On Tuesday I saw Ryler Dustin perform. He will be at the Zodiac Café in Worcester, MA on Saturday. has the details here.
And I have them here:
THIS SATURDAY, September 2th
Noon to 2pm
50 Lake Ave. Worcester, MA
(just off rt.9 near U-Mass Med)
open mic & feature.
September’s feature is…
Ryler Dustin
If you can, you must go see him.
I tried to tell Ryler this on Tuesday night, but it’s not the sort of thing you can say directly to a poet you’ve just seen perform. Tuesday night at Reflections Café, a quartet of elderly deaf people carried on a conversation in sign language all through the open mic, totally ignoring everything else going on in the room.
Yet halfway through Ryler Dustin’s set, they stopped signing. The two people with their backs to him turned around to watch him. They sensed something extraordinary was going on. The moment didn’t last long — a poem, maybe two. He doesn’t DO anything extraordinary. There is no leaping about or histrionic action. He just talks.
Ryler Dustin is so good that he can make deaf people stop to listen to him and watch him. That’s about as awesome a command of the language as one can possibly hope to achieve.
Go listen to him yourself.
I was amazed, myself.
I also thought he deserved the attention.
He noticed and was kinda spooked about it.
They’ve been around before — it’s the first time I’ve ever seen them pay attention.