Poet’s Groove, Blue Nile Restaurant, Minneapolis

Attending the poetry reading last month stirred up an interest to explore other poetic opportunities in the Twin Cities. The Artist’s Quarter in St. Paul has had an Open Poetry night on Monday nights for some time. I was less aware of the Poet’s Groove at the Blue Nile restraurant, a little southeast of downtown Minneapolis. Cole Sarar writes:

Lots of open mics are awkward, empty affairs, tucked into corners of coffee houses and bars, their schedules unreliable. The Poet’s Groove is something else entirely. It’s been a weekly Seward neighborhood institution for six years, and calls the Blue Nile home. Hip-hop/spoken-word artist (and winner of the Twin Tongues award) Desdamona hosts along with drumming phenomenon Kevin Washington. One of the event’s biggest draws is the live house band; they can make trite poetry sound downright brilliant. A pickup band populated with musicians of every race and age, its strength comes in adapting to the style of the performer at the mic. The Poet’s Groove won “Best Open Mic” at the inaugural Urban Griots Spoken Word Awards this year, and with good reason.

So who was there around 10:00? There was a group of 10 people already waiting to sign in. There was an Augsberg English/philosophy double major and a couple of his friends, 3 rappers, 4 singers, a lady reading her poetry, and me.

I had brought three classic poems (“Only You” by Rumi, “Last Night, As I Was Sleeping” by Antonio Machado, and “Stealing Sugar from the Castle” by Robert Bly), and three of my poems (“The Book,” “A Poem Is Writing Itself In Me,” and “America Is Thinking To Itself Today“). As the chitchat progressed between 10:00 and 11:00, it became clear that vibe of the Poet’s Groove is to bring your own creations to the party, so I decided I would do my own poems.

Ann Betz was the lady who read her own poetry. Her poetry was fine, but I realized the audience of about 50 people didn’t really care if it was her first time or not. I also realized they wanted something with a beat. The Scarlet Villains did a rockabilly number. A singer doing a Luther Vandross song got some people showing some enthusiasm out on the dance floor. After a rapper finished his set, I was up.

I turned to the band and said “Gimme a beatnik coffee house.” The bongo player realized what I was looking for and started playing, and the rest of the band joined in. I gave “The Book” in a way I never read it before, in a self-absorbed beatnik sort of way. People seemed to like it. I got the band to switch to 3/4 time for reading “A Poem Is Writing Itself In Me.” Again there were some woo-hoos from the house. Before I went on, I had told the house bass player I wanted “America the Beautiful” as background music for one of my poems. They played it straight as I read “America Is Thinking To Itself Today.”

I say Amen to Cole Sarar’s testimony that Kevin Washington is a drumming phenomenon. He is a brimming, overflowing mug of invention, skill and imagination.

Then I got the stage and walked outside. The rapper who was on before me was outside chatting with someone. I thought he had missed me, but he said “No, no, I heard you. You did spoken-word.” I repressed the impulse to say “Oh, is that what you call it?” I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but spoken-word performer is not one of them. He was very nice and encouraged me to come back another time.

Somehow I was under the impression that the Light Rail line came to every station every 20 minutes or so. I had missed the 12:30 light rail, and I would have to wait until 1:20 to get the next one. I wasn’t particularly happy about that, so I caught the 12:40 light rail to downtown, and wolfed down a calzone at Downtown Diner, before getting home sometime around 2:00 am.

What worked? Just showing up, making preparation, having poems memorized (I had the first two memorized), acting fearlessly. What didn’t work: being unclear as to whether I wanted to hold the mike or not, not having a clear way of showing when I was finished, not having the last poem memorized well enough, so I had to look at it when I was momentarily distracted.

This was Tuesday night, and it took me a full day to calm down from how excited I was for having done this. It’s taken me another couple of days to write this blog post about it. The last time I recited a poem I wrote in front of an audience of my peers was in 1967. 42 years is a long time to wait.