4.20 in Bristol. I sat on a hill as green as hyped emerald and caught up on the latest in my journal.

Before I left the hostel, I washed my clothes in the sink (this one had a sink IN the room, which is always nice for brushing teeth). I googled stuff to do in Bristol and would luck have it but there was a cool poetry reading going on at the Old Vic Bristol. I made it a point to see something performed live in each destination, and the poetry route is a bit different than my other events so I was excited.

It could be really dull or really fantastic.

I met a granola gal from Canada traveling with her mom (who wasn’t in our room? but was in the hostel) and she was a little on the homeschooled side but nice enough. I invited her to the poetry night but she didn’t bite. I also met someone in my room from Spain. We spoke basic Spanish. She was looking for work. She spoke Spanish with me to help me, which was nice because my Spanish sounds like a CD skipping to a native speaker. Later on, I saw her on a date outside. Go team.

I bought a sandwich, chips and giant water from Tesco (3 pound meal deals! Good for the road).

I found myself in Bristol in the first place because I could fly from Bristol to Barcelona more easily than from Wales.

I left Cardiff on the morning of the 20th and arrived to Bristol in an hour on the train.

I knew nothing about Bristol (in retro, I remember someone telling me to check out the suspension bridge but I didn’t remember that at the time).

 

The sun was out, I remembered that it was 4.20 and hunkered down for dreads and body odor and contact buzz from clouds of marijuana as I walked through the city.

However, it wasn’t too aromatic and I explored on foot. The city was sparkling, unusual in the UK, and there was water RIGHT outside of my hostel door. I loved this charming town and it felt very ‘Seasoned Traveler” to be in a small town instead of the big cities only.

The Poetry Slam: 

I went for it and got a big plastic cup of red wine and sipped periodically throughout the reading.

This twiggy blonde with massive hoop earrings that could have anchored a ship opened up by talking about Old Vic and what was going on.

Before you know it she was spouting poetry and we learned that she was gay because it was a love poem about a girl. I just remember one line about how sleeping together starts to feel like “we’re just wanking off together.” She had tattoos, her midriff peeked out, she was wearing all black but mostly I just wanted to rescue her earlobes from a lifetime of droop if she didn’t take those damn earrings out. I am an old woman.

Then she introduces Adam. Now.. sigh.. Adam had enough swagger to land a plane with his words and no experience.

He introduced a poem about a time when he was really poor and he just sat in his room and listened to the squirrels (which he pronounced extremely Britishly, skwa-rulls).

His delivery was rap/rhythmic poetic. I had that celeb-shocked response I know too well when I feel pathetic for simply existing and being attracted to another human because every other girl must also feel this way and my heart is turning me into a sad statistic, a longing never to be realized.

In 2009, I saw a production of Peter Pan at Seattle Children’s Theatre. Who doesn’t love Peter Pan? Flying, crocodiles, fairies revived by clapping- just another Friday night at the bar in Seattle.

But I was so overcome by how amazing Peter (the actor) was; how winsome (his name was Eric) he was, that I started to hate him because I would never be him and I would never fly ad I would never be on that stage because I was physically in the audience and here he was coming up from LA to bless us with his presence in this god-forsaken gray city and all I would ever amount to would be a theatre teacher or a fan sitting in the audience. It was a dark time in my life. I was so upset by this that I started bawling into my scarf, conveniently located around my neck, as I watched this happy children’s play about never growing up. I was the unhappy grown-up but also lost. I was a lost boy-grown-up which is not even fair! Either you’re a numb, dumpy grown-up or you’re a young, carefree, careless lost boy: how was I both, goshdangit?

Anyway, I willed myself to go up to Eric at the end of the show and say “Hey, I thought you did a really excellent job.” For me, this was like facing the God and telling him “Hey, I’m not you, but I exist, so that’s something.” It was all I could do at the time. I’m glad I did it. The crocodile is still my favorite character.

So when I saw this Adam, heard this Adam, read his poetry, I instantly shrunk in the presence of his swagger and we were all, as an audience, eating out of the palm of his hand as he recited each poem with clarity and presence and a charisma that the other two poets lacked.

Holly McNish, next up, dropped some knowledge as google will show you that she has a habit of doing in her poems. She was also captivating in her high tops and sweats and hair pulled back with loop earrings. She read the poems from her book, even though she must know them by heart from all of these readings, unlike Adam who performed them as monologues (which is much more captivating). But Holly’s book in her hand reminded us that she was not an actress, not a poet, she was an introvert who thought deeply about life and did not care to be a famous actress. She is some class A poet shit.

The third girl was very young but also good. I felt like I was at a high school reading, albeit of some very good poetry.

I enjoyed all three. Each accent was so different, one had an Irish mother but British dad, one was from Scotland. It was just great.

I’ll never forget the night I stumbled upon a kick-ass poetry reading in a city I knew nothing about.