• 1993 -- poetry, two group readings sponsored by Hellas magazine -- with Alfred Corn and others.

• 1994 -- poetry, group reading with a group called called Lingua, formed by Sondra Armor, at various venues.

• 1995 -- short story, solo reading at Barnes & Noble, Greenburgh, NY.

• 1996 -- poetry, solo reading sponsored by Medicinal Purposes magazine at the Orange Bear in Manhattan's TriBeCa district.

• 1997 -- poetry, group reading sponsored by Medicinal Purposes magazine at the Orange Bear.

• 1998 -- poetry, solo reading at the Port Washington Public Library, Long Island.

• February 20, 2002 -- poetry, solo reading from Stubborn Pine. Montville Public Library, Montville, NJ.

• April 24, 2002 -- "Tages: Writing Out Loud," group reading with the poets of Tages, a workshop I conduct for teenage writers. Greenburgh Library, Elmsford, NY.

• July 21, 2002 -- poetry, solo reading at the Orange Bear.

And in another time, on a planet far, far away:

It was 1948 and the world was in turmoil with Red scares, Churchill's Iron Curtain speech, loyalty oaths, etc. Under the auspices of ASP (the Council of Arts, Sciences and Professions, a progressive organization for writers and others), a bunch of writers decided to give a reading -- wound up with several (called "For Writing Out Loud") in a rented theater or auditorium, with an actual admission price, live actors doing the readings sometimes, etc. Where we got the hubris to think we could charge I can't say but we did play to packed houses, 600 or more people each time. Work by Julie Fast, Eve Merriam, even Arthur Miller, Tom McGrath, me. The actors' readings were terrible; they were much more interested in emoting and finding work than understanding what it was they were performing (not like the stuff read on NPR today at Symphony Space, read by real professional actors, not impecunious politicos). The readings by the writers themselves were uniformly good. What was the glue that held us together and bound the audiences to us? It was the time. The dawn of TV, so an unbrain-washed public. Most attendees were political, as were the times. The writers had some stature, at least for the audiences we had in mind. I doubt that one could bring it off today; the few big-time poetry readings I've attended need Oates and Pinsky et al to pull people to, let's say, Town Hall. But the readings are uneven today, less intense and intimate, and lives of course are not in the balance. Politics is powerful glue. Not easily replaceable even by quality stuff.

-- Earl Coleman