Columbus 3, or I Can't Wait for Karen To Post This One

Let me recount the tale of the last time I sobbed uncontrollably in public. It was the end of my first year of college, and the college orchestra was celebrating its 100th year with a concert in Carnegie Hall - the Carnegie Hall. And to celebrate, they brought the choir with them to sing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

My family lived just across the river from Lincoln Center, so they trooped out to see the show, grandparents included. The choir only sings in the fourth of four movements, the familiar refrain of “Ode to Joy.” Beethoven is one of my grandfather’s fifteen or twenty favorite composers. He’s also the one who planted, watered and weeded my love of music. He only cries at operas, their majesty, and their beauty.

As we sang the last bars of “Ode to Joy” I looked away from the conductor, up to where my family was sitting. All I could see were two faint white spots – my grandfather’s shirtsleeves, as he raised his arms above his head a full twenty measures before the music stopped, preparing to clap. As soon as I was off stage, I started crying – hard, deep sobs that made my belly fan in and out. When I stumbled out the stage door, my sister caught me. I cried into her shoulder for long minutes while people tapped me on the back and asked her if I was okay. I didn’t have to tell her; “She’s okay,” she told everyone. “It’s just the music. She’s fine, just give her a minute.” It took twenty “just a minutes,” but I did calm down enough to be gracious.

Fast forward to tonight. Columbus’s Urban Spirit Coffee Shop was the place to be for both bouts. Mine was second, but I showed up for the first, which included Rachel McKibbens (last year’s WoWps champion), Inky Cole (a strong poet from Minnesota with whom I spent most of the afternoon workshopping), and a host of others. People were wrung out by the end. The scores were star-high. There was love, and stomping and mad cheering. The poetry was damn good, but I need to take you to the room. People were packed in, sitting on the floor, craning their necks for a glimpse of the stage. Each round of applause was Florida thunder, complete with ocelot screeches and bellows. People cried. A lot.

Then the second bout - Gypsee Yo, (last year’s second place winner), Jeanann Verlee, Tatayana Brown (an up-and-coming powerhouse from the Bay area), Lauren Zuniga, Copperhead Red, and me. Plus a bunch of others. It was the bout to watch, and it was packed. I was prepared to rock out. I was doing my two favorite poems, and all my old friends from New York were there. I wanted to show them how Seattle has pushed me, changed my work, brought me to a new level of performance. That was all.

I f****** did it.

My first piece, a solid rendition of “Bilingual” got some judge love from the two English teacher judges. It was maybe my second-best performance. But the best performance happened in a bedroom, (get your head out of the gutter, people!) so it doesn’t count. Best on stage for sure.

Melissa May a poet from Oklahoma City, did a piece that began with a quote from Gypsee Yo who promptly stood up and cried, but remained standing for the rest of the poem, watching Melissa. After a wrenching, well-crafted three minutes in which everybody cried (Okay, one tear from me,), Melissa sat down like she’d done what she’d come to do. I wanted that.

My piece began in the crowd – walking, clapping, singing. It’s a great way for me to begin a piece, because my nervousness fades away as I sing. Halfway through the poem came the first mention of my grandfather, and my voice caught in a way I didn’t expect. I nearly choked on the lump that had suddenly appeared in my throat. I was happy. I was so damn happy I could barely get the words of the next piece of singing: a short clip from “Ode to Joy.”

I remembered that night at Carnegie Hall as I finished the poem, singing, marching triumphantly from the stage down the aisle with my fist in the air as the audience roared me out. I crashed into a chair and promptly started crying as hard as I ever have. People didn’t understand; my sister wasn’t there to interpret this time. I said “I’m happy, I’m happy” over and over, as people patted my back, cradled me, and whispered great things.

I couldn’t stop crying for the next two pieces. The tears are coming back as I write this. As I left the venue, Jeanann Verlee, one of the poets whose work I most respect in both writing and performance, caught me in a hug.

“Thank you for making us feel,” she whispered. I shook and blew snot into her coat. “Thank you for your poems.” I pulled back, looked into the face of the woman I so completely admire and squeaked out,

“Are you proud of me?”

She pulled me in again. “Oh honey, why do you even ask? Of course I am. Of course.”

Why do I ask? Because part of being in this community, part of being in this family, means having my elders watch me grow, like my grandfather watched me learn music. How proud he’s been at every concert, every time I can correctly identify a concerto on the radio. I finished that Beethoven piece looking for his shirtsleeves – and what an act of grace that I continue to find them whenever I think to look. I looked at my workshop participants the same way this morning, such proudness, like watching your nieces learn to do cartwheels in the dirt. Grow, women. Push and grow.

I’m proud of me too.

Signing off,
~Dane Kuttler
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