacial gains. The most common reasons for the failure of readings are lack of support and unrealistic expectations by venue owners. Owners will not take out advertising if the reading does not bring in the cash. In all successful venues, the host is the person who does most of the promotion.
Hosts must make sure that their style is acceptable to the owners. I cannot host at The Oak Park Library with the same style I used at Estelle's.
A host has a public realtions responsibility. He must inform his audience about the poetry scene. This includes promoting other venues, including those that may take place at times that clash with his own. This integrates his venue with the rest of the poetry scene and more of a connection with performance universally.
A reading should start on time and features should start on schedule. (This is a tough task - at times almost impossible - Scene-wide.) As a host, I am notoriously late in starting. Time control is one of the most difficult aspects of hosting.
The audience and performers come to a venue expecting a show. Small inconveniences like lack of heat, floods, power failures or small turn-outs should not stop a show. It is much worse to dissappoint an audience than to read in a cold room. If the audience does not want to be there, they will leave. If the show doesn't go on, the audience may not show up in the future. The best hosts believe in what they are doing enough that the show goes on through any obstacle.
Open mics are extremely inportant to the poetry scene. They functuion as workshops for developing poets and developing poetic work. A host cannot predict or control all of what happens in a reading. A host's job is not to control poets or audiences but to allow the magic that performance poetry provides to shine through.
When I ran the weekly open mic (with a feature) at Estelle's, I also ran a monthly poetry dinner show at the Bop Shop. The dinner show consisted solely of featured poets picked from the open mic stable at Estelle's.
A host must treat the poets who perform at his venue extremely well. He must be responsible for a stable of poets he can count on. He must talk with them about their work. A successful venue must be a place where poets are born and bred, and it is the host's responsibility to do that.
A host must promote his stable of poets. The more sucessful and popular the performers who come from a reading are the more successful that venue will be. A host should not only promote his reading at other venues, he should promote the poets who read at his venue. The best advertisment for a reading is its talent.
Hosting a poetry venue is part of a long, noble tradition. Good hosts recognize that it is their energy and work that creates better communication between performers and audience. Satisfaction comes from knowing they have done the best job possible.