“Can you find your fortune in a random poem?”

Denis Griesmer poses this question in The Poetry Psychic Project, a performance investigating how we all make meaning from coincidence. Mr. Griesmer invites a guest to sit across from him as he recites a ritually selected poem. Together they make up a reason the poem has come into the guest’s life at that moment.

Using the format and ritual associated with fortune tellers and psychics, he encourages individuals to connect the images of the poem with their life and then in turn share memories and experiences sparked by the poem.

Depending on the circumstances, this performance can take place as a private conversation or as a public interaction in front of a small to medium-sized audience, in person or by web-based video.

One participant has called it “a kind of cross between a psychic reading and television talk show.”