About a month ago I was eager to spend a Saturday night out in the Dublin city centre. I chose the Palace pub in Temple Bar, which my guidebook assured me was a good location for traditional Irish music sessions. Unable to induce anyone into accompanying me, I was planning to use the music as an acceptable guise for going to the pub alone and then start chatting to some random punters.
When I reached the second floor and slipped through the door, I was surprised to see someone performing a recitation at a banister. I made my way to a seat as quickly and unobtrusively as possible, sliding into a booth along the back wall. Glancing around the room, I noticed that there were no instruments anywhere. I was a bit disappointed to discover that I'd stumbled upon a poetry reading rather than a trad session, but I quickly began to change my mind.
Everyone in the room seemed to know each other by name and shouted insults or witty quips at whomever was commanding the makeshift staircase podium. When the reader began to recite, however, the room fell completely silent. Well, silent but for a completely sodden man who yelled slurred and indecipherable comments whenever the mood struck him. The others scolded, "Shurrup, Paddy!" when he was particularly obnoxious, and that usually quieted him.
The readers were all quite different. Some recited from pages, some spoke from memory. Some nearly shouted in a frantic, agitated performance, some lent rapper stylings and hand gestures to their words. Some spoke in a straightforward manner, some added dramatic pauses and discernible weight to certain words. Eyes closed, eyes open, quiet, animated. I savoured the accents, and it was quite interesting for me to hear how the words sounded when spoken aloud. It provided an entirely different dimension to the language, shifting the emphasis to the sounds of the words and their rhythm, cadence and relationship. I was held completely rapt.
My favourite ending to a poem came from a lad with long brown hair who was giving a passionate and emotional reading, fairly spitting his words at the room. Suddenly he turned up a new printed sheet of paper and bounded from the stairs, howling, "I've forgotten the last page!" The room erupted in good-natured laughter and consolatory applause. "I quite liked that ending," someone commented. It was a very supportive atmosphere overall, with enthusiastic clapping and shouts of "Good man!" or "Good girl!" greeting the end of each reading.
The night slowly began to wear down, and the host, a tall, lanky, white-haired man, took the stairs. He recited a poem about his children, then was compelled by repeated requests from the audience to read some Kavanaugh. This he did from memory, lending wonderful pause and emotion to the line, "I know nothing of women." His twinkling blue eyes lingered on each female in the room in turn as he repeated the line.
Then he sang, or attempted to sing in an off-key sort of way. He was upstaged by a boisterous blonde woman who applied a wonderful, resonant voice to some traditional Irish ballads and Gershwin's "Summertime." Eventually the ballads gave over to raucous limericks, with the whole room joining in. Finally the host called an end to the evening with a toast and a declaration of indebtedness to the bartender.
After the reading had ended, I struck up a conversation with one of the readers. "Does this happen every week, like?" He explained that this wasn't a regular event, but called the organiser (a man from outside Liverpool) over to tell me about other regularly occurring poetry readings. Eventually the host's brother came over and joined us. He accused the organiser of trying to chat me up, to which accusation the organiser responded with a comical show of exaggeratedly disgraceful chat-up lines and mannerisms.
The pub started to close soon after that, with the bartender blatantly encouraging us to leave ("Get out! I've a date tonight!"). I stood up to go, and the host's brother gripped my hand in an eternal handshake. "You're not leaving?" he asked. I told him I had to catch the Luas home before it stopped running (it already had). He initially insisted that the Luas doesn't run to Rathmines, but then conceded that he only rides the Red Line and not the Green. "Oh, where do you live?" I asked. "Why, are you coming home with me?" he chuckled. He was about 65, so we both knew that wasn't happening. Eventually he wished me luck in finding a way to stay out of Minnesota and "away from the ice," let go of my hand and told me I'd been a good sport.
I've managed to stumble upon some pretty entertaining events and people in Dublin. And as long as I embrace randomness and don't mind trading trad for poetry (or something else), I'm confident it will continue.
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