Hundreds of international schoolchildren.
And slightly bored-looking teenagers at the back row.

Uh, well, I said. Poetry.

As you’ve seen earlier with the previous poets, even among us there are so many styles of poetry, and no particular one of them is ‘right’. For example, George’s is more fitting with performance poetry because it grabs attention and commands participation.

All I ask of you about my style is that you listen closely and try not to fall asleep.

I read How To Be A Bed. Before I did I told them that a dear friend of mine said practice this when things start to look ordinary: pick up something around you and try to look at it in a way you’ve never looked at before. I looked around me. A half-empty water-bottle. I slid over to grab it.

For example, How To Be A Plastic Waterbottle. You nourish humans and are cruel to the rest of the world all the time. But what is the point? They just take from you and don’t even remember how you are different than the last waterbottle they bought. Are you any different? Then they throw you away and you never see them again.

Just an example.

In my case I wrote about something I feel I don’t spend enough time with. My bed. How To Be A Bed.

The children giggled.
Yes it’s true! I said.

I also read Latitude.
I didn’t sing it this time like I did twice before, I recited it slowly, I moved my hand to indicate a crown, the skyline, the notes we passed, my path for your tired feet, the bricks for the wall we made.

It was very silent at the end. Right before the applause, and unnervingly so. After the applause ended their silence was still sitting in my head. I was trying to listen to it like how they might or might not have listened to me. And then a hand shot up in the front. Probably the youngest age-group. A quiet face and a soft voice.

“… Is that a true story?”
“Yes it’s true,” I said.