Poetry Reading

THE BLURB:
Imagine you're sitting at a local coffee shop, steaming
drink in your hand, contemplating life when you strike up a
conversation with a friendly stranger.

"What are you working on?" she asks.

"Oh, just writing some poetry in my journal." You reply.

"Are you a poet?" she inquires.

"It's just a hobby of mine, actually. Would you like to hear
some?"

"Of course!" she exclaims excitedly.

And so it begins. You read a few short poems to her before
asking, "Would you like me to write one for you?"

"Sure!" is the response.

As you write, you look up once or twice but never ask any
questions. "While writing, I made some wild guess about your
tastes. Just out of curiosity, what is your favorite color?"

"Green"

"And your favorite flower?"

"Lilies"

"Oh REALLY? I think you're going to like this poem…"

You immediately show her the poem you've been working on
right in front of her which turns out to be quite
inspirational, personal, and specifically about her! No nail
writing here, these facts are embedded with a poem, complete
with rhyming verse!

Introduction

As an art form, poetry has been around for thousands of
years. From as far back as Gilgamesh over 3,000 years ago,
to Homer, Virgil, to Shakespeare and Dylan, poetry is the
oldest known form of written fiction. It has moved and
touched people for centuries and is to this day a popular
form of expression.

Something about poetry gives its message a strong presence
and impact. Perhaps it is our evolution as a musical and
story-telling species that explains why poetry and song
resonate so well with us.

Poetry is synonymous with emotional beauty. Only when
performances are particularly beautiful or moving are they
referred to as “poetic." Dancers, actors, painters, only
when having reached the pinnacle of their form are they
themselves referred to as “poetic."

Magic is an art form centered around amazement, emotion,
desire and in rare cases, beauty. It is not, however a
strictly defined set of tools or props. Instead, it is an
experience. Magic lives in the mind, not in the physical
world. It is therefore necessary to weave magic into our
lives it is to be fully appreciated. Magic in the form of a
“show" is an extremely limited opportunity. Even for
magicians who perform regularly, the amount of time one is
“on" is limited to the small fraction of a day. To live as a
magician is to share this beauty of wonder wherever and
whenever the opportunity arises. It is therefore important
to be ready to introduce magic into the fabric of your life.
To propogate a myth, a legend around being someone with
special powers requires more than a stage persona. Being
true and being yourself on and off stage is the only way to
catch those precious opportunities. Underneath the super
power abilities, the real “magic" is sharing a piece of
beauty with your audience. WIth that perspective, the world
becomes your “stage", and every minute of every day your
“showtime."

Ok, back to the poetry! We have a great opportunity here. In
keeping with our primary goal of sharing beauty, it would be
perfectly reasonable and appreciated to simply write a
beautiful poem and give it to someone. Tried and tested, the
poem has proven itself for thousands of years before the
first recorded magic trick. In the epic poems carved in
stone thousands of years before Christ, gods and men
performed magic for those early audiences. These writings
created a sense of wonder, of mystery, and painted colorful
pictures of the unknown. Precisely what magic aims to do
today.

Magic does not exist in a vaccuum. It is a part of life.
This is why it must incorporate elements of life to be
important. To have a point of reference. In the same way
that motion is relative, so too is magic! The further from
reality your plots and props get, the harder it is to relate
or care.

Perhaps more importantly, magic must tell a story in order
to matter to people. Consider modern marketing. When selling
anything from roses to running shoes, marketers use stories
to make people invest emotion into things. Politicians use
similar strategies when campaigning.

Combining your magic with something else that already
matters is a great way to enhance both.

Imagine how much value must have been placed on the earliest
people for them to have been painstakingly chiseled into
stone. Their raw simplicity combined with stories about
fundamental human emotions allows us to appreciate them
thousands of years later. Can the same be said about magic?

As it turns out, yes! Well, sort of. Before the popularity
of magic for magic's sake, shamans and religious figures
throughout history have used magic to change civilizations.
If you had called them “tricks," you probably would have
been killed, but their methods were based on many of the
same methods used by entertainers today. The point I'm
trying to make is that the most affecting magicians have
used skills and arts beyond isolated “tricks." They coupled
their magical perspectives with issues that mattered to
people. Always planting their abilities just beyond what's
humanly possible. Close enough to be believable but just out
of reach. Obviously, what is believable has varied greatly
over time, but the principle remains the same. It's no
surprise then that the most popular magical shaman today is
Derren Brown, who cleverly combines cutting edge
psychological research with a bit of conjury and a healthy
dose of showmanship.

My goal with Poetry Reading was to create a magical
experience in a casual environment that takes all the
inherent power of poetry, and combines it with the impact of
personal and emotional stories that when shared not only
amazes and mystifies, but motivates and inspires.

BENEFITS of POETRY READING

Souvenir

Unlike the long list of magic tricks that give "souvenirs"
to spectators, POETRY READING gives them something intended
as a gift from the beginning. It's unique, personal,
inspirations and will potentially be saved and re-read for
many years. It's a memento that will make its recipient
smile, feel good and remember their magical experience with
you.

Inspiration

I touched on this above, but what gives POETRY READING real
value is that it gives back to the audience. They are paying
you their attention, after all and it's always nice to get
something when you pay. When you tear a playing card and
restore it, you've had zero long-term effect on the world
around you. It's a neat trick, but it ends there. POETRY
READING has real poetry potential to help people have a
improved outlook on life and to cause real, positive change
in someone's life.

Surprise

Because of the highly casual and natural interaction
involved in performing POETRY READING, your spectator never
needs to know that you've performing a magic trick. If you
follow it up with more magic, they may get a clue, but leave
them wondering about your incredible ability to read
people's emotions. Think about it. It creates a lot more
wonder if a poet read minds than when a magician does. We're
"supposed" to be able to do "that stuff" and it's sometimes
easy for folks to dismiss. By the time you're done, they'll
never be expecting the twist ending!

Escalator Principle

POETRY READING was designed form the beginning as a natural
and casual interaction between two people In the off-chance
your predictions don't hit spot on (they will 99% of the
time), you've merely given your friend a nice poem which can
be appreciated on it own without any magic. This safety net
is something I call the Escalator Principle as it similar to
how an escalator never really breaks down completely but
simply turn into stairs which are quite useful on their own!

Pages 44 - Saddle Stitched

MY COMMENTS:
The plot is ingenious, but there is a huge consideration
with its method. I really doubt that this will be performed
a lot and this is due to the construction necessary. Most
won't take the time to do this. You must first spend the
time to create the poetry notebook and then after each
performance you must spend time setting it up again. The
initial book will take a couple of hours to set up and that
involves writing stuff on a majority of the pages in a
standard coil-bound notebook. After each performance, you
must remove the notebook's coil, insert new pages, and then
put the coil back on. This is not difficult, but it is time
consuming. Stockman claims that you can repeat the effect,
but you're taking a risk that the previous combination of
choices will not be chosen.

So, this effect is most practical to do only for special
occasions and when you really want to impress someone. And
it will impress. Once set up, this method is not difficult
to perform, but it's certainly not an effect that you can
perform "right out of the box." What you purchase is a
44-page booklet that explains how to perform the effect and
make the props. For that, the price is certainly fair and
worth checking into if this interests you.