You would think I was in love with my own voice, the way I blog almost every day. And if you’ve met me, and I have become used to you (i.e., I stop being shy and awkward around you), you will know that I can talk for hours, tell you several insignificant things about my life, try to be funny, not succeed, not care, and tell you more stuff you don’t give a shit about anyway. But public speaking freaks me out. My two readings in Bangalore were bad enough; the thought of, I don’t know, sending a recording to the awesomely awesome, Soundzine, terrified me so much that when they accepted by poems for their November issue last year, I asked them to get their in-house readers to record them. I did not even make an attempt, despite having a more or less functional mic and appropriate software.
After a recent set of events, my confidence was shooting through the roof (note the past tense; I am back to my pessimistic, self-deprecatory ways) and I did a recording for SZ. You may read and listen here.
Incidentally, I also won second place for the poem — I had submitted it for SZ’s Time Machine Photoekphrastic Contest. (Yes, this is one of the confidence-boosting events.) Besides the general happy feeling and the judge’s (Rose Kelleher) comments, I also get a print from an really cool artist’s gallery (Peter Rudolfo).
Do read the other winners, and the honourable mentions, especially Katrina Outland.
I’ve mentioned Soundzine before, but let me add that Charles Musser, Salli Shepherd, RA Dusenberry and Phill English do an excellent job of putting together each issue along with their in-house readers.
Oh, and for experimental purposes, I have uploaded a little recording for the blog. This is a poem called ‘The song that I came to sing’ — it was featured online in Read This magazine, but I can’t find the link, so this will be text-less.
*cough*
