Loose Leaf Notes

This story was published in The Floyd Press on May 1, 2008. It was also featured on the newspaper's website HERE.

This is getting to be a real good smelling poetry reading,” said visiting poet Jim Webb in reference to the scent of popcorn coming from the front of the Floyd Country Store.

Webb and seven other members of The Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative (SAWC) were at the Country Store Friday afternoon for a round-robin poetry swap with members of the Floyd Writers Circle. The evening before, the visiting writers attended an event at Radford University (RU), celebrating the publication of All There is to Keep, a book of poetry by Rita Riddle, an RU English professor and SAWC member who died of cancer in 2006.

Webb works for Appalshop, a media arts center in Kentucky that produces documentaries, some of which have aired nationally on PBS. He was recording the Floyd readings for Kentucky’s WMMT FM, a mountain community, listener-supported station affiliated with Appalshop.

Floyd Press columnist Fred First, both a member of SAWC and the Floyd Writer’s Circle, hosted the Floyd event. Robert Cumming, Iris Press book publisher from Tennessee, was also present.

Readings of mostly poetry spanned subjects ranging from love and death to farming and tea drinking.

First read an essay from his book, Slow Road Home, about his childhood dread of asparagus. … My parents claimed this was a vegetable. To my mind, this vile substance was never anything more than a green poison created by children-loathing adults on the other side of the Iron Curtain ...”

Dana Wildsmith, whose most recent book, One Good Hand, is a reference to her life of alternating farm chores with writing poetry, read a poem called “Southern Love Poem.” … You’re slicker than Talladega, as classic as Gone with the Wind, more hometown than Patty Loveless or REM, sweeter than Iris Dement. How could my heart not be yours? … Wildsmith, a teacher of writing and an ESL instructor from Georgia, authored a poem titled "Making a Living,” which was read on NPR by Garrison Keillor.

Webb, wearing a bright pistachio green shirt with one of his poems printed on it, read an impassioned poem decrying mountaintop removal. He lives on the second highest mountain peak in Kentucky, second in height only to another peak that he can see from his home, which is being strip-mined, he explained. … As close to heaven as you can get … Why doesn’t God complain … Call the cops … he read. Webb told the group, “until they stop mountain removal, I’m going to read this poem at every reading.”

Radford University teacher and former Floyd Countian Jim Minick edited the posthumously published book of Riddle's poetry and hosted the Thursday night book release event at RU. At the Floyd reading, Minick read some of his new poetry that will be included in a soon to be published collection. He spoke of the readings the night before and the impact of hearing SAWC members read Riddle’s poems. Members of SAWC and Iris Press were involved in the publication of All There is to Keep, and many were friends of Riddle.

Chelsea B. Adams, Floyd poet and writing teacher at RU, joined the circle, reading poems that Riddle had commented on when she and Riddle were in the same writers workshop group. Adams is author of Looking for a Landing, and Java Poems.

Other SWAC members attending were Ron Houchin, who has had three poetry books published in the U.S. and Ireland; Felicia Mitchell, a poet and writer who teaches at Emory & Henry College; David Hampton, who teaches high school English in North Carolina; and Beto Cumming, a book designer and editor for Iris Press.

Five members of the Floyd Writer’s Circle who shared their original work included First, Katherine Chantal, Jayn Avery, Mara Robbins, and Colleen Redman.

After the readings, the group mulled around a table display of their books, signing, selling, and trading them with each other. Writing resources and stories also got swapped. The visiting writers had dinner at Oddfellas Cantina and attended the Friday Night Jamboree.

Post Notes: To learn more about the Southern Appalachian Writers Cooperative, go to sawc.us. The mission statement on their website states an intention to foster community between Appalachian writers and encourage the publication of their works.

Photos: 1. Beto Cumming reading poetry at the SAWC/Floyd Writers Circle meet-up. 2. Dana Wildsmith reading as (left) Felicia Mitchell and (right) Robert Cumming listen. 3. Jim Webb reads a poem condemning the practice of mountain top removal. Doug Thompson has posted some nice photos HERE.

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The 7-9 time-slot stretched on to 10:30, with several new readers, a full house of attendees, and a line-up that resembled a Spoken Word variety show. After Greg opened the evening with a reflective essay about photographs and memories, Mara (pictured left) and I shared our very different Scrabble poems, created using words we played in a game on St. Patrick’s Day.

Chelsea (pictured reading below), one of my fellow winning teammates of the Literacy Volunteers Scrabble Tournament, kept the theme going with a just-written poem about Scrabble. Others, read from her first poetry collection, “Looking for a Landing,” were prompted by the subject of Greg’s reading.

Our third Scrabble Tournament teammate, Virginia, was in the audience with her husband, Don. Don took a shot at the mic, reading a poem from Chelsea’s second poetry collection, Java Poems. Seeing as how the café specializes in coffee, Java Poems is a favorite of Café Del Sol owner, Sally, the evening’s gracious master of ceremonies.

Rosemary premiered a performance piece about self-empowerment, presented with an edge. Mara read several poems by Virginia Tech creative writing professor, Bob Hicok, and one of her own, for the first anniversary honoring the victims of the April 16th Tech shootings. Her “Show and Tell” about wearing her late husband, Cory’s Calvin and Hobbs Grateful Dead T-shirt was memorable … Tonight I need a miracle, and not the kind that Calvin wants with one finger in the air asking for a ticket. I need to know you’re there.

A few of my six word memoirs got some good laughs … Gidget goes Woodstock; ends up country … College drop out, flunked middle class. I followed the memoirs with a group of short poems representing spring, taxes, and Earth Day. “Save the Planet” is a good slogan … or is it a slow gun we hold to our head … a sound bite to relieve us of our sins …. a glossy sticker on a gas guzzling bumper …

Photojournalist, Doug Thompson (above), was in the house. I told him that his large wide lens camera was a little intimating, but I knew he would capture some great shots, and he did (see HERE). Doug, who is a walking storyteller, shared some mic time with us, adlibbing a story with a mix of humor and tragedy. The attentive audience laughed, gasped, and choked up.

A young man (below) scribbling in a notebook during the readings shared the results of his notes, a new poem called, “In the Ear of the Beholder.” His mother followed him with a poem about closing your eyes in order to see. Sharing that her son is in cancer remission after forgoing a second round of chemo in favor of alternative treatments (a case that made national news when his parents were charged with medical neglect for not forcing mainstream treatment and then exonerated), brought a rousing round of applause.

Sam read a darkly, funny short story about a half-bald chicken getting revenge on its owner who had accidentally caused the balding (and scaring) when he tossed a pan of boiling water out a window.

Special Ed teacher Skip King was back with some 55 word poems. Lezlie performed her signature free association poetry, some of which involved – of all things – "gay McDonald burgers." It was a ludicrous notion meant to zero in on divisive judgments and one that had the crowd in an uproar. Fresh from New Orleans, a newcomer named Justin added to the variety, closing the evening’s event by rapping some rhythm and rhyme.

Post note: Notice the view from the window in photo 2. It's of the new timber framed public restroom, part of the downtown renovation and renewal.

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There was lime green, kelly green, olive, and teal represented at the third Saturday Spoken Word Night, two days before St. Patrick’s Day. Even the sign-up sheet that our master of ceremonies, Alli, held as she announced the readers was green. Alli – standing in for Café Del Sol owner Sally, who we were told had a singing gig up the street – sometimes announced the readers in an accent that sounded Swedish, but I heard someone say it was from Wisconsin. Personally, I was hoping for an Irish brogue.

I didn’t use my brogue, like last year, but I did share a poem about someone who regularly wears green: Peter Pan. I hadn’t read “The Lost Adults of Neverland” since I shouted it from the poet’s soap box at Floyd Fest last summer. I also shared my poem about finding my first four leaf clover pressed between the pages of a library book sale book. The said book was used as a prop, the four leaf clover was waved in the air, and the word shamrock was mentioned.

Pat read from her book, Strange Tales of Floyd County, about a Floyd banshee, a female spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger.

Cheryl (to the right) did a stand up routine based on the fact that she is NOT a “retired” school teacher, as she was described in the Floyd Press Spoken Word announcement (written by me). Although she was a public school teacher for many years, she’s currently unemployed and had just hung a “teacher looking for students" want-ad sign on the Winter Sun bulletin board, she told us. It wasn’t just part of her act. She actually gave me one the ads at end of the night so I could put it in the April’s Museletter (our local newsletter).

Alli C, a creative writing student at Hollins University, did two performance pieces, one of her own and one written by her favorite slam poet, Big Papa E. I was impressed with a poem Mara read, which I think was about one of her first loves. I’ve been trying to remember a line in it about how they climbed like ivy up the side of the university building where his father (a professor, I think) was working.

Rosemary took us on a fun ride, reading two versions of the same poem, and in between those she read one about the process of rewriting the first of the two. She also read a poem on how to grow Rosemary. Apparently, the plant and the woman (I gathered) should never be pot bound.

Mara's daughter, Kyla, won the imaginary prize for wearing the best Irish green. She joined her mom and Ali, closing the evening with a song from Juno in which the audience got involved, singing the refrain: remember that I love you … remember that I love you … remember that I love you. No leprechauns or limericks were spotted.

Post notes: Apologies to those who visited yesterday and couldn't comment. I couldn't post either. I guess my blog needed a good night's sleep to fix itself, which I hope it did. Also, my commentary on autism and vaccines came out in the Roanoke Times today. You can read it HERE.

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Extra chairs were carried in from the Winter Sun hall to accommodate the overflow crowd for February’s Spoken Word at the Café Del Sol. I told my poet friend Mara that interest may have been piqued by the photo announcement in the recent Floyd Press of our mutual friend, Janean, reading at last month’s event. “Not only was it was prominently placed and as big as a billboard, the caption under it said she was reading a poem about a zombie” I joked.

Of the list of fourteen readers on the sign-up sheet, six were new to the venue. Sally helped the first reader, Hayden Polseno-Hensley, adjust the mic, asking, “Are you a sitter or stander?” “I usually crouch,” the over-6-foot tall Hayden replied.

Hayden, who grew up in Floyd and recently returned after being away for twelve years, had to tell me who he was before I could recognize him. He stood as he told the audience that he’s recently started a writer’s workshop for short story writing. The short story he read about an airplane crashing into a yard was well received by listeners.

There were love poems, a poem about wild strawberries, winter, and Jesus.

A woman named Rose, who has been living in Floyd since May, spoke about how happy she was to be here before reading her poem, which she dedicated to her son. She said “You know you’re in the right place when you hear, ‘Oh, our house is perfect for someone with five children.’” Floyd is a healing place, she said.

It was, retired schoolteacher, Cheryl Spangler’s first time at the open mic, although, I’ve seen her act in plays and heard her do a stand-up comedy routine years ago at a different venue. She read some of her original comedy that involved several small children and bowls of spilled breakfast oatmeal.
At one point Sally, Café Del Sol owner and spoken word MC, asked for a vote to determine if people wanted the lights kept on or if they wanted a candlelight atmosphere.

“Do you want a super delegate vote or just a show of hands?” someone from the crowd asked. The candlelight party won out and that was the end of my ability to snap any good photos.

A couple of non-coffee drinking readers (myself included) inspired by last month’s challenge in which Sally asked us to write coffee haiku, read newly written poetry about tea. There were several interactive pieces, which began with a nursery rhyme called Poet for President that Hollins College student Mara, recently wrote for a class assignment. And after school teacher, Skip King, read a series of 55 word poems, Mara assigned Sally to write a 55 word poem about coffee for next month.

Some read from chapbooks, others from notebooks. A woman named Elise shared that she had just come from the Dollar Store, where she purchased the brand new notebook she was reading from. Her chanting voice was melodic and her poetry was more of a story telling performance than a reading.

The two hour evening of entertainment was like a variety show of talent. I can’t wait to come back in March and see what will happen next.

Post notes: March’s Café Del Sol Spoken Word is scheduled for the 15th from 7-9. Reader pictured above is not Hayden but Sam. The other one is of Elise Brion. Click HERE and scroll down for more posts on the monthly Spoken Word.

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~ Third Saturday Spoken Word at the Café Del Sol 7-9

I wore my purple poet’s beret. Mara’s was black. Everyone else was hatless, even though the night was frigid, and a few flurries earlier in the day threatened to cancel our open mic.

I’m so gullible. I tend to believe everything the poets say. But I’m pretty sure Janean (pictured below) did not hear a zombie climbing up the stairs where she works, going AAAARRRGG AARRRGG, as one of her poems described. She read another one about loving the NFL and later insisted that part was true. But she is not Greek as another line in another poem stated.

“I’m never going to get to know you better through listening to your poems,” I joked to her at the end of the night.

I sat up close, on the cafe couch as the poet's spoken words wove spellbinding plots. Six readers and some new attentive faces made up the crowd. Chelsea, who teaches writing at Radford University, is working on a new collection of poetry about insomnia. I guessed her new work might be directly related to her Java Poems, another collection espousing her love coffee. Sally, the Café owner, told jokes in between readings. She challenged us to write some coffee haiku for a future reading (although she gave me the poetic license to write mine about tea).

When it was Mara’s turn, she read a poem about Jesus in which her favorite line was “Jesus was totally an Aires.” I liked this part: “Jesus drove with the windows down and knew what he wanted for breakfast.”

After that poem I spent the rest of the night jotting down things that my Jesus would do. I’m pretty sure my Jesus is a morning person who has a braid like Willie Nelson’s and wakes up in a good mood.

Post Notes: The first photo is of me and Mara. Photo number two is of Janean reading and number three is of fellow writer’s circle member and Scrabble playing friend Rosemary. Read more about the purple beret HERE. Click and scroll down HERE to read about more spoken word nights at Floyd's Cafe Del Sol.

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“Did you find one you like?” I asked Phil, father of our youngest spoken word reader, Mars.

“No, I’m just reading the funny papers,” he answered as he held up one with a fish on it that said ‘don’t give me that carp.’

Chelsea, a retired Radford University Professor who has recently authored a chapbook dedicated to her addictive love of coffee, picked out one with a coffee theme to take home. Jayn’s was black with a photo of one the three stooges and bright red letters that said, “Just say Moe.”

Earlier in the evening, Mara shared a short poem written in a form called a “minute,” and so I followed with one just as small that I labeled “a sip.” The last reader of the night, a Hollins College Graduate student who drove up from Roanoke, read a long poem that I thought was three different poems, or maybe a book. He dubbed his genre a “guzzle.” June said she was even more nervous than when she last read, which was her first time. Maybe it was because of the crowd. It was bigger than usual. At one point I counted thirty-six people.

Sally, the café owner, was too busy serving customers and then introducing the readers, to set up the sound system, so we projected our voices. I resurrected my poem “Dream for President Bush,” which was written five Novembers ago, before the U.S. invasion into Iraq. At that time it was read at several peace rallies and handed personally by me to actress Jessica Lange who spoke at one of the pre-war Peace Marches in Washington D.C. I went to.

I want President Bush to have a dream … like the one that Ebenezer Scrooge had … I want him to be haunted by the ghosts of Iraqi children … who cry out, “but mankind was your business” ...

I particularly like saying these lines:

I wish President Bush would have an affair … I wish he'd take off his black pointed cowboy boots … and look at the moon more often ...

And these:

I want his mouth washed out with soap … every time he says "weapons of mass destruction" … and for him to wear a Darth Vader helmet … if he ever says "the axis of evil" again ...

Nobody seemed to miss the mic.

At the start of the night I lugged a heavy garbage bag full of T-shirts up to the reader’s chair and spread a few out. “It will all be explained soon enough,” I told the curious onlookers who were watching me.

Elliot was a poet and member of the Floyd Writer’s Circle, the group that co-sponsors the monthly spoken word nights. It was the second anniversary of his death. Earlier that day, Kathleen, another writer’s circle member, and I had photographed Elliot’s T-shirt collection in a final farewell memorial for him. Mara put Elliot’s name on the sign up sheet for one of the ten minute slots because we planned to read a few of his poems. When Sally got to his name, she spoke faintly and questioningly, “Elliot?” while scanning the audience as if she was looking for a ghost.

Jayn, Mara, and I shared the spotlight for the tribute to Elliot. “He sat right in this very chair and read these poems himself not too very long ago,” I told the crowd. Mara talked about the book of Elliot’s poetry that she and Kathleen have been working on. At the end of the night, we invited everyone up to find a favorite T-shirt to bring home.

Post notes: You can read my account of the Washington D.C. Peace March HERE and the rest of the poem "Dream for President Bush HERE.

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My life is structured around seasons and holidays in the same way I imagine an elementary school teacher’s might be. Every month I look for seasonal graphics and clip art to adorn the Museletter, the local newsletter I put together with others. Page colors are chosen with the seasons in mind. Orange and pumpkins for October. Pink hearts for February.

The monthly Spoken Word nights at the Café Del Sol, which started two years ago by the writer’s circle I belong to, also mark the seasonal cycles of my life. Every month brings a few new attendees, and the seasons are reflected by the choice of readings that are shared. October is an especially rich time for poetry and prose. The bright colors of fall coupled with descending darkness, Halloween, and death made for some interesting themes that repeated throughout Saturday night’s readings.

Rosemary Wyman opened the set with a poem about our unusual warm autumn weather, followed by a prose tribute (which will appear in November’s Museletter) to Catherine Pauley’s garden. Catherine, a well known artist and long time high school teacher, is director of Floyd’s Old Church Gallery. Her garden is a wild spot cultivated with an artist’s eye in amongst the open and rolling hills by the Pauley well drilling business office. It was started by Catherine with the help of her husband after her battle with breast cancer over ten years ago. Since then, her husband has passed on, and recent additions to the garden have been in memory of him.

It was the view that called to me first, and then when I started to look around at my more immediate surroundings I noticed the old hand pump, the large stone table, the set patio stones, the low stone wall and the informal stone steps that snake away through the flowers and trees and off down the wooded hill, Rosemary read. She described the garden, which has a sitting bench and a swing chair, as a place of healing. She spoke of how the garden gave her support when she wasn’t feeling well, and of introducing it to a woman with failing health who found solace during her illness and before her death. Oddly, I had visited Catherine’s garden just an hour before coming to the café for the first time in several years.

I followed Rosemary at the mic with a reading of “Country Boy,” the WVTF radio essay aired this past summer about my Asheville potter son, a good old boy with a twist and one of the kids of Floyd’s alternative community who paved the way for a meeting of cultures. After that, I read an older poem called “Sunflowers” which I chose because it’s fun to read this time of year. I can’t stand to see them droop … Faces hung like lamps bent over …Their lights are out … and … They hang like skulls in suicide nooses … in garden graveyards for Halloween … Their thorny crowns have fallen down … Their bones loom long …

Greg Locke, sign painter by trade, took questions after his reading. His mostly surreal art of the past twenty years was being shown on the cafe walls. People wanted to know which pieces were earlier ones and which were new.

Earlier that day, when I talked to Katherine Chantal, she said she had nothing new to read. I encouraged her to read something old. She did, but she also read a new piece that she ended up writing after all, after taking a walk and being inspired by the fall colors.

Retired Radford University Professor, Chelsea Adams, returned to the stage to share a few original selections. I especially enjoyed her poem in answer to Dylan Thomas’s Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night, in which he implores us to rage against the dying of light.

“But I want to go gently,” she began, and went on to describe how she wants her eyes to be closed and to be wearing a favorite red robe when death visits her.

Dr. Sue Osborne was there with her son Mars and his friend Emerson. Each read a piece of their own before joining together to entertain us with some three part harmony. I think the song they sang was about a skeleton, judging by the refrain that went something like ‘it must be chilly it must be without skin,’ and by the fact that Sue said they chose it because of Halloween.

Café owner, Sally Walker, introduced each reader and offered tidbits about what was going on in Floyd as she did. June, blogger from Spatter, made it back from her trip to Assateague Island in time to attend, but she didn’t read anything this time. Regular reader and Writer's Circle member, Jayn Avery, was too tired from selling pottery at the Roanoke Market that day to do a reading. After the last performer had read, a group of us stayed on to mingle and to meet Jayn’s sister who was in town. With the foliage starting to peak here in the mountains, it’s a good time to visit Floyd. And there’s a lot going on in town these days. The third Saturday Spoken Word Open Mic is just one of Floyd’s unique offerings.

Post notes: To read more about The Café Del Sol’s Spoken Word nights, go HERE and scroll down. Photos above are of Sally, Rosemary, Greg, Katherine, Emerson, Mars, and Sue.

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In the end I’m like Rosa Parks … I don’t want to get up and go where I’m told … I work just as hard as any other poet … and I write from where I sit … Colleen

Mara and I performed our dueling punctuation poems as promised at this month’s Spoken Word open mic. The best part was that both our poems were work-shopped at our writer’s circle earlier in the week as poems, not as a poem with punctuation and one without. In the end, the irony was that the audience members listening couldn’t see the punctuation, or lack of it, and so the point was mute.

Refreshing newcomer to the open mic stage, June, read a poem about a dying squirrel. … even in this moment of anguish I admired his full tail and beautiful coat. It seemed the right thing to do ... She’s also a new Floyd blogger and you can read her poem in its entirety on her blog HERE.

Greg brought a prop. No, I don’t mean the tattoos up and down his arms. I mean a painting he did. His poem was directed to all the art buyers who didn’t buy it at an art show he placed it in once.

Chelsea Adams loves coffee! Retired, for the time being, from teaching writing at Radford University, Chelsea has a new chapbook, called Java Poems. The tie in to the main feature of Café Del Sol was not lost on Sally, who introduced each reader. “You can come read your poems here anytime,” Sally said into the mic after Chelsea faced her addiction with odes to her dark potent master.

When she read one called “Seductress” written in the voice of coffee it made me think about vampires, the gory lure. .. You are afraid of your desire for me, the hold I have on you, my sultry depths, wary of the jittery feeling I sometimes create in you, leery of a night without sleep …

By the end of her java reading she was proclaiming “Hallelujah!” in a poem titled “Salvation.” Research proclaims drinking six cups a day prevents diabetes, cancer, a heart condition …

Janean wears red shoes and writes funny, sexy poems. The pieces she read ranged from poems about drag queens to those about her love of the opera. “I don’t know if I should believe a word you say,” I joked at the end of the night.

“It’s all true,” she insisted.

There were only six readers, but each brought a rich variety of good work to the mix. We started on time, ended early, and really appreciated the people who came out to listen. But we really didn’t end where we ended. Last month the café was closed when we arrived, and we ending up doing a sidewalk street performance. This month we stayed till the chairs were turned upside down on the tables and Sally gave us a tactful reminder that we didn’t live there.

Laurie and Rob, a couple from Roanoke arrived late. Mara, who knew Laurie from Hollins College, decided they deserved a private reading. Four of our six readers agreed to hang around and an impromptu round robin reading around the coffee table ensued. As the café staff cleaned up, we re-read our poems and broke out some other ones. Mara recited one for memory so naturally that Rob thought she was just talking and interrupted her. I wanted to correct the line I flubbed during the official reading. After that I read a poem about spooky sunflowers to ring in the beginning of fall, which seems to have arrived overnight.

I can’t stand to see them droop … Faces hung like lamps bent over … Their lights are out … Their shame is as drastic … as their joy was in August … They burn at both ends …

Maybe next month -- October 20th from 7 -9 at Café Del Sol -- we'll read dueling ghoul poems.

Photos: 1. Greg reads 2. June 3. Chelsea 4. Janine 5. Left to right: Janine, Mara, June, Laure (can't be seen), Rob, Colleen. Scroll down HERE for past Spoken Word entries.

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After nearly three years of co-hosting a Spoken Word Open Mic with the Café Del Sol on the third Saturday of every month, local writers were stood up. This past third Saturday when we arrived at the café, it was locked.

Poets began to gather on the sidewalk. Questions were asked. Cell phones were used. Some came and left while others lingered, pacing the sidewalk and peering into the café windows.

Mara decided she wasn’t going to wait till she’s an older lady in a purple hat to sit on the sidewalk. “Where is our soapbox when we need it?” she asked.

Kyla got her hula hoop out of the back of her mom’s car.

Joe ate French fries that he got down the street at Oddfellas Cantina.

Cars and motorcycles drove by. Heads turned. Jayn pulled up a chair on the sidewalk next to Mara and chatted as if she was sitting on a front porch.

One couple who came for the entertainment pulled out their lap top and clicked on the Café Del Sol page. “See! It’s listed right here!” the unidentified man shouted.

“Yes, it was in the Floyd Press too,” I answered while balancing Kyla’s hoop on my hips.

Mara and I used the sidewalk as a stage for an impromtu street performance. With the setting sun as a spotlight, we did a piece from the OUTLOUD women’s collective that was recently featured at FloydFest. You can see and hear it HERE. We hope all is well with the Cafe owners and will keep you posted.

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The following was published in the Floyd Press on August 9, 2007.

Local poets stepped up their presence at FloydFest this year by way of a stage in the Global Village. We moved from our soapbox stand under the Poetree at the festival entrance because with continuous bands playing on two near-by stages, we could hardly hear our own alliterations. At the village stage, under the shade of a brightly striped orange tent, we had mics and room to stomp around. Our group was also featured in the Floyd Fest program, which guaranteed some festival goers would make the trek off the beaten path to attend. And they did.

The theme of the collective performance, OUTLOUD, was on woman’s issues, and there were six of us representing a variety of related subjects. Besides me, other FloydFest Poetree Players featured were Tabitha Humphrey, Bekah Parker, and fellow Floyd Writer’s Circle members Mara Robbins, Rima Sultzen, and Rosemary Wyman.

Mara, FloydFest Poetree organizer since the festival’s inception in 2002, began by welcoming the audience, introducing the collective, and giving a little background on the history of the spoken word at FloydFest.

Wearing a long hot pink scarf, I opened the show with an original poem titled “Woman: a Definition.” I’m fire and magenta … Tahitian red magma …I announced as I flipped my scarf for effect. Rosemary, adorned in another shade of pink answered from her mic, I’m murmurs and contours … I’m cradles and curbs …

Magnetic … I’m Venus … compass and radius ... I countered. Our poetic conversation continued as momentum built.

Several poems were presented in this two way conversational style, others were read as a group, and a few were done solo. The most theatrical performance piece was one on perfectionism, titled “For What I’m Worth.” Written by Rosemary Wyman, mother of a blended family with eight children, it was like an abbreviated one act play.

“Where is it written that I must measure each breath I take? Why am I driven to strive for perfection? And if I am not determined to have the perfect body, make perfect grades, keep a perfect house, raise a perfect family, why am I considered a slouch … or worst of all a selfish woman?” Rosemary pondered out loud. Her performance rose to an empowering conclusion and was accompanied by the rest of the troupe who recited chorus lines and improvised movement, complete with measuring tapes and rulers as props.

The poets took on some controversial issues, but it wasn’t about dividing working mothers from stay at home ones, woman on opposite ends of the political spectrum, of different ages or lifestyles. The spirit of the performance was upbeat, meant to encourage diversity and remind us that we are all more alike than we are different.

Bekah, who works at the Women’s Resource Center in Radford shared her rousing signature poem “Rebelution” with a B. “Declaration of Independence,” a manifesto written by a 15 year old girl recovering from anorexia, was read by the group.

Tabitha Humphrey, an award winning poetry slammer gave a moving delivery of an original prose piece called “Will I be pretty?” It was a serious look with a humorous undertone at our culture’s focus on outer beauty. You’ll have porcelain skin as soon as we can see a dermatologist; you sucked you thumb that’s why your teeth look like that; you were hit with a Frisbee when you were six; otherwise your nose would be just fine. Don’t worry we’ll get it all fixed.

The poets didn’t completely abandon the soap box. It was used throughout the four day festival at a variety of venues, as Mara and other poets hopped up on it, spouting poetry like FloydFest town criers and encouraging others to do the same.

One impromptu soapbox reading took place Saturday evening at the coffee bus and was a round robin dialogue of poetic interpretations on the story of Peter Pan. Mara revived her poem, “Wendy Fallen” from the OUTLOUD performance. … Here on the island where we all wear pajamas, I’m the only one with a dress and an apron … Rosemary’s poem described Wendy sewing Peter Pan’s shadow on at his death bed. Arden Hill, an MFA Creative Writing graduate from Hollins University shared several Peter Pan poems.

From the soapbox, I shouted out to the crowd … Before I knew that a grown woman named Mary Martin was playing Peter’s part … I already didn’t want to wear a tie ... Festival goers coming from a main stage musical performance stopped to listen. I was girl determined … not to be tied to a 9 to 5 … wearing panty hose and stilettos … in the middle of July … As I concluded my poem and jumped off the soap box to make room for the next poet, I imagined I was jumping off Captain Hook’s plank.

Lezlie, a poet who traveled from Charlottesville closed the soap box set with some improvised stream of consciousness poetics urging passersby to get involved in making the world a better place.

Post Note: The OUTLOUD performance will be repeated at the August’s Spoken Word Open Mic held at the Café Del Sol on August 18th from 7 – 9. Photos: 1. Rosemary and Colleen. 2. Colleen, Rima, Bekah, Rosemary, and Mara. 3. The group. 4. Mara on the poetry soap box shouts, "Attention shoppers!" See a short video clip of the tail end of Rosemary's piece HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

The moon in June will bloom blue and times two, but the poets will be out when it’s NEW ... So began the Floyd Press ad and the Museletter announcement for The Floyd Writers Circle’s June Spoken Word Open Mic. My fellow circle member and poet, Mara Robbins clipped the line for the poster she hung on the Café Del Sol door, where the monthly open mic usually takes place. But she changed the ending of the verse. Instead of the word NEW referring to a stage of the moon, she used it to refer to the open mic stage at a new venue, and to re-route attendees. Because the Café Del Sol crew was busy tending a private party, the café was not available on the previously announced date. The owners of the Blackwater Loft, just a few doors up and across the street, graciously agreed to host the event.

But the NEW in venue could have also referred to new readers because there were several of them. A grandmother of seven from Willis read an entertaining light verse written by one of her favorite poets. Although she was a newcomer to the spoken word stage, she read as if she had a background in theater.

Another woman shared what she described as flash fiction. Structured as a dialogue between the author and an unsuspecting acquaintance, it was a wildly hilarious piece about ferrets. I later learned that the reader really does have pet ferrets, but I don’t think she dresses them in sweaters or bounces them on the bed like the woman in her story did.

A young new reader named Allie read from her journal. When someone in the crowd reported that she wasn’t able to hear the reading, the air conditioning was turned off and the young woman read the piece again.

With the late evening sun streaming in, there was a break for refreshments and socializing before regular reader, Greg, took to the stage. The crowd laughed when he started his recently penned poem, What will I write for Saturday night? I don’t have a clue what to say …

Mara read a villanelle for picking lettuce and one for summer squash. As soon as you see them, pick them quickly – long zucchini, yellow crookneck, quick and prickly … A villanelle is a style of form poetry in which some lines repeat. It may have its roots in Italian harvest songs, Mara explained.

It was the eve of Father’s Day. Rosemary and I, both Floyd Writer’s Circle members, read poems about our late fathers. They were loving tributes that that mixed humor with more serious issues. Other readers included Floyd’s Dr. Sue Osborne and her son Mars, and a poet from Radford named Bekah.

A petite young woman in a flowing cotton skirt who was working at the Loft closed the evening with an impromptu song. Accompanied by a friend on guitar, she did a rendition of George Harrison’s Blackbird. “She should try out for American Idol,” I whispered to my neighbor as she sang.

After the event wound down, I headed out of town to a dinner party at my friend Katherine’s house that was already in progress. When I arrived about ten people, including my husband, were gathered around a large round table on her porch. “How did it go?” Katherine and my other friend Jayn asked at the same time. Both Writer’s Circle members who usually participate in the open mic, they were particularly interested to hear my report.

“I was great!” I boomed with obvious excitement.

For the past two years local writers in our community have been promoting monthly spoken word nights with the purpose of creating a forum where people of all ages and backgrounds can come together and share their stories. I’m always excited when these evenings draw new readers and listeners because it means that are goals are being fulfilled. To see a first time reader give voice to their creative expression is what it’s all about. I can’t think of a more fun way to spend an evening.

Post Notes: The couple that run the Blackwater Loft graduated from Floyd high school with my son Josh. Look what I found in the cafe: one of Josh's Building Community Bricks. More about that HERE. Scroll down HERE to read about more spoken word nights.

Posted by Colleen at 7:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Sometimes it takes a poet to speak the unspeakable in a way that is pointed and yet melodic enough to make us hear with more than our ears.

Our April Spoken Word night at the Café Del Sol in Floyd took place five days after the Virginia Tech shootings in Blacksburg. With Blacksburg being only 40 minutes from Floyd, I figured some of the readings would involve more than the expected seasonal and Earth Day fare.

I was right. Mara read a prose piece about when she was fourteen and first heard Nikki Giovanni, the Virginia Tech professor and poet who recently brought the Tech community together with her rousing words. Later, as a budding new poet at age of sixteen, Mara met Nikki and asked her if she had any writer’s advice to offer. “How old are you?” Nikki asked before answering Mara’s question, “Go live awhile, for God’s sake."

Mara leaned into the mic and looked out at the audience as she spoke: “My grandmother made food when there was a tragedy. Many women who I have known resort to that, hands-on care of those who are still alive … there is comfort in a bowl of rising bread, in layers of lasagna, in new sprouts of spring greens in a fresh garden salad.”

Then she grabbed two baskets full of home-made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and passed them out to the crowd, saying, “This food will not heal you. It will not make the tears go away; it will not bring anyone back. There is nothing, really, that anyone can do. But this is my heart, my tears my grief, and my relief that all of you are still here to share this with me.”
My poetic offering did not involve food, but did relate to the Tech shootings. “The Poet’s Lament” was written the day before as a sub-conscious journey, which began with my complaining about forgetting how to write poetry and led, clue by clue, to the truth of what was really bothering me.

Arden (first photo), a Hollins University creative writing student who is about to graduate with a Master’s degree, might have wondered why I was snapping so many photos when he was reading. It was a pleasure to hear his original poetry, but I was also taken by the outline of the large tree outside the large café window at sunset and the reflection of the café lamps that seemed to go on forever.

It was uplifting to hear the sweet voice of young Janie. Because of her disability, which I was guessing was cerebral palsy, she was assisted by Joyce (her mother or guardian) while she sang. “I have butterflies,” she confessed before beginning a duet of three songs. (Of course, we all shared that we had butterflies as well, after that.)

Young Chris wheeled over in his wheel chair and told a few jokes. Rosemary read Rumi, Greg read about motorcycling, and nine year old Kayla added some comic relief, reading the poetry of Shel Silverstein, such as "The Battle." Would you like to hear … Of the terrible night … When I bravely fought the---- No? … All right.

Case closed. We all broke for cookies and poetic fellowship.

Post note: Mara was still carrying around her basket of homemade cookies and sharing them the next day at our Writer’s Circle meeting. Photos: 1. Arden reads. 2. Sally, cafe owner, introduces a reader. 3. Greg reads. 4. Janie and Joyce sing. Click and scroll down to read more about Floyd's Spoken Word Night HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

The following originally appeared in "The Floyd Press" newspaper on March 22nd.

“Say Green!” someone called out as Max Charnley snapped a photo of spoken word performers at the Café Del Sol this past Saturday night. Because the Open Mic, scheduled every third Saturday, was on St. Patrick’s Day this month many in attendance were donned in green clothing.

“I want you all to know that I take reading poetry on St. Patrick’s Day very serious,” I announced to the audience as I began my 10 minute reading slot. I was wearing a sage green sweater that was purchased in Ireland and had the word “Blarney” sewed in the tag. “I don’t know whether blarney refers to a bunch of baloney or the gift of eloquence. It’s probably something in between,” I joked.

Earlier that day I had been reading from Thomas Cahill’s bestseller book, “How the Irish Saved Civilization.” The title is a reference to the Irish monks who, at the fall of the Roman Empire when literature and artifacts were being burned by barbarians, hand copied the Greek, Roman, Judeo-Christian classics, which would have otherwise been lost to us.

Said to have invented rhyme, the Irish tradition was an oral one in which their history was preserved by way of spoken verse. Literacy came late to the out-of-way island, but once it did, the Irish made up for lost time. In one generation they learned Greek, Latin, and some Hebrew; they devised Irish grammars, and copied the whole of their native oral history. But they didn’t just copy. The Irish are credited with inventing the codex, the first prototype of a book (before that scrolls were used), and they produced the most magically illustrated manuscripts the world has ever seen. The Book of Kells, which includes four gospels and the Bible in Latin, is one such example.

I read a few excerpts from Cahill’s book about the Irish, their playful love of the alphabet, and their reverence for language. “The Irish enshrined literacy as their central religious act,” Cahill wrote. Even at the earliest stage of their development, “the Irish were intoxicated by the power of words. Every noble Irish family maintained a family of ancestral poets,” I shared with the café crowd.

I knew from other reading that in the old Irish tradition the only position more noble than a poet was a king. In the spirit of the Irish poets, I introduced myself. “I am Colleen, which means “girl” in Irish Gaelic. I’m the granddaughter of Ellen Bergin of Youghal, County Cork, great granddaughter of Mary Murray, Margaret Keating, and Theresa Dineen from Cork, Tipperary, and Offaly,” I said before beginning my poem titled “My Grandmother’s Brogue” (which I read, in part, with a brogue).

The Irish theme continued when Katherine Chantal read a poem that wove two trips to Ireland together. In the early 70’s she traveled through the country with a backpack. Then, while on a more recent trip, she navigated the narrow country roads there while driving with her sister on the left side. … When wind is ever present in a land … How then to be still? ... Those emerald hills … The constancy of the ocean’s voice … Presents its own quiet … And projected us back to … Our ancestors who once walked the same … She read.

Four of the nine members of the Floyd Writer’s Circle, including myself, were in attendance. Most of us were already warmed up from reading two nights earlier at the Jessie Peterman Library where Friends of the Library hosted us as part of their Floyd Naturally! program. Our writer’s group is dedicated to promoting the spoken word in the community and has been co-hosting the Spoken Word Night with the café once a month since October 2005.

Writer’s Circle founding member Mara Robbins is a Hollins University student and a recent finalist in the undergraduate poetry competition at the 47th annual Lex Allen Literary Festival. She read several poems, one of which was about writing poetry forms, such as pantoums, haikus, sonnets, and villanelles. Jayn Avery, just back in town from selling her pottery on the Roanoke Market, read a hopeful poem about the coming of spring. Rosemary Wyman was inspired to write the poem she shared when she saw an acquaintance and his caregiver walking down the street.

Sally Walker, Café Del Sol owner and master ad libber, introduced readers and helped to make them comfortable by adjusting the mic when needed. There were two first timers. Young Mars read and essay about losing his beloved cat, and Martha Taylor shared the words of a poet she admired. Greg returned to the mic to read a poem that explained his recent haircut.

Poetry wasn’t the only evening’s offering of entertainment. Some in the crowd hummed along to a ballad that Chris Youngblood crooned a capella. Foot tapping and handclapping could be heard when Joe Klein belted out “The Star of County Down” (which I hummed then and continued to for the entire next day)

As Joe sang, I closed my eyes. Sitting on the café’s comfy couch and sipping my cold amber brew, I imagined us all in an Irish pub. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate and fulfilling way to spend a St. Patrick’s Day evening.

Post Notes: THIS is a video of me reading “My Grandmother’s Brogue.” Photos: 1. From left to right backrow: Max, Mary, Greg, Colleen, Jayn, Mara, Rosemary, Walter. Front row: Joe and Katherine. 2. Martha reads. 3. Jayn reads. 4. Mara on a chair. 5. Colleen and Joe on the comfy couch. Jeanie O'Neil's paintings are displayed in the background. Scroll down HERE to read more posts about Floyd's Spoken Word events.

Posted by Colleen at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Two stand-up comics, two children, one poet performing to the Indigo Girls singing Bob Dylan on a boom box, and another reading while standing on a chair made for a wild night at the Café Del Sol’s Spoken Word Open Mic. A total of twelve performed to a full house. At one point Sally, the café owner had to borrow chairs from the Winter Sun Hall to accommodate the overflowing numbers.

Sally, the master of ceremonies, opened the evening with a humorous re-write of the Beatles song “A Day in the Life.” After explaining how she read in the Floyd Press that the spoken word night was rescheduled because the café was closed for a week’s vacation, when they actually had been closed to work on the place, she sang, “ I cleaned the floors today…oh boy … see how the shiiiiine…”

Regular readers Greg, Rosemary, Mara, Colleen, and Brigitte were joined by Bekah who came from Radford and performed her signature poem “Rebelution,” and Lezlie who was in town visiting from Louisa County and performed a spontaneous improvisational poem about Romeo and Juliet. Brigitte’s daughter sang and then recited her poem about frost. Mara’s daughter Kyla sang a beautiful song that she had worked on with her music teacher, Kari, who was in the audience.

Ever since Bekah read a poem last summer while standing on a chair, I’ve wanted to do the same. I had just the poem that would work, but it was an old one that I initially couldn’t find … Everything’s going up … the prices … the stakes … the cancer rates …

I found it that very day, and when I saw that Bekah was back, I knew I had to do it. The ozone hole is growing … violent crime is rising … the greenhouse effect is warming … the temperature is climbing …

It’s called the Wake-up Call and was performed by Jayn, Katherine, and I back in the days of Women of the 7th Veil, a poetry improv troupe we started. Everything’s building up … the population … the pressure … the city skyscraper ...

I think maybe we performed it standing on chairs back then, but I can’t remember for sure. Cholesterol … traffic … the arms race … the pace!

I started out sitting, followed by standing, and ended up on top of a nearby chair. We better get up too … wake up …stand up … speak up …and grow up …

Before it all goes up in smoke … “And I am on a chair!” I concluded and later wondered if I should have invited the audience to stand on theirs.

If the crowd wasn’t standing on their chairs for my reading, they were falling out of them laughing while Mrs. Pickle, our last performer, did her stand-up comedy routine.

After a short intermission, giving some of the most innocent ones in the room the option to leave early, Mrs. Pickle, an elderly church going character who recently lost her husband, took to the mic. What began as a little Mrs. Pickle chat led to a hilarious uproar, as she related her latest adventures in the never-too-late world of sex experimentation.

All blushing aside, the comedian behind the purveyor of passion paraphernalia, known as Mrs. Pickle, delivered a top notch performance with well written jokes, good timing and an ability to ad-lib and interact with the expressive audience.

Next month, the third Saturday Spoken Word night falls on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. I think everyone should put on some green and come out to share pint with the neighborhood poets and bards.

Photos: 1. Brigitte reads poetry to her daughters. 2. Leslie serenades. 3. Colleen stands up. 4. Mrs. Pickle tickles our funny bone. 5. The crowd responds. Read more about Floyd's Spoken Word night HERE. Scroll down.

Posted by Colleen at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

“Did the spoken word ad in the Floyd Press say that no men were allowed?” I joked when I scanned the café and counted ten women. Because of Rick’s retirement party up the road at Mama Lizardo’s attendance was light. So we gathered up close to the mic that most of us didn’t feel the need to use, sipped our various drinks and took turns reading mostly poetry.

“I read this one ten years ago at a poetry slam in a Roanoke bar," I told the group of women before reading my first poem. “I either won or placed that night, but they didn’t give me anything as a prize. It was late and smoky,” I complained.

“It’s called “The School of Higher Learning,” I went on, “and is best read and heard without shoes on, but since it’s January, I won’t require that.” LOOK SEE SPOT JUMP SALLY … Don’t talk in class …. or take your shoes off under the desk … don’t draw outside the lines …

“I hope you all saw the moon on your way here,” I said before beginning my last poem, “A Fingernail of Moon.” Clipped close from the darkness … the moon is filed down … to a delicate sliver … of smiling light ... The applause that followed was as much for the moon as it was for my poem, I figured.

Jayn read one with an intriguing title, “The Poem Not Written,” and Katherine read an ode to “camellia sinensis” about her devotion to tea. Rosemary’s poem about her son’s helicopter going down in Afghanistan brought tears to my eyes (he survived but most others did not).

It was great to see Brigitte, Daphne, Dove, and Jeanine. Sally, the café owner who frequently has to run off to a singing gig was able to stay for the whole thing and added her adlibbed wit to the menu. A newcomer to Floyd name Dot delivered her poem for memory. About half way through the night’s readings the front door got busy swinging open as late comers arrived.

When I turned around to look I saw them. All men. At least six of them. They sat in the back of the café while the rest of us, all women, sat in front. Like boys and girls at a school dance, we eyeballed each other before the cross talk began, which led to one man coming up to the mic. He didn’t have a poem, but he used the spoken word. “What one book would you want with you if you were stranded on an island?” he posed, and an interesting discussion ensued.

It was 9:00 when the reading, lingering, and mingling wound down, still time to head over to Mama Lizardos and dance a set provided by “The Kind,” a Blacksburg Grateful Deadesque band with long-time ties to Floyd.

“I lived a real life today,” I said with a big smile to my husband when I got home. (We were providing respite care for an individual over the weekend and he agreed to stay home so I could go out.)

And the night was young and the living went on… The smile is still on my face.

Post note: Because the Café Del Sol will be closed for a week in mid February, the next spoken word open mic will not happen on the third Saturday, but on Saturday February 24th from 7-9. More about Floyd's spoken word events HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Feelin’ groovy at the Café Del Sol’s third Saturday open mic. Still hummin' from the Hafla the night before. My poem had a fat fly and a clumsy yellow hornet in it. Sierra returned with her sweet words all abuzz … God is a bumble bee with hyacinth desire …. I am a jar of honey… Kayla, our 9 year old MC, stood in for Sally, Café owner, again. Her shirt was awhirl with a butterfly seeking nectar and went well with the fluttering art of Sue Nees that hung on the wall behind her. She introduced me as Colleen Redman…or Redmana… or Red Ruby slippers. She let me wear hers and I tried to make them fit but discovered that it’s hard to walk in Kyla’s shoes.

Girls from Tekoa, a Floyd County residential treatment center for at-risk adolescents, came out and filled 2 tables. Some took to the mic. Greg with the tattoos up and down his arms came back. He read a poem about his hands, how well they have served him. I meant to shake his before he left but was busy flitting to and from other flighty pursuits and never landed quite close enough to do so. Some dark themes were brought into the soft café light. There was also mention of love and a bar of soap, three of them actually, in a poem that Rosemary read about her life’s work, end of life care. The girl named Joy sitting next to me on the couch cried when Leah read her powerful poem about a girlfriend’s suicide. A few people laughed when a girl from Tekoa performed some stand-up at the mic during the intermission.

Post Note: If you look closely you can see Kyla’s finger pointing and calling you to come to the next Spoken Word, January 20th 7-9.

Posted by Colleen at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Spoken Word Open Mic at the Café Del Sol ~
Nine year old Kyla, dressed like a rock star and wearing ruby red slippers, was our MC for the night. Leigh plunked a tune on her bright red guitar. Lora sat in the midst of her own passionate pastels that hung from the café walls. She read a poem about Dance Free, written by a woman in the audience who was too shy to read it herself.

Considering that many Floydians had come out to celebrate Mama Lizardo’s 70th birthday a few doors down from the cafe, the turnout was good. Even Sally, Café Del Sol owner and local singing talent, was at Liz’s party, scheduled to sing, which is how Mara’s daughter Kyla came to be our open mic host. There were new faces in the crowd and several new readers, bringing the evening’s performer’s list to ten.

A horse name Echo… soothing Grandma Lizzy… a poem about a graveyard ….and an essay on the stuff of life and our identification with it all figured into the mix. My favorite poem title for the night was “When All Our Beards Were Brown,” read by a man with long grey hair who had tattoos up and down his arms. The work presented was touching and thoughtful, eliciting head nodding, sighs of approval, and resounding applause for its authors.

When it was my turn at the mic, I read my disclaimer (or is it a mission statement?) before passing out the photos that accompanied my reading of “The Pink Raft.” Therapy is not about finding out who did what to me or why. It’s about finding out what I’m storing and what’s weighing me down. Everyone has some emotional baggage. It’s there whether we acknowledge it or not. I figure I might as well open the bag and see what’s in there, remember why I put it there, and decide what I can now throw away. Shifting from pink to red hot, I followed up "The Pink Raft" with “Hot Flash at Night,” and then “Free Leonard Peltier and the Japanese Tanka.”

Mara, looking every bit the poet in her long kokopelli coat and black beret, read tankas, wonderful slices of poetic observation that had evolved since she read them at our last writer’s workshop. She takes her blue yarn … up on the roof and sings … while she crochets … There will come a day when things like this don’t matter … Not now.

At the end of the evening Kyla’s ruby red slippers got passed around. Sipping my Anchor Steam beer, I put my feet up on the coffee table and admired them in red. Later, Arden, a creative writing graduate student who had come up from Salem, tried them on. “I wonder where I’ll end up if I click them together?” he asked.

Photos: 1. Leigh’s red guitar and Rosemary, who is reading a hot poem about tea. 2. Kyla takes charge. 3. Colleen asks, "Do they make these in my size?"

Posted by Colleen at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

“I feel a little like Leonard Cohen to her Sylvia Plath,” I leaned over and whispered in my friend Jayn’s ear. We were at the Café Del Sol for the monthly spoken word open mic, and Sierra Bell had the mic. Sierra, who grew up in Floyd and recently graduated from Appalachian State, read three poems. Her style was natural, her sultry voice perfectly metered. She poured her poems out like filling an empty glass. Never losing her place or her rhythm, she did not look up from her notebook, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. By the end of her reading of “The Birds,” posted below, I was giddy. Imagine it read in a Dorothy Parker-like delivery:

The Birds

The birds are dulcet weapons and I wake
each day to their bludgeoning lollipop standards.
All afternoon while I attempt to wallow
in my misery in peace, they accost me
with their shrill cherry-on-top trills.
I didn’t ask for this
saccharine spoonful of warbled jingles.

I’d rather not have my blisters
smeared with syrup, thank you.

Star struck, I called Sierra over to the couch I was sitting on when the readings were over. I wanted to learn a little more about her and tell her how I felt about her poetry. I found out that, although she had taken a poetry class at her college, she majored in Cultural Anthropology and not poetry or creative writing. Eventually she plans to go back to go back to school, but not for poetry or creative writing. “You can’t earn a living at it,” she explained.

Sierra’s father is a well known photographer in Floyd. Her mother is just as well known for her pressed flowers on glass, and her older sister makes jewelry. The results of their creative pursuits are sold at the family’s gallery in town where Sierra is currently working. Knowing how creative her family is, many customers ask, “What do you do?” she tells me.

“You can call yourself a poet. You’re a poet.” I insist.

“Then what do I say … do you want to buy a poem?” she jokes.

We talked about chapbook publications, places she might submit her poems, and the writing courses our friend and fellow poet Mara is taking at Hollins College. But Sierra was right, I had to agree. There are no jobs for poets listed in the want ads. No “poems wanted.” Not many people are interested in buying one.

“I only started calling myself a poet when Will Bason, (a mutual Floyd friend and folk poet), started calling himself one (via a bio in a Roanoke Times commentary). He gave me the courage to,” I told Sierra.

“But I also did it to explain myself. I think being a poet is a way of life, and I was hoping people would cut me some slack and leave me alone to do what I do,” I continued. “I wasn’t claiming to be a good poet. I was just saying that writing poetry was what I was compelled to do more than anything else.”

This is a young poet prodigy, I kept thinking as we talked. I silently cringed, knowing the steps Sierra would likely have to take to be recognized as a poet, to get paid even occasionally for her poems. Although I wanted her to get on with the rest of her life being a poet, I also realized that she’s young.

“Maybe you’ll find yourself home raising young children some day with lots of inspiration and time to devote to your writing,” I conceded. “Just keep writing,” I told her, “and don’t ever hesitate to call yourself a poet because that’s what you are.

Posted by Colleen at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

For the first anniversary of the Spoken Word Open Mic at the Café Del Sol a lawyer from Washington D.C. with aspirations of becoming a musician scribbled his poem on a scrap of paper before coming up to the stage to read it. Dr. Sue Osborn was in the house with her son Mars. She read a poem from her journal about a blackberry, which began … My family doesn’t want this one. Radford University graduate, Bekah, got a rousing applause for each one of the three original poems she read. Open Mic regulars and Floyd Writer’s Circle members, Mara and I also read. Mara performed an experiential piece, read in between a recording of “Don’t Think Twice it’s Alright,” sung by Joan Baez and The Indigo Girls. Another piece she read was inspired by a National Geographic article that likened being in love to obsessive compulsive disorder …The conversation heart you gave me on valentine’s day … was probably spiked with dopamine. I never ate it … But if I had, I could have avoided months of clichés … I read two serious poems, one of which is brand new and the result of a recent therapy session. Feeling a little guilty about possibly bumming the audience out, I promised to follow those poems with one that would make them laugh. And it did!

At the Dentist

It’s too late to pretend
that the overhead lamp
is the sun in Tahiti
and the reclining chair
is a floating raft in a blue green sea

Because the tube in my mouth
I could be sipping a drink from
is not really a straw for pina colada
and the grinding drill I hear coming closer
is not the blender that mixed it

~Colleen

Posted by Colleen at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

Floyd Fest is different this year. There is no mud. No rain or fog. No hurricane skirted the site, as it has in the past, and festival goers have had to drop the nickname “Fog Fest,” because there is none.

The crowds are noticeably larger. Is that why I lost my parked car and almost missed my scheduled 3:00 poetry reading under the Poet Tree? My husband, Joe, came to the rescue. Not only had he built the benches for Poet Tree area, but he arrived to the reading from a hula hoop workshop in the African village just in time to recover my poems from our lost-to-me car, and he mustered up a last minute impromptu audience for us from down at Hill Holler Stage.

Mara got acupuncture from The Healing Arts Tent to rev up her bravado. Is that how she was able to stand on the literal soap box like a town crier and belt out poetry to passers-by?

I, on the other hand, sat down to read when it was my turn. Our crowds at the Poet Tree are always modest, but you know, I’m shy and sort of like it that way.

The Poet Tree is popular with the kids. Not because it’s a free speech zone or an open mic. They don’t come to hear poetry. They do not stand on the soapbox to complain about President Bush, read their own poems, or organize a revolt against public school. They like the Poetree because there are apples in it!

Post Notes: I’m headed out to Floyd Fest again today. I plan on checking my blog comments at the Blue Nova wireless tent on site. The Roanoke Times has a blogger blogging on the event as it's been happening. You can check it out HERE.

Posted by Colleen at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)