Using technology to perform poetry

Since the pandemic, most of my poetry readings have been over video calls, such as Zoom or Google Meet. With a little bit of preparation, you can use the features of these platforms to make your work shine. My experience working from home and giving remote presentations for my career has given me an interesting perspective on how tech can make your audience really pay attention.

See also: my suggestions on performing poetry.

If you’re performing on a video call

• Set your lighting. Natural is best, from a window on a cloudy day. Try to use a good camera.
• Consider using backgrounds. While your office or your kitchen is fine for a regular call, you may want to put a background that evokes your poem. Extra points if you use a background that has all the text of your poem, so that your audience can follow along. Even just showing the title will be helpful.
• Can you use foregrounds? Tools like OBS allow you to create a “virtual camera” that can handle a lot of really cool effects live. For some performances, I like to place a text box in front of me with my name and title. Thirty minutes learning how OBS works can really pay off.

My setup for running Poet’s Day In consists of

• my iPhone connected to my Mac using Continuity camera (which is built into iOS and macOS).
• a green screen I got from Amazon.
• a Keynote deck with the poem I’m going to perform (Powerpoint or any other presentation software will also do). In Keynote I make sure there’s room for where I’m going to be standing (I would hate to be standing in front of my poem).
• OBS, which keys out the green screen and replacing the background with a video of ocean waves, and in the foreground I have the Poet’s Day In logo. I then have a second scene I can switch to when I’m performing with the background set to my Keynote deck.

If you’re lucky enough to get to do a live in-person performance

• Do you have an iPad or other tablet? Would it be easier for you to read poems from it? If you ran a Keynote or Powerpoint from it by tapping a screen occasionally, would that be less distracting than flipping pages in a notebook? Would it be easier for you to read from if you increased the text size?
• Is there a screen you can cast your presentation to? Ask your host.