I performed “H8M8,” a 10-part poem from my first book I RL, YOU RL for the first time on July 27, 2013. The piece sampled over 50 hate letters I had received following the publication of a “post-post-” confessional poem the year before.

The voice behind “H8M8,” masked under different names and email pseudonyms, repeatedly begs the question: “Are you a poet or aren’t you?”

As I read through each of the ten letters that made up “H8M8,” I removed one layer of clothing, so as to end up, in one instance, in a bikini, and in a later performance, in a nude full-body suit. I aimed to reveal the bare truth: that under poetry, there is only more poetry.