Last week I was a guest on River Jordan Live,  a program broadcast on Radio Free Nashville and streamed over the web. River, a fellow author, invited me to help her celebrate National Poetry Month, and I was quite eager to do so. I love talking poetry.

Here’s my vision of how the afternoon might’ve gone:

I arrive early at the station, in plenty of time to relax and chat with River for several minutes before going on the air, so we both have an idea of where things are going to go with the conversation. I am, of course, articulate and delightful and funny throughout the entire interview, sharing the work of several poets I admire and reading a few of my own poems, generating immediate spikes in online sales of my book, requests for appearances, et cetera, et cetera.

Here’s what really happened:

Author and radio personality River Jordan calmly delivered my new mantra while experiencing "technical difficulties."

I followed River to the station, since she said it’s hard to find and she apparently suspected that “good sense of direction” is not high on my list of personal attributes. She’d been running late to meet me, as she had warned, and we literally rushed up the steps to the station and sat down in time for her to don headphones, flip a few switches on the control panel, say hello to her audience, and queue up a couple of songs. While they played, she booted her laptop, discovered that my microphone wasn’t working, called a technician for help, and eyed the pile of poetry books I pulled from my bag. ”This is going to be difficult with one mic,” she said. While she was doing all that efficient multi-tasking,  I was fidgeting for a restroom break and realizing that I hadn’t brought my OWN poetry book with me.  Oops. (Later in the show I realized I had a copy, after all, although of course it wasn’t the version with all my handy-dandy notes and bookmarks.)

When the songs were over, River made some introductory remarks, went to one more song, and gave me my instructions while it played. The technician had declared we were out of luck. We couldn’t really share the one working mic at the same time due to its position, so we’d have to pass it back and forth, and even that would have to be done minimally due to the noise of moving it back and forth.  So much for spontaneous conversation.

The song ended and the mic was mine. River flipped a switch and pointed a finger at me. I don’t remember now what I said, but I jumped in and sort of interviewed myself, helped along considerably by her facial gestures and mouthed words of encouragement. I think things went pretty well at first. As long as I was looking at her, I could pretend we were in a real conversation. And then, without warning, she got up to see about something in the next room, and I was left talking to thin air! I stammered, I stumbled, I somehow kept going – but I know it wasn’t pretty.

The technical challenges continued throughout much of the 2 hour program, but River handled it all with aplomb.  Later, as another song played and she coaxed some sort of cooperation from her laptop for the next segment of the show, she said to herself:  “Be beautiful in your fearless imperfection.”

Was she quoting someone? I wondered.

River didn’t think so, she later told me (and Google agrees),  and she also pointed out that the phrase could work as “Be fearless in your beautiful imperfection.”

But I love the phrase as she first said it because it’s a totally unexpected combination of words – in my world at least. Do I fear imperfection? Absolutely. Can I possibly achieve some sort of beauty while being imperfect? For me, Little Miss Get-It-Right, that is a novel concept.

River’s muttered mantra echoed in my thoughts later in the week as I took the stage with my daughter at a small festival, performing our spoken word/music routine that we continue to hone after our “debut” last fall. I’ve been working hard to memorize all my poems, but it’s terribly hard for me. Even when I can spout them off at home, on stage is a different story. The slightest distraction and I say the wrong word, or drop a word, or get off on my rhythm. I’m not sure how much the audience realizes I’ve messed up, but I know it, and of course Kelsey knows it (nothing like your own child to point out your faults).

We have not, to date, given a perfect performance.

After every performance, I think about my mistakes and wonder if we shouldn’t quit doing these gigs and just practice at home for a few more months – or years. But the truth is, if I followed that mentality, I’m not sure we’d ever get “out there.” And the truth is, as I’ve mentioned on this blog before, there is something that feels so right about what we’re doing, I can’t ignore it.

And so I say the wrong word. I miss a beat. Kelsey gives me “the look.”  And we keep going. Definitely imperfect. Fairly fearless. But most importantly, steadily pursuing this beauty – this art – that is uniquely ours.

Does my fear of imperfection resonate with you? Is the fear of imperfection keeping you from accomplishing your dreams? Do you see the potential beauty in who you can be or what you can accomplish, despite some imperfections?

Kelsey and Kory Wells perform music and spoken word arrangements at a cultural arts festival.

Kory Wells would like to say she brazenly tossed aside her twenty-year career as a software developer to forge a lucrative career in poetry. She’s content to report that she now writes poetry, prose, corporate communications, and the occasional snippet of software code in a life-work balance that functions pretty well most of the time. Author of the poetry collection Heaven Was the Moon, she’s been recognized by Ladies’ Home Journal for her “standout” writing in the anthology She’s Such a Geek. Visit Kory's website.
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