Full House Enriched by Powerful Readings at Beaners Spoken Word Open Mic

Last Thursday I attended the January Spoken Word Open Mic, a monthly event that takes place  at Beaners Central, the 3rd Thursday of every month. Hosted by Tina Higgins Wussow, who weaves a trivia contest throughout the evening, the event features writers and all genres of written work. As further inducement to come, the win is half price on these special nights.

Writers from all kinds come to read, and often there is someone takes the stage who has never read their poems or stories in public before.

When I arrived Thursday the parking lot was jammed, something I'd never seen before for a poetry night. The street parking was also maxed as well,  so it was curious. As it turned out, the mob was gathered for Liz, a candidate for city counsel I believe. But even after the Rally for Liz thinned it was an exceptionally healthy crowd, from the stage to the windows in the other room.

After welcoming everyone, Tina announced that the theme of this month's trivia contest was "wood." During the course of the evening we were asked questions about what state produces the most matchsticks, which state produces the most toothpicks, what country has the longest wooden bridge in the world, what country has the oldest tree, along with questions about beavers and termites. It's multiple choice, so you can guess your answers if totally blanked out.

But the writers present were there to read, and it was an excellent crop, because as many as a half dozen were there as a final practice event in preparation for Gut Instinct, an event in Ashland in which winners of a writing competition were invited to read their stories. So, we were treated to some mighty fine memoir excerpts, stories and poems.

Tom Kanzar read first, sharing a story about an incident in the South Pacific during the Second World War. A typhoon sank a ship and the brave seaman of the Tabor searched for 36 hours to find survivors. Kanzar, a wiry older man, wore a Stetson cocked at an angle and took a Sinatra-esque pose. He said that he sees it as a performance in which the object is to become someone else.

The second reader, David, reads a section from his non-fiction memoir, a memory from the first grade. It began, "The kid that lives next door is the one and only guest who is not a blood relative at your birthday party..." The story segues to an incident in school that pummels you like a volley of punches.

Zomie followed, offering up two whimsically titled poems, Why the World Needs More Georgia (O'Keefe) and After the Endoscopy, After Which You Looked Into My Guts and Found Nothing. This poem was written in an effort to redeem a bad experience, a poem about fortitude in the midst of the system.

I recently produced a piece of flash fiction titled The Gladiator that I wanted to share. When I heard some of the other readers I realized the importance of practicing your work before you read. A little rehearing helps strengthen one's presentation, a lesson I need to remind myself of before my reading.

At least a half dozen readers had come as a warm up for Gut Instinct. The readings included a terrifying first person excerpt from a novel about mountain climbing, about hiding in a crevasse waiting out a storm in a ten day storm with the tensions over tough decisions vividly outlined; a memoir about memories of New Mexico; a piece  about tea and relationships; a wonerful story about teen angst that began, "In the middle of January Willen still hadn't figured out how to talk to girls. Even if he failed, trying was the right thing to do.

As a writer/reader myself, I get impressed by and take pleasure in beautiful sentences, and there were plenty of these Thursday. Chris, who teaches English as a second language at UMD, read an autobiographical piece about a camping trip. The poem converged into this one wonderful line: "And you realize it's this vulnerability you've been searching for all along."

Marie Zhukov of the Lake Superior Writers, shared a powerful non-fiction essay about being mugged and its subsequent events with the intriguing title, Book Signings Can Be Hazardous To Your Health.

A fellow named Kevin shared three short, heartfelt poems: 1. The Lonely Mop Bucket 2. Music of the Universe 3. What Is Art? and a young woman name Cheyenna took the stage for the first time in her life to read a pair of poems as well.

Keynote presenter Jayson Iwen took the stage along with a UMD student, Mollek Adju, who hails from Tripoli in Libya. Dr. Iwen, who teaches at UWS, is himself a writer and poet with experience teaching English and writing. Interestingly, he lived in Beirut from 2004 to 2006 where he organized, publicized and emceed the first postwar public open mic reading series in Lebanon, a series that led to ongoing readings at the Blue Note Café.

For this particular evening Iwen and Adju read from the recently published Lighthouse for the Drowning by Jawdat Fakhreddine. There was a tragic beauty in these poems. Adju read a portion of a section in Arabic and Dr. Iwen read his English translation. There were so many great lines that served as containers for profound thoughts.

The process of translating the work to English was intriguing. A literal word-meaning translation would be produced by his assistant, and then Dr. Iwen would craft this so as to be culturally accurate and parallel to the intent of the writer. The themes reminded me of the longing for homeland expressed in Psalm 137.

This latter portion of the program was so rich that I must save it for another day.

Best to you in the week ahead and cherish it.

Saint David's Day Open Mic Event: More Proof That Northland Poetry Scene Is Alive and Well

“Each year new consuls and proconsuls are made, but not every year is a king of poet born.” ~Lucius Anneus Florus, c. 125 A.D.

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. 
~Robin Williams as John Keating in Dead Poets Society

Saturday morning I received a reminder that the 18th Annual St. David's Day Open Mic poetry event was taking place that evening in that wonderful new space called The underground (formerly the Duluth Children's Museum.) Fortunately I'd completed enough of my chores to escape for this surprisingly fun annual poetry competition.

Arriving a half hour early gave me a chance to greet a few familiar faces as they sauntered in from the cold. A young woman was playing what I believe was a ukelele while the crowd grew. By the time Paul Lundgren called the event to order -- by reading the required acknowledgements to ARAC and other foundations that made this event possible -- there must have been near 100 people in the room to share, support or listen. It whet the appetite for what was to come.

Minnesota Book Award winner Louis Jenkins is credited with conceiving this event. One of its aims is to honor the anniversary of the canonization of St. David, the patron saint of Wales. A second is to showcase area voices and kiss winter goodbye.

The caliber of talent is what impressed me most. Two Duluth Poet Laureates read as well as a host of others whose works have become increasingly familiar to me over the years.

The structure of the readings went like this. This is an open mic event and anyone who wished could sign up. There were two segments. In the first you had three minutes to read an original poem, or poems. After a brief intermission the second segment feature people reading a poem by someone else. For fairness sake the three minutes was strictly enforced.

The range of topics people wrote about was as interesting as the poems themselves. Three people, including myself, read a poem about Lake Superior. Sheila Packa read a poem called The Chain and then A Season of Silver, a dozen haiku featuring silver. John Ramos shared a poem about giving a urine sample, called Tinkle, Tinkle, Little Jar. There were break up poems, a poem about a prediction by Nostradamus, humorous poems about drinking, and other themes.

There were several poems I especially enjoyed including Phil Fitzpatrick's When the Must Must Leave the Country.

And the winner is...

This is actually a competition and there are judges who vote for best poet. The winning poet gets to bring home the chair. Ellie Schoenfeld, who was seated to my right and who is the only person to have brought home the chair more than once, immediately commented that the chair was now a different color. Paul Lundgren notified us that it was still the same chair but had been re-upholstered.

Rocky Makes Room For them was last year's winner of the chair and his poem Black Hills Payment showed us why. He delivered his lines from within, had no script. He also made it a piece of entertainment.

Kat Mandeville was the only other to deliver a memorized poem. Her piece, The Logic of Monogamy, was polished and pointed.

The only downside of these live poetry readings is that one wishes he or she were able to re-read the poems and savor them more fully. No sooner is one poem delivered when we have to drink another. It would be nice to pause time between each reading.

People reading the poetry of others was possibly half the number of the first group. I found this idea to be a very interesting twist. It gave poets a chance to introduce some other flavors into the mix from various sources. There were poems by Philip Larkin, Baudelaire, Elizabeth Bishop and more. Kat Mandeville shared a poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade. I shared The Hermit by a blind poet Charlene Groves of New Jersey.

By evening's end Diane Dinndorf Friebe took home The Chair for her two poems about the lake, Mystery Woman, and Lake Superior.

Be sure to mark this event on your calendars for next year. I have already begun thinking about who to share for that second half. Maybe Pessoa, maybe a Rilke. We'll see what happens.

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For what it's worth, I will be doing a book signing at the Superior Public Library tomorrow evening and donating a copy of my first volume of short stories titled Unremembered Histories to the library. Among other things, I will be reading briefly from one of the stories titled Duel of the Poets. 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.