VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
KLAM: Years ago we put on a show called “Poems, Paintings and Piledrivers.” Between poems, wrestlers from Tijuana smacked each other down on the museum floor at SDAI. By way of miracle, nothing broke, and poets and crudos and tecnicos and transvestite ring girls won the night. I remember Steve Kowit’s last reading with us and how Jimmy Jazz and I merrily pointed out the sandwich stains on his sweatshirt and loved him for making absolutely zero pretense in life in general. Most of all I remember the wee hours, the champions who stayed to the bitter end, stacking chairs, mopping the floor and putting the museum back in order. Finishing the beer and embracing each other and locking up after another show… friendships, loyalty, some of the best kind of bad behavior mixed in…
Michael Klam organizes and hosts the Poetry & Art Series at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. His freelance journalism has appeared in San Diego CityBeat, The San Diego Daily Transcript, Voice of San Diego, and La Prensa San Diego. As a teacher, Klam cocreated the Page to Canvas to Stage program, bringing poets, painters, and K-12 students together to create visual art and perform poetry. His publisher is Puna Press.
Come see Michael read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Saturday, April 15 at 7pm.