Reminiscing About My Life On The Road

And upcoming live shows!

Sweet Community,

When I first started touring rock clubs as a spoken poet in 2003, the venues were completely confused.

”You mean you’re just gonna stand there and talk?” the grumpy bearded sound guy would ask.
“Yep.”
“You don’t play a single instrument?”
“Nope.”
“And you don’t sing either?”
“No.”
“Um… OK,” he’d say, in a tone suggesting he was preparing for the worst night of his professional career. But after the show, he’d stumble into the greenroom to cry on my shoulder. And I on his. 

For seventeen years I toured all over the world, but the first time I booked a solo show in NYC, it was almost unheard of for poets to perform in music venues. I expected to read my poems to a bartender and compete with the sound of a martini shaker. But when I walked in the door, the place was packed with beautiful strangers eager to listen. Later I found out that one incredible poetry fan had attended every open mic and slam in the city for months handing out flyers for my event, somehow convincing people to come listen to a poet they’d never heard of. What an overwhelmingly generous gift.

I received so many gifts on tour that I still treasure today. Wood carvings. Knitted scarves. Baked vegan cookies. Paintings of my dog Squash. Thimbles from people who knew I’d inherited my grandmother’s thimble collection. The wooden neck of a violin made by a nonbinary violin maker. Almost every show, someone would pull up a sleeve to show me words I’d written tattooed on their body. How can I even try to explain what a gift that is to my heart?

Many of my touring years I was in such intense pain from Lyme disease I couldn’t carry my own backpack from the van to the green room. But when I got on stage, I’d often forget the pain for seventy-five minutes.

For seventeen years of touring, I also had seventeen years of debilitating anxiety and stage fright. The first time I had a panic attack on a microphone, I found myself swallowed by embarrassment until I heard the audience hollering, “We’ve got you, Andrea! We’ve got you!” I hope the fact that I could rarely keep it together on stage but stayed on stage anyway helped undo some of our collective shame about who we are and what we feel.

Because I wrote so much about mental health issues, many people with anxiety attended my shows. I’d often see folks in the ticket line staring at their shoes, trembling. My audiences also included a lot of wonderful humans who struggled with depression or chronic illness. It was common for me to meet people who attended the show alone, closeted, frightened and desperate for a reason to stay alive. For that reason, I tried my best to avoid performing in bars where young people were not permitted.

The vulnerability my audiences and I created together meant I’d often spend more time talking to people after the reading than I had spent on stage. The conversations I had with audience members inspired my future poems. We shared so many stories, so much laughter, and so much crying that I once considered making hankies a merch item. I can only imagine how many people have books autographed by my tears. Happy tears. Grateful tears. Grieving tears. All of it.

“You’re touring too much,” my close friends at home used to say. “Isn’t it exhausting?” In nearly two decades on the road I can only name one tour where my answer was yes. Every other time I returned home more energized, more full, more in touch with the knowing that I am not and could never be alone in the world. And there was also this—each time I’ve been able to turn my own pain into art, the pain within me becomes a portal to possibility. Each time my art makes someone else’s day better, my day is better. 

During my last tour before my cancer diagnosis, I walked through the venue before every show, placing a lucky penny on every seat, hundreds and hundreds of seats. I wanted people to know how lucky I felt to have them there.

Many of you know the tone of my work is different these days. Where I once wrote about what is wrong with our world (an important thing to do in times such as these, I know) I find myself now speaking on the same issues, but through a lens of  why our world is worth saving. When I was very young I wrote, “Everyone knows what you’re against, Andrea. Show them what you’re for.” It took me nearly two decades to find my voice about what I’m for.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve done only one live venue show soon after I finished my first year of treatment. I walked on stage to Chubawamba singing, “I get knocked down, but I get up again!” Meg wrote about that night, “There was so much jumping for joy, in every photo Andrea appeared to be levitating.” Three days later I found out I was having a cancer recurrence and have been doing chemo ever since. That sounds much sadder than it is. I have cherished these years. I have cherished my quiet time, my writing time, my home time. But I’m a spoken word artist at heart, and I miss live shows so much. So the news I’m about to share is incredibly exciting for me. 

On May 30th and 31st I’ll be performing at the Paramount Theater in Denver, reading poems and sharing stories about what I’m for. There will be a special guest also performing both nights who I won’t be announcing for another week,  because she’s more well known than I am, and I want to give my peeps the opportunity to grab the first seats. I’ve never done a show with this person before and I don’t want to give too much away— but she’s the PERFECT fit for these events. Additionally, because I long for more and more people to fall in love with spoken word, both shows will be filmed for a potential special.  If you attend, it’s possible we’ll all be caught on film levitating together. 

Presale tickets on sale tomorrow, 4/17 at 10am MDT
Presale code: GOOSEBUMPS

Thank you for being here.

Love, Andrea 🖤