Transgressions in Transubstantiation: The Mantras of Jameson Bayles

I have a love/hate relationship with the city of Pittsburgh, PA. Well, that isn’t entirely correct. It’s more of a tolerate/hate relationship. I was warned by several friends of mine from NY when I moved to Pittsburgh in 2017 that the citizens of Pittsburgh would get on my nerves. And for the most part, they were right.

When Ghosts For Valhalla Press first approached me on participating in the Apparition Juxtaposition Poetry Tour, I requested that Pittsburgh be added to the tour schedule. It was merely a coincidence that the city was the last stop on the tour. For me, it was a personal issue that I needed to read in Pittsburgh.

One of the main aspects of doing poetry tours is to sell books. Generally speaking, with a few exceptions, most independent authors really don’t sell a lot of books while on tour. Your sales will either come from pre-sale events or the initial book launch. A unique aspect about the dynamics of this tour, since every event was a house show, is that more attendees purchased books because the organizers at each event brought in people who would buy books. While I didn’t sell any books (I didn’t see the point on try to sell Legends of Doe Hoe because for me its old news), I’m just glad that whatever my contribution was during each event helped Dan and Dana sell theirs. Ghosts For Valhalla Press was also happy so that is always good as well.

Before the reading, we were discussing the lineup, and everyone assumed that I was going to go last. I requested to go first, Dana Cheung followed, then Dan Altimus closed the poetry contribution of the show. The Soulfly Tangerines did a series of musical numbers to close out the show.

The hosts for this event were absolutely great. They were very welcoming and were very appreciative that they were included as a location on the Apparition Juxtaposition Poetry tour.

I’m also glad that the performers didn’t have to really do any publicity for these events. We just showed up and did our thing.

So, the tour is over. On to the next event.

To be continued.