Poetry Release Forms

I hope everyone I ever meet knows that they are fodder for my writing. To absolve myself of any blame, I have created a poetry release form. I should hand it out when I introduce myself.


POETRY RELEASE FORM
Observation Site: ________________________________________

Name of person(s) being observed: ___________________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________________________

Telephone number: ________________________________________

Email Address: ___________________________________________

Date of birth: ________________________________________

By signing the form below, you (hereafter referred to as "Observed Party") give permission for Lauren Camp (hereafter referred to as "Poet") to interpret and adapt your actions and mannerisms for future poems. These poems may appear in journals, anthologies, books, the World Wide Web, and audiovisual presentations.

By giving your permission, you hereby remise, release, acquit, satisfy, and forever discharge the "Poet" of and from all manner of action(s), cause(s) of action, suits, debts, sums of money, accounts, reckonings, bonds, bills, specialties, covenants, contracts, controversies, agreements, promises, variances, trespasses, damages, judgments, executions, claims and demands whatsoever, in law or in equity, which you as the Observed Party ever had, now has, or which any personal representative, successor, heir or assign of said Observed Party, hereafter can, shall or may have, against said Poet, by reason of any matter, cause or word whatsoever, from the beginning of time until the populace of this world, with all its countries and peoples, stop reading poetry. 

By giving your permission, you hereby consent for value received and without further consideration or compensation to the use (full or in part) of all behaviors that you may hold, including the sound of your voice and/or your deportment, in whole or in part, for the purposes of literary illustration, broadcast, or distribution in any manner.

Observed Party's Name (please print): ____________________________________________________________

Signature: ________________________________________________________________________________

Date:________________________________________

Poet's signature: _______________________________________________________________________________

Date:________________________________________
Witness: ________________________________________________________________________________

(And please don't take it personally if I don't use you, after all. It doesn't mean you're not an intriguing subject, just that I haven't yet figured out how to work you into a poem.)

In a Poetry Reading, There Should Be Humor

I have decided that someone, somehow, should make the audience laugh - at some point in a performance. It breaks the ice; it lets the audience move around a little in their bodies. Laughter does this; it loosens you.

I got to thinking about this yesterday afternoon. Three women I know had put together a reading at the Women's Club in town. The women were all sophisticated in their outfits (each in some shades of black and gray), and I expected the same sophistication of the poems. I knew these women's writing, and admired it.

But, there were funny parts, amidst the poems of memory and obsession, health and worry. Someone used the word "fart" in a poem, and we laughed. One of the women read a dog sonnet. I think something changed in that room when we giggled and snickered.

If poems are everything that is, poems are also body parts that don't do things right in public and snorts and stupid little imaginings.

It felt good to laugh, and then to have them turn us back to more serious subjects. Then, I was ready again for the heavier work of poetry - the grittier, powerful poetry of anything else.

I need to remember this. I so rarely write funny poems....