Poetry - "Move, So It Looks Easy"

In 2016, Mike and I started a podcast, called Get Collected. Twice a week, we’d share a short, 15-minute episode about music, poetry, and politics. We made over a hundred episodes of the show before calling it quits when I got pregnant and we were too busy to keep it up any longer. It was my great joy to organize the poetry segments, selecting some of my favourite poems throughout history, discovering new poetry to share, and writing some poems of my own.

I’ve written poetry in some form or other since I was very young, but I very rarely share it. Maybe, as a songwriter, I prefer having music behind my words, to create an atmosphere of feeling… but sometimes, those words can become lost. I still hold onto a quiet wish that someday, I might get to see some of my poems in a tiny book.

I read this poem on our podcast, on Season 3, Episode 14. I wrote it the same day that I played at an outdoor art festival in Sarnia in 2017, to try to capture some of the things that go through my mind when I’m performing - especially when it’s a more challenging performance and I’m not sure how well it’s really going. It was a boiling hot day, and people were dressed casually in the oppressing humidity, and I felt out of place - both visually, with my sprayed curls and high heels, and sonically, because I was playing solo, immediately following a really high-energy reggae band. Once the audience is all warmed up and moving to a full-band sound, it’s incredibly hard for a solo artist to keep the energy going; I was at a disadvantage right away. Add to that the fact that there was no soundcheck, which makes your first song feel like jumping into a body of water with no sense of what the temperature will be, or how deep it is - it’s jarring and unnerving. Nevertheless, I put a smile on my face, and did my very best to entertain, even as people were walking away. (Sigh.)

MOVE, SO IT LOOKS EASY

Hello.
My name is.
This song is.
I begin.

I try the first chords, my thin notes
string twangy and faraway
and my voice sounds like
I’m singing next door.

I tell myself: smile,
so you look competent,
move,
so it looks easy.

I think to myself:
I shouldn’t have worn heels.
I’ve got to be the only person for miles wearing heels.
My hair is thick with sprayed curls.
Is this the right look?
Is this the wrong song?
A drop of sweat traces down my back,
my shirt sticks to my skin,
my hands stick on the strings,
words stick in my throat.

I think to myself:
stop thinking.
Draw myself into the words
summon up the story
but here in this hot bubble 
everything is muffled
and my microphone keeps electrocuting me.
I’ve got to keep my distance

but I’ve got to connect
so I look out at the faces
hoping what I see
won’t make my fingers miss a beat
so I look at the dogs
and the babies
one man smiling
I look at
the parking lot beyond
and the backs of people
who are walking away.