My first performance of my own poems was at an open-air reading at an arts festival at Michigan State University in the mid-1970s. As you can see from the picture, people could just stop and listen as they strolled by. Well, that was the idea – the corollory was that if they'd come on purpose but didn't like what they were hearing, they could easily walk away while you were speaking. This provided instant feedback on what did and did not work as performance. I learned a lot that day. Fifteen years later I was still applying those lessons in an Edinbugh Fringe event (new poems, new skirt) – such as: humour is good; if it's serious, keep it short.

15 years later: