Java is a new café that recently opened on Route 40 in Howard County Maryland. It’s wonderful to have a place less than 10 minutes from my house where they hold open mic nights every 2nd and 4th Thursdays, bands on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays, and authors on Saturdays! This café also enables people to register to vote here, which I think is a wonderful way to encourage people to engage in the civic process. I just wish you could vote here!
Also – they have wireless access here, so this blog is being posted LIVE!
Still in its infancy, the crowd is small, roughly 20 people right now. There’s a large group of high-school aged friends and a few scattered couples. As of 9, only 3 people’ve signed up on the list.
Ryan Mergan, the host, opened the evening with a hilarious poem that played on the metaphor of the glass as a way of looking at the world, mocking everyone from paranoid people to hippies to crack addicts. I wish I was typing faster, because so many of the lines in this poem are gems! Mike read forcefully and energetically, and even his fun turquoise-lime-pink paisley shirt gave energy to his performance.
Douglas performed next, singing a soulful a capella rendition of “The Lord is my Shepherd.” He had a very rich voice, and it was very pleasant to listen to him. The next group was also musically inclined. Zach and Elliott, the duo comprising a yet un-named band, performed three songs. All three were mellow, very pleasant for easy listening.
The next reader was Pat, who graduated from Catsonville High School this year and is going to Emerson College in the fall to study creative writing. He read a series of original poems. The first was about drinking beer with his brother before his brother went to Iraq. The next was a series of short hiku’s about psychological disorders: schizophrenia, seasonal affective disorder, and turrets. The third was a “terrible, sappy love poem,” in the words of the poet, but I thought it was tender and far from clichéd. His next poem was an homage to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, based off of Pat’s own autobiography. I loved the imagery, especially since I could relate to so many of the locations and Maryland phenomena he described.
Natalie read next. She first recited Anita Franko’s poem “The Slant” from memory. Dressed in black, she held hands behind her back and stood still as she recited. A very traditional elocution pose. Next, she read two more of Pat’s pieces. “The City Zen Artists” and “The Imaginary.” She ended with a piece of her own called “Detonate”.
During the break, you could hear the high-schoolers/recent graduates discussing their performances enthusiastically and energetically, critiquing themselves and supporting each other. They seem, to me, a talented group. I hope they bring this energy forward into their college careers and beyond!
Ryan performed again, with energy and from memory. He opened with a piece raging against society’s tendency to value physical beauty and instead declared that we need to value intelligence more. Well rendered, this piece was both powerful and absolutely hilarious. For much of the second half of the poem was partially sung, and he played well off of pop culture, with numerous allusions and such phrases as, “talk nerdy to me”.
The next poem, opened with the line, “I want all the fuck ups in the room to know that I love you guys.” It got “awwws” from one of the women in the room. Ryan proceeded to talk about Jason, and “no batter how badly you fuck up your life, Jason Gonzales has you beat”. Having failed his attempt at suicide off of the Golden Gate Bridge, Jason became an anti-suicide advocate. The rest of the poem was a lament for Jennifer, the narrator’s drug-buddy that succeeded at suicide. Her death prompted the narrator to change his life. “Real bravery’s fucked up…you look right into your demon’s eyes and find God and tell eternity to wait.”
Ryan then introduced “E the Poet Emcee,” a major figure in the spoken word movement, especially Hip-hop poetry. E is the CEO of Torchlight entertainment, and he has published 12 spoken word CDs. He’s also major figure behind Maryland Black Arts as well as the host at the Yabba Pot’s Saturday evening open mic nights, “The Art of Conversation: where open mic poetry meets open minded conversation.” E praised the young poets before beginning.
The first poem was a wonderful defense of spoken word and hip-hop as art and poetry. He put Jibber Jabber into the poem, personalizing it. He said that we “talk about the revolution, but I’ll really try to be it.” As he performed, E moved around the performance area. He spoke without the mike, rhymed, and had a very pronounced hip-hop cadence. He made eye contact with the audience and made an effort to engage them.
E next gave a little interlude with relationship advice that led into the next piece. Don’t play the “me two game.” The next poem was entitled “I don’t play the me two game….” and the title went on. E joked about that being the short name. The poem continued to list the features that the narrator was looking for in a lover. It was full of beautiful, complex rhymes, interesting allusions, and simple truth. The basic message was that the poet wanted a partner and supporter, not an object, as a lover.
The next poem E called an intergenerational piece. It was about a conversation he had with an old woman in North Avenue, a rough neighborhood in Baltimore. It spoke a lot about the relationship between mother and son and the lives of poor, black, older women and their relationship with the younger generation. He declared that “America’s like chemotherapy and people’d rather live with cancer because it burns less”, and, in the old woman’s voice, “we just trying to survive between the hours of 9 to 5”.
The final piece that E performed was a delightful allegory that personified Reality, Escape, and Fantasy in terms of jealous lovers. Or, perhaps it was a delightful allegorization of actual romantic experiences. Ultimately, E described the importance of committing oneself to life. “So instead of being stressed out over life, you might just try to live”, he proclaimed.
Though the crowd was small this time, I suspect that it will be growing soon. I know that I’ll be back for the rest of the summer, and, depending on when they fall, over breaks. I hope Ellicott City realizes what a wonderful opportunity to enjoy and support live art that they now have in their very own backyard! The next performance is July 10, and Chris (AKA Julio Magic Pants) from the Baltimore Slam Team (2006) will be there. So will I!!!
