In early June, I attended a performance featuring comedian Paula Poundstone. I’ve been a fan of hers since the mid-80s, when the stand-up comedy scene was rising in the Bay Area. Poundstone was a regular at the clubs during those days, and my husband and I watched her career rise, along with those of Howie Mandel, Bobcat Goldthwait, Rita Rudner, and Ellen DeGeneres, to name just a few.
I’ve seen her in person a few times, and one of the things she does regularly is ask questions of audience members. She’ll usually choose someone from the front row, probably a fan who knows that sitting in the front row means you’ll be picked on, and engage that person in a conversation. She often starts with “and you, sir or ma’am, what do you do for a living?”
That night I was seated a few rows back, so I missed my opportunity to talk with Poundstone. The front row included a retired psychologist, a social worker, and a University of Oregon student who had just graduated. One of the classes she took was titled, if I recall correctly, “Decolonialist Feminisms,” and Poundstone had a field day asking the student to describe the class.
After the show, I commented to my husband that I wish I’d been in the front row. If Poundstone had asked me what my profession was, I would have told her that I was a poet—not a writer, teacher, or any of the other obfuscations I sometimes use. I can see the surprised look on her face—a poet? she would no doubt repeat.
Just for fun, I came up with a conversation that we might have had, if she’d chosen me that night.
“A poet??” Pause for effect. The audience chuckles uneasily. “Wow. And tell me, how does a poet spend her days? Lounging in the grass like” – she addresses the audience: “Help me out here—like who?” Another short pause. “Or whom?”
The audience responds with various names: “Emily Dickinson!” “Mary Oliver!” “T.S. Eliot!” “Rupi Kaur!” “Dr. Seuss!” “Walt Whitman!” She chooses Whitman, then turns her attention back to me.
“So how does a poet make a living? Do you sell poems?” I know, of course, that she’s teasing me, and maybe trying to make a point about the precarious nature of being an artist. I reply, trying to be witty, “Sometimes. It’s probably like jokes. Some work and some don’t.”
Poundstone raises her eyebrows. “I never thought of that,” she says. “Are you saying, you being a poet and all, that poetry is a joke?” The audience laughs, louder this time.
I squirm, just a little. “Well, no. I mean, you need a sense of humor if you’re a poet. So much poetry is about really dark things.” I straighten my back. “I bet I’m not the only poet here.”
The comedian pounces on that. “Any other poets in the audience? Show of hands!” I turn around. A few brave souls wave. “What do you think? Is poetry mostly about dark things, or is it a joke?” Poundstone asks one of them. “Because this conversation about poetry has left me very confused, frankly.”
A self-identified poet calls out an answer: “It’s about what matters!” The rest of the poets murmur in assent. Someone else yells, “Yeah! Love and death and feelings and stuff!” The audience is silent, and then someone claps. Soon the whole audience claps. Poundstone says, “Poets, take a bow! Thanks for spending your precious time lying in the grass, thinking and writing about love and death and feelings and stuff!”
The show moves on to new topics: the antics of the comedian’s ten cats, our smart-phone obsessed youth, and how during the pandemic, she tried and failed to get hired at a grocery store. Poundstone is a consummate story-teller, taking the audience on a ride through her wry observations about life right here, right now.
I settle back in my seat, basking in the weird afterglow of having been thanked by a famous funny person for my service as a poet.
