@Bruce Thanks, that makes sense, but I realized, after reading your response, and also a response that I got on Twitter, that I asked my question imprecisely. What I'm really interested in thinking about is what would happen if the audience, rather than the reader, were more in control of the reading. Like, what would happen if the audience somehow got to choose which poems the reader would read--because I am thinking specifically about poetry readings for the moment? What would that mechanism look like? How might it change--how might it be used to change--the dynamic not just of the reading itself, but also of any conversation that took place afterwards (or even during)? Part of why I am asking this question is connected to my classroom pedagogy, where I like to create assignments that give a fair amount of control to the students, and I was wondering the other day about how I might bring some of that to the reading series I run.