Who is this guy? Who does he think he is? Honestly, I don’t know many people who could get away with this kind of performance. Precious few people have the ability to pull it off. This performance does it in spades. He is Shaun Gannon, co-creator of LetPeoplePoems.
I’ve been to a few poetry readings. Usually they consist of a painfully awkward, borderline hermit trying to emit some of their personality in the reading. Or, what is more commonly the case, to speak in as dry a tone as possible. As this goes on, people generally stare into their beers hoping to avoid any painful eye contact. Shaun Gannon does not follow this formula.
Coming up onto the stage, you know this is going to be a loud performance. You could feel a psychic presence of something loud about to go down. Almost the entire room is filled with his voice as he completely ignores the microphone placed in front of him, that useless instrument explicitly created for the weak and feeble. Microphones are not for Shaun Gannon.
Humor is all over the confounded thing. Delivery of each line could not be more perfect. After describing our world in painstakingly bleak language, he then has the punch line of “pretty fucking crappy”. It’s perfect. Somehow he manages to convey the idea that not only is each word capitalized, every single letter is. Translating the caps lock from writing to speaking is no easy task. Shaun Gannon is more than up for the challenge.
By using the repeating phrase “I am Shaun Gannon” he creates a specific flow for the poem. When he wants to build up the tension in the reading, he uses the line several times in quick succession. Or, if he wants to punctuate the absurdity of the exercise, he’ll mention how he is the archbishop of the church of Bowie or how we must be quiet. Shaun Gannon cannot be silenced however.
Some of these lines are fantastic. One of them I don’t want to quote, but I have no choice. You really should listen to him shout them at the top of his lungs.
“I am Shaun Gannon and I am your guardian angel but don’t expect me to do much because I hate you.”
The work builds up so heavily that after a while you get bludgeoned into submission. But you’re fine. Why not have Shaun Gannon announce his presence to the world. Let him tell you about when he first found out about justice.
Poets could learn something from Shaun Gannon. Knowing how to deliver material is important. Since you have an emotional connection with it, it in theory should be easy but in practice it is hard. Shaun Gannon doesn’t have this problem. No connection exists between Shaun and his poetry, no; rather Shaun Gannon birthed this half-crazed creature out of the recesses of a demented and strange mind. And the world is better off for it.
If there was ever a poetry reading that deserved to go viral, this would be that poetry reading.