"Do You Wanna Read First or Second?"

Is there anything more boring than the petty political struggles that poets pull on each other before poetry readings to see which one of the readers will read first and which one will read second? Who decided that reading second was somehow a greater honor in the first place? I'd rather have an unmolested audience. I mean, who knows what the joker before you is gonna do?

Is it such a great honor to read after one reader (25-40 minutes) and a break (15-30 minutes) when all anybody wants to do is leave? So how's about we decide together, as colleagues, that it really doesn't matter when you read, first or second. OK? OK. I vow to only read ever first. First is better. Show up on time audience members. Or show up late and purposely miss me. I won't mind. I love doing that myself. Kind of like the feeling when you skip class. If I was playing by the rules I'd have to hear blah doing blah blah but instead I am having a slice of delicious cake.

I don't know, say you're Mei Mei Berssenbrugge and Leslie Scalapino, just off the top of my head. Does it really make any damned difference who reads first or second in that scenario? Why would anyone take offense at having to read before one of those two? I mean, whose name didn't rhyme with Smashberry? If you reach the point of being, for arguments sake, Mei Mei Berssenbrugge or Leslie Scalapino, shouldn't you really be beyond the need to read first or second over the other one? But this happens at every reading, all the time, for no goddamned reason. One book nobodies insisting to read over people with no books. People with two books demanding to read after people with one book. Well I have three books! And one's a novel! Shouldn't I read after the chick with the memoir and the book of sestinas?

Here's an easy way to avoid being one of those "I Have to Read Second" Idiots. Use these simple hints as you go about your reading days whenever they might come.

1. You show up at reading and the curator's like, "Hey, great! Thanks for being here! Do you have any preference about reading first or second?" And you say: "I would like to read first." Graceful, elegant and simple, this route clarifies all situations. If there is some kind of heirarchical significance to reading 2nd, your 2nd reader will be touched and moved by the gesture. You will be the first poet to be heard by a very fresh and excited audience. Way to go.

2. You show up at reading and the curator's like "Hey, great! Thanks for being here! Do you have any preference about reading first or second?" And you look them in the eye and tell them honestly "Can I be honest? It doesn't matter to me *whatsoever*." And the curator says, "Oh, OK. Maybe you will read second..." The people who try to pull the jedi mind trick of "It really doesn't matter to me even though my entire body is telling you that if I don't read second that I will literally burst into tears" are hilarious. We curators are looking at you and we know when you're having a hissy. We keep track in our portable curator devices the people who were freaky and misbehaved reading days. And the next time those people will be forced to read only after Behrle does his whole papsmere strip tease fellatio a unicorn's horn thing onstage, when the audience has literally dissolved into a seething liquid of surrender.

Curators: having trouble deciding who should read first or second at your next reading? Get in touch with me and I'll make the call. There is no one in this country not named Ashbury who should somehow be harmed out of reading first. If you are then you are a *ridiculous person*.

Also hypothetically, should anyone apologize from the microphone for reading poems that they recently read AT THE GUGGENHEIM? Like, should that ever happen? You might have heard these poems the last time I was on Letterman, sorry to read them again here. They're just superfantastic. I thought the point of being a famous, respected poet was that you got to act like a famous, respected poet. Hunh.

PS: Because O'Hara read before Lowell. If O'Hara read before Lowell, *you* can read before *anybody*. In general you can think to yourself "What would Frank O'Hara do?" and then do it with the confidence that it was the correct and most graceful way to handle yourself. Until like, I think I'll go up to the dark, poorly-lit beach and wander around. But that's the exception that proves the rule.