It's true, one of the drawbacks of the festival was the fairly hard-sell nature of some of the artists. Most of it came from younger, less accomplished artists. I found more of the artists--the ones who've been around a while--to be fairly humble. When I told, for instance, Tomer Hanuka that his and Asaf's book Bipolar was great, he kind of hung his head bashfully and said, "Wow, really?" This from a guy whose work has been published in everything from the Times to the New Yorker. Similar reactions from "seasoned professionals" (cough) like Nick Bertozzi, Jesse Reklaw and Tony Consiglio.

Unlike Brian, I was definitely somewhat envious of the crowd gathered there to check out what turned out to be a lot of pretty wonderful art. One thought I had was that it really would be nice to have an audience beyond one's extended social sphere. In part because it's really interesting, I think, to see how people not necessarily keyed in to the poetics scene respond to what you've done--they often will have very different takes, and insights, than your friends. The few responses I've gotten from non-poets--or at least from poets not necessarily in my extended "sphere of influence" have sometimes been eye-opening in terms of what, for them, is significant, what works, what inspires--often, *not* what I would have thought.

Anyway, my two cents!

Of course I agree that getting the work out beyond one's extended social sphere is very important -- it's just that, at a fair such as this one, you could only read a few lines of anything before moving on. My guess is that a lot of good poetry would fail in this sort of reading environment, just as a lot of good poetry doesn't really make it at a "reading" -- we all know how poets are received differently on the different coasts, for example, or how involved, meditative work can seem precious when placed in the often carnivalesque atmosphere of, say, a "marathon" event.