Once again, I got to Coffee Cartel before Jeff and Tobi. I sat at the table near where the mic would eventually be. But then I felt guilty for not securing my friends’ table, especially after a strange family sat there and started talking about staying for the poetry reading. Fortunately, after I started making sustained eye contact and softly, insistently mooing, the interlopers left and didn’t come back. Tobi and Jeff eventually arrived and claimed their regular spots.

While all that was occurring, Kevin the animated punk-rock guy was arranging printouts of his art and taping them in displays across the windows. Some looked like neurons. Some looked like embryos made of fish roe trapped in giant Day-Glo DNA strands. Some looked like close-up photographs of eye irises, if they were made from birds’ nests. They were creative and interesting and trippy. I also appreciate how much work he put into constructing his impromptu exhibit.

Most people I recognized read tonight, all but James Ysidro.

1. Jim Doane was off celebrating his first or seventy-fifth wedding anniversary, so Larry Colker flew solo tonight. He began the reading with Howard Nemerov‘s “To the Mannequins.”
2. Tresha Haefner read Naomi Shihab Nye‘s “Famous” and her own youthful, “snarky” (according to her) response to it, “That May Be So.”
3. Peter, whom I’ve seen once or twice before, read “Lonesome Whistle” and “Afterlife.” He lauded the Redondo Poets readings for giving him the poetry bug.
4. Gabrielle read “Weather Report for the Road Ahead” and “What Is Red?”
5. I read “Misdemeanors” and “King of the Road.” They went over okay, I think.
6. Tobi read “To Those Who Occupy My Heart” and “Day After Day on the Town.”
7. Hildy Lee read “Borrowed Time” and “Where Did I Go Wrong?” Apparently, according to the second poem, Hildy is entirely innocent while her husband is entirely to blame for how their son turned out. I briefly contemplated the experience of being married to or raised by Hildy Lee. While Hildy was reading, tonight’s feature, David McIntire, arrived with his wife, Cat.
8. Michael C. Ford, a familiar name if not a face yet entirely known to me, read “Final Entries from the Diary of Jesus Christ.”
9. David McIntire was introduced very well by Larry. David began with two poems from his most recent chapbook, Exit Wounds: “Fuck the Poets” and the title piece. He moved on to “This Is What You have Allowed” before reading two 30/30 poems, “This Is Where I Live” and “This Is Something I Need You to Understand,” the latter based off a Rachel McKibbens writing prompt that I also used. Also during the latter piece, Jeff’s chair collapsed under the force of David’s verbal passion and ideological integrity, so David started the poem over again. I was sitting even closer to the epicenter of poetic energy, so I sat very carefully while that piece was being retransmitted. Then David read “This Poem” and “Only in on You.” He thanked Jennifer Bradpiece for improving his next piece, “Unpronounceable.” “Impossible” followed; it’s a combination of found poem and cut-up poem. From his previous chapbook, Other, each copy of which has a unique cover designed by David and/or Cat, he read “But Your Nothing.” Finally, he read “Stare,” also from Exit Wounds.
10. After a break, Larry read Ernst Dowson‘s “Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae“ (which Larry translated as “I Am Not What I Used to Be When I Was Ruled by Cynara,” which is pretty accurate, aside from a missing “Good”), the source of the phrase “gone with the wind.”
11. Jeffrey C. Alfier read Frank Gaspar‘s “Mission,” from Mass for the Grave of a Happy Death, and his own “Overtaking the Union Pacific.”
12. Wanda VanHoy Smith read “Keypunch Secrets,” which Rick Lupert selected for the Yom ha-Shoah issue of Poetry Superhighway, and “The Love Song of a Deadhead,” an adaptation of Eliot’s poem.
13. Cory De Silva read Ron Koertge‘s “Signs and Miracles,” from Geography of the Forehead, and Koertge’s “Skeletons.”
14. Jennifer Bradpiece read two 30/30 poems, April fourth’s and another one.
15. Kevin spent his time at the mic explaining his artistic philosophy and his visual poetry.
16. Betsy, Jen Bradpiece’s friend, read her 30/30 piece “Trace Elements,” which was inspired by Peggy Dobreer‘s prompt about exploring the lake of one’s bones. Betsy thanked Jen for helping her get it into better shape. Betsy also read “Ode to Peg’s Poetry Salon.”
17. Peggy Carter read “I Will Do What You Like” and “What’s Left,” the latter also inspired by Peggy Dobreer’s prompt.
18. Cat read “Entropy”; a 30/30 poem named after a Bauhaus album, “The Sky’s Gone Out”; “Fifth Quarter”; and “Unacceptance Speech.”
19. Luke Salazar…whoops. Luke had had to leave to go to work. Larry felt bad he hadn’t called Luke up earlier. Luke now has an official website; I wish all my friends and colleagues had official websites, so I had proof that they really exist in a twenty-first-century sense. Trusting the physical universe can be so confusing.

It was getting rather late, so there was no lightning round. I was disappointed, since I had wanted to read my own response to that Rachel McKibbens prompt (“This Is Something I Need You to Understand”). But hey, I’ll get to it eventually.

The bad news is that Village Book Shop will be closing June 10. Proprietor Deborah Gould will go back to working as an Army sniper, or so Scott Noon Creley might have noted while he was making up lies about people last night, had that been one of the lies he made up rather than my own.

The good news, Scott announced, is that the San Gabriel Valley Literary Festival is now officially a non-profit organization. The spaghetti dinner last Saturday (with celebrity guest Donna Hilbert) raised enough money for them to pay the fee.

Scott added that people could now find this blog via The San Gabriel Valley Literature [sic] Festival website. As of two minutes ago, I can’t figure out where such a link to me and mine exists. I thought he said it was on the Associates page. Huh. Whatevs. On with the litany of performers:

1. First-timer Donald J. Nielsen read “Cities of Light in the Dark.”
2. Clint Margrave, doting husband of the night’s headliner, read “Internal Revenue.”
3. Andrew Turner read a thousand words from his new fiction piece, “Expectation of Love.”
4. I asked people whether I should read some of my new 30/30 poems instead of the stuff I’d initially planned to read. People in the audience, most loudly John Brantingham, cried, “No!” (Did it seem as though I were being irritatingly coy?) Anyway, I called their bluff, prompting some whining. (Hee, hee, ha. ha..) So I read my new pieces, after all. I just read April 1st’s and April 17th’s, since the two were relatively long. People found both of them quite funny. Village Book Shop always has such gracious, attentive, lively audiences. I’m going to miss it.
5. Alexander Vogel, who would find his way into my warm embrace before the night ended, read an untitled piece, followed by “The Liminality of Limits and Whether It Can Speak or Not,” a poem comprised by collecting phrases by Homi K. Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak. His final poem, retitled “Friends, Not Masters,” is a translation of Pakistani poet Umair Khan.
6. G. Murray Thomas read “This Song Always Reminds Me Of…” and “Green.”
7. Sandy Howlett, who does not look eighty years old, read “Broken Open,” “Small Talk,” and “Christmas on Morphine.”
8. Natalie Morales read “The Meaning of Life Is in a Pile on the Floor,” “Borrowed but Not Returned,” “Christmas Day,” and “Dull Sublunary Lovers’ Love.”
9. Lloyd Aquino read “Poem for Anywhere,” “Poem for Things Left Behind,” and “Road Trip Villanelle.”
10. Elder Zamora read “To a Small God,” which ended up in a journal after winning a writing contest. According to John Brantingham, when that year’s judge David Foster Wallace ran across it, he exclaimed, “That’s a good poem!”
11. Tom-Squared read what he called his “bad attempt at erotica,” as well as two poems that begin “Nine girls sitting around my coffee table…” and “When I die, the water will take me…”
12. Nicola San Juan read a poem about when her parents were staying with her, which begins, “If your insides are twisted with anger and resentment…” Her next poem, a happier piece, starts, “There’s a glow on the hills…”
13. Michaelsun Knapp, who punched a fucking seagull that tried to steal his hot dog in San Diego, read “No More Fruits,” “Jesse James and the Magpie Go Painting at Night,” and “LA Rivers.”
14. The night’s first feature, the one not married to Clint Margrave, was Jeffrey Graessley. He started with a number of poems about drinking and bars: “Bob’s Tavern,” “Nameless Nights,” “Most Days,” and “Side Street” Then he read some poems about love, romance, and family: “Room 204,” “Her Beat,” “I Did It,” “Remember That,” and finally, dedicating it to his date for the night or the love of his life, Marlena (?), “Ode to My Beauty.”
15. The night’s final feature was the fearless conqueror known as Anna Badua. She read “Life Forms,” “Evolution,” “Theory of Relativity,” and “Eta Carinae,” all of which reflect Anna’s fascination with science. She proceeded to read “The Executioner’s Prose” and “Sargasso Sea.” Then she read two poems regarding her mother, “First” and “Scorched.” “Static” and “Transience” rounded out the set.

Enriching the audience were Michelle Thomas, Ann Brantingham, Archie Brantingham, Marta Chausée, Chris McMurray, Leah Gonzales, and fine people whose names are unknown to me.

After the show, I prevailed upon Clint and Anna to hang out with us at the Brantinghams for a bit, which they did. Anna and Clint are good eggs.

In terms of emotional intelligence, I’m kind of a sub-moron, but still, sometimes, after a reading, I feel like crying for not-bad reasons. I think, “You are not sad. You are something other than sad.” I felt that way last night.

Artlife Gallery had migrated across the shopping center, moving next to Veggie Grill, an appropriate restaurant to be near for vegans like David and Cat McIntire. Or maybe that’s a dumb way to consider things. But whatever, there Artlife Gallery now is, hanging out near a meatless restaurant in El Segundo. And there, last night, Poetry Stew coalesced, rich and savory.

Some people I didn’t know, like the gallery owner, Vanessa. Others I recognized. But all the people I recognized were also poets who performed their work, so I’ll jump right into outlining who did what:

1. David read a madrigal by Lorca that began, “Like concentric waves / on the water, / your words in my heart.” David used to not get Lorca, but now he appreciates him. I like that David shares his poetic education and evolution with us, instead of acting like a pretentious poseur who pretends to know and understand every poet in the world. Plus, it’s cool to watch growth and learn about epiphanies.
2. Eric Lawson read two love poems addressed to inanimate objects, “Broken Beauty” and “Come Hither, Leafblower.”
3. Luke Salazar read a sonnet, “A Fragile Urban Hawk.” Then he read those four haikus about the dog, the vacuum cleaner, love, and the scheme of things. Those were followed by the two-part “She” and by “To Her Coercive Master.”
4. Betsy read Rumi’s “Bewilderment” and a highly-alliterative poem I think is called “My ABCs Start with F.”
5. Marty read a serious limerick with an environmental message, “If a Massive Solar Flare Doesn’t Destroy Our Civilization First.” Then he read “Unstraight,” “Left Center,” “Things,” and “Christ-Killers.” Shit! Right around this time, I realized I’d forgotten to sign up to be an open reader; I was crestfallen.
6. Jennifer Bradpiece read “In Love?” and “Overgrown.”
7. Tobi Cogswell, who was flying solo tonight, read “Middle-School Fable,” “Bulls and Cows,” and “To the Goddess with Waterbed and Cable.”
8. Peggy Carter read “Campfires of Pain,” “Recovery,” “Doldrums,” and “Do You Remember My Name?” The last poem especially made quite a splash.
9. Peggy Dobreer, who now knows my name, read “Hidden Treasures,” plus her ninth 30/30 poem and one with an enormous title. I think the last poem’s title began “When Theresa Managed the Intimate Apparel Store…”
10. I was very happy that David thought to ask whether anyone else wanted to read. I was so enthused that I gave folks a chance to hear some of my new 30/30 pieces instead of the older, maybe more mediocre poems I’d planned to present. I read April 5th’s, April 6th’s, and April 3rd’s. They went over pretty well. When the month’s over, I’ll have to give them titles.
11. The feature was Daniel McGinn, also flying solo. He began with a long poem, a reworked, 30/30-ized version of 1997′s “How Do You Like the Poem?” Then he read “Daniel,” about his name, and “Hi, Mom,” about his mother, who has Alzheimer’s. He continued the latter theme with “The Aging Process” and “Alzheimer’s Yard.” The next poems were the multi-part “Tasty Grapes” and one that starts, “I am ready to sit when you are ready to talk…” “April,” his latest writing-in-a-lawn-chair-under-a-full-moon poem, came after them. “Alternate Endings,” with its positive ideological message, received a lot of applause. He ended with a poem about a bath pillow, which begins, “Is there a need for a bath pillow…?”
12. After a break during which most people left, David initiated a lightning round. a) Peggy Carter read “Vanilla Milkshake.” b) Tobi read “Ode to Thunder,” her 9/30. c) I read “The Spam Can,” April 15th’s parody of William Blake’s “The Tyger.” d) Marty recited from memory “Strawberries Versus Zombies.” e) Daniel read “Zombie,” his piece from Aim for the Head. f) Eric read “Rain in the Marrow, Rain in the Blood.” g) And David finished the night with Mindy Nettifee’s poem from Aim for the Head, “The Thing about Having Dropped Acid an Hour Ago When the Zombies Arrive at the House Party.”

Announcements. People are doing things at places and times. David mentioned his upcoming feature for Redondo Poets at Coffee Cartel. Daniel mentioned the release party for News Clips and Ego Trips at Harvelle’s in Long Beach. I mentioned my upcoming feature for the Bank-Heavy Variety Show at Gatsby Books (Thursday, April 26, 7 P.M.!). Uh, somewhere in there, David mentioned the release party for his new chapbook, Exit Wounds. Ugh. I should have written down when and where that will be.

(Ugh, Part Two. I just checked the Write Bloody Press Submissions page and discovered its open-reading period was March 1-20! Damn it! I thought it was going to be in May, like last year! I’ve been waiting for the gates to open since June! Argh! Now I’m bummed.)

After the reading, I helped put the folding chairs away, and Cat gave me a copy of Exit Wounds, which I asked David to sign, which he did. I didn’t have any money, and won’t really have any for a couple more weeks, so I really appreciated David and Cat’s generosity, just as I appreciated the wounded comfort offered by Daniel McGinn’s poetry, just as I appreciated having a chance to read, despite my absentmindedness. I think that’s what got me choked up: gratitude. I left Artlife Gallery and Poetry Stew feeling very grateful last night.

I had no extra money, so I had to forgo the now-usual tamale-and-nachos plate at The Ugly Mug, but I did have a couple of bucks for a small peppermint tea. I eagerly await payday.

Who was there? Michael Miller was, because he’s the publisher of the new, second, greatly expanded edition of Lost American Nights: Lyrics & Poems, by the night’s feature, Michael Ubaldini. LilBob and Heather Love were there. Ricki Mandeville showed up with Kate Buckley and an unknown friend. And numerous others appeared, but I’ll get to them in the next, numbered paragraphs.

1. Ben Trigg, one of the Two Idiots Peddling Poetry, whose shirt I liked, started us off with a Rachel McKibbens poem about boobs.
2. Michael Cantin read a response to Ben’s poem about poetry weight loss: “Yo-Yo and Plateau.” Then he read a two-parter, “Passing Acquaintances,” and “Amateur Fortune Teller.”
3. Seth Halbeisen read “Flexible Math,” “In a Circle,” and “A Trail of Tears,” which involved the brutal forced relocation of Smurfs. (Before the last poem, Seth called himself a “sick bastard” — he might not have seized that title had he known which poem I was going to read. But we’ll get to that.)
4. Martha Stothard read “A Daughter’s Love,” “Mother Nature,”  and “The Inevitable Love Poem.”
5. OK, so…I try not to read the same poems in the same venue more than once. Since I’ve been at Two Idiots Peddling Poetry almost every week for ten months, there just aren’t that many poems of mine left to perform. But there are a couple remaining…tricky ones…ones I have kept deferring reading over and over. I decided to read them this month. One I read last week. This week, I did the other, “The Frotteur.” It was creepy. I then tried to cleanse the audience’s collective mental palate with “Inquisition” and “Hymn.” It partly worked, but…well, let’s just say I was left honestly wondering whether Kate would later take the stage to read some poems that would redeem the Buckley name.
6. Michael Ubaldini came on with his guitar and harmonica. He began by playing “That Girl Looks Just Like Jean Harlow.” Then he played the brand new “Who Are Ya Sleepin’ With Now?” That was followed by “The Low-Down Poverty Blues,” “The Seventh Trumpet,” and “The World Ain’t What It Used to Be.”I thought the next song might be his last, but he was just getting started. He went on to perform “Honey, When You Come Around, My Whole World Comes Crashing Down,” “Highway Ghost,” and “Sweet Old Riddle.” The next song didn’t seem to have a title; it started by asking, “Did I thank you, my darlin’, for the heartache you caused?” and discussed a cheating ex-wife. His last three songs from the dozen he played were “Walk Through Fire,” “Moonday Mad,” and “Avenue of Ten-Cent Hearts.”
7. During the break, Martha and LilBob left. So did Ricki, Kate, and their friend. Heidi and LeAnne abandoned my table to occupy the now-vacant couch. Heather stuck around, though. Ben got us back in the game with Raundi K. Moore Kondo’s 30/30 poem (15/30), “No One Gives Good Prophecy Anymore.”
8. Cole Steffenson, who’s apparently only a senior in high-school, despite or perhaps underscoring his prowess as a beginner, read “For the Girl Who Knows What She Likes, But Not What She Wants,” an untitled piece, and “Iron.”
9. Daniel Romo read “The Office” and “To Kill a Mockingbird Synopsis, Chapters 21-23.”
10. Heidi Denkers was having a rough few days, so she picked angsty poems. She read two untitled poems that started, “I like to believe that I am the crawling on broken glass…” and “I like the burnt matchsticks best…” Then she wrapped up with a piece written before coming to the cafe that night, a multiple-part poem which began, “1. She doesn’t know a thing of her quills…”
11. James Kelly was feeling fragmented and fractured, so he picked what he called “chaotic” poems: “What We Become,” “e. e. cummings in Respect to Asking William Carlos Williams for Twenty-Five Dollars, or, The Ballad of the One-Legged Girl,” and #5 in a series of poems written for the serial numbers of various items around his house.
12. LeAnne Hunt read “Division of Labor,” “A Cannonball Midget on Her Coffee Break,” and the lengthy “Bearded-Woman Contortionist Bends Backwards.”
13. Other Poetry Idiot Steve Ramirez, who once again got to relax on the couch because Jaimes Palacio had all Steve’s sound equipment, read “Fortunetelling 101,” “Word Problems,” an an untitled piece beginning, “I was driving the bridge that crosses the Narrows, when I saw her.”
14. Ben Trigg wrapped up the night with “What’s Missing from My Skill Set” and “12/30, in Which #12 Is Reluctant to Exist.”

After the reading, I sat in my chair for a while. It was later than usual, almost eleven. People told me that my first poem had disturbed them, but nobody said he or she now despised me. Good. Phil conspicuously shut down the joint. It was an interesting night. I’m looking forward to next week’s “Down with O.P.P.” show. Looking into other people’s oeuvres will set me up better to re-examine my own, I hope.

I didn’t want to be relegated to the couches and chairs in back, so I got to Coffee Cartel nice and early to grab a table. I thought about grabbing Tobi and Jeff‘s usual table, but that would have made Baby Jesus cry, so I got one over by the bookcases. It’s also good that I didn’t steal Jeff and Tobi’s table because Peggy Carter came back tonight with her bionic knee, and that table’s third seat is traditionally hers.

G. Murray Thomas appeared with a new haircut and sat with me at my table, along with a short stack of copies of his latest endeavor, a collection of articles from Next… magazine, called News Clips and Ego Trips. It was larger than I expected. Once I get money, I should buy a copy.

John Schlegel was in attendance, even though he had moved to San Diego some weeks ago. So was this anonymous, middle-aged Asian guy with a mustache whom I’ve been seeing everywhere lately.

Both Larry Colker and Jim Doane appeared. Tables got scooted; equipment got set up. The reading began.

1. Larry offered up the sacrificial poem, Marie Howe‘s “My Mother’s Body,” which she had read for Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air.
2. Wanda VanHoy Smith read “Woody’s Birthday” and “Black and White Education.”
3. I read “VIP” and “I’m Not Going to Lie to You.” My pacing was terrible, stultifying, glacial.
4. Some young guy named Zack, whom I might have seen here before, recited a piece with a name I missed, because he didn’t speak into the mic, and then read an untitled poem.
5. John Schlegel read “In a Tailored Suit, Holding a Flashlight” and a poem dedicated to all of his friends at Coffee Cartel, “I Don’t Drink Coffee.”
6. Dina Hardy, tonight’s feature, received her bachelor’s in film, video, and animation at Pratt. Then she earned her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Then she became a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Basically, she has a pipin’ hot CV. More basically, the dame has artistic chops. She made a small box filled with one hundred poetry triggers. She wrote a chapbook called Grocery Shopping with Roy Lichtenstein. Tonight, she predominantly read from her latest creation, Selections from The World Book. She began with “Radio-Radio, Page 6744.” Then came the first piece she wrote for this project, “Home-Honduras, Page 3500.” That was followed by “English Sparrow-Engraving, Page 2360″ and “Dinwiddie-Diphtheria, Page 1996.” She concluded her set with “Wordsworth-Workers, Page 8857″ and “Folklore-Folklore, Page 2651.”
7. During a break in which quite a few people left and Tobi amused Murray and me [Hi, Tobi!], I learned the name of the hitherto-anonymous Asian guy, whom I met in line for the bathroom. He’s Dana, as in Dana Point. After the break, Richard read the piece that had designated him one of the three finalists for the Aquarium of the Pacific‘s Urban Ocean Poetry Contest: “Salt Air and the Seal.” He also read a poem, “It Doesn’t Get Much Better,” from his upcoming book of beach poetry.
8. Peggy Carter read “Across My Face” and “Doldrums.”
9. Murray read a short prose piece from News Clips and Ego Trips, an article he wrote in 1994, “Poetry Bridges Across Cultural Gaps.”
10. Alfredo, Dina’s husband, read “Mechanic.”
11. Christian read two untitled pieces that respectively began with “It’s easier talking to strangers…” and “Pain relievers…”
12. E. Michael Pearl dramatically recited “Waiting in War.”
13. James Ysidro read “Noir” off his phone.

There was then a raffle. Dina Hardy agreed to raffle off a copy of her latest chapbook. Richard won with slip #12; he was having a good week.

During the lightning round, a) Peggy read “Clock,” b) John Schlegel read a haiku he’d written there that night, c) I (as Jim put it, “Not the other John, but the slower John…”) read my 30/30 poem from April 11th, d) Murray read a piece from Poetry about Patricia Smith’s meeting Gwendolyn Brooks, e) Christian recited a piece that started “Damn, homeys, in high school…,” f) Judy sang a song about shoes that isn’t finished yet, g) James Y. read “Conversations in Unknown Languages,” h) Jim Doane read a poem about a world in which poetry is a science instead of an art, and i) Larry read “The End” by Eric Roy from an issue of  Slipstream.

But the night was not quite over. Dina Hardy was invited back to the mic for an encore, a request she obliged by reading “Corona.”

Tuesday night. Wednesday morning’s tough. I went home.

Tonight marked the one-year anniversary of After the Carnival’s holding its second-Friday readings at Exhibit [A] Gallery. In addition to the usual wine and water, curator Sarah Miller also supplied beer and hors d’oeuvres. Sarah was also tonight’s feature, along with her co-curator, Mike “No Relation” Buckley. While people like gallery owner Evan Patrick Kelly, Tom Thomas, and Tamara Madison drank and nibbled, Detroit multi-instrumentalist Garland Campbell played jazz saxophone with French keyboardist Laurent ______, who supplemented his piano-playing with bouts on the melodica, or “piano-hookah.” (I made up that name.)

I’m terrible in cocktail-party situations, feeling nervous, awkward, and stupid. (Why did I come here right at seven?) So after I compulsively grazed on the food, I sat down and listened to the music. Eventually, I calmed down.

To kick off the reading portion of the night, Anna Something-mati read a section (“Section XIII: Dedications”) of the recently-departed Adrienne Rich‘s Atlas of a Difficult World.

Mike read two stories, “The Mysterious Contraption, or Why So Many of My Characters Suffer Forcible Amputations” and a selection from “Robot-Ninja Love Story.”

Sarah recited a poem, “Kiss.” Then she read a story, “Toledo,” and part of a book, Deciduous, on which she’s working. She followed that with five poems: “Dialogue,” “Bougainvillea,” “Oil Change,” “Imprint,” and “Abandoned.”

Then the jazz musicians played.

Then we went to a bar and grill, the very crowded Congregation. Then I remembered that I’m trying not to drink alcohol this month, that I’m trying not to eat too late at night this month, that I had very little cash on me that night, that I didn’t even have enough on me to repay Tom his $15. So I went home before I could get in trouble with myself, playing The Smiths’ Meat Is Murder album in the car and wading just a bit in a shallow puddle of self-pity and nighttime hunger.

I wanted a Mexican hot chocolate or mocha, but I was feeling fat, so I ordered a mint tea. I saw Sergei Smirnov and Nicole Street and Jack-the-possible-Republican and Toren. I made a tiny paper Daniel Romo to save an extra seat until the real deal showed up, which he eventually did. I felt a little like a blossoming former secret, because while most of the audience and the host didn’t know who I was, those who did know welcomed me warmly and audibly.

There was no feature, just an open mic:

1. Nicole read “Breasts Undercover.”
2. I read “Ouranos” and “Flicker, Thud,” two very old (ha! 2009!) poems that used to be my “best” ones, until I discovered that worthwhile verse doesn’t have to be contorted, esoteric, pretentious. Anyway, I bumbled through each piece, messed up a number of words, and left the stage ashamed that I hadn’t brought my A game. Then again, it was time to test these former big dogs out at a reading. It had to happen at some point.
3. Daniel read “Reliving” and “Litmus.”
4. Bah Leshi probably has a real name, Bob Something. But because of illegible handwriting on the sign-up sheet, he became Bah Leshi. He plays guitar; he played it well.
5. Riley Davidson and Jackie Gray sang and played piano. I don’t know who did what.
6. Fernando played guitar and sang a song called “First Song.”
7. A Palestinian poet named Rima (?) read “What Magic” accompanied by Bah Leshi on guitar.
8. Jack, a social commentator as much as a poet, read “Power Seekers,” “This Is Not a Replay,” and “It’s Not Going Back to the Way It Was.”
9. Tim played guitar and sang “Only.”
10. Sergei, who used to be Daniel’s student in high school, who is now Jeff Epley‘s student, read “America,” “Moments Framed,” and “God Doesn’t Pretend to Be Me.”
11. George McKillip played ukulele and sang a protest song about a federal sting operation. eventually complete with SWAT team, designed to catch wicked Amish dairy farmers who dared to smuggle raw milk across state lines.
12. Kat Chambers played guitar and sang a great cover of The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy.”
13. Toren read “Upon Seeing an Old Friend Once Thought Dead,” “Upon Spending the Night with an Old Friend Once Thought Dead,” and “Upon Waking in the Morning with an Old Friend Once Thought Dead.”
14. Ethan, whose birthday it was, played guitar. He was now eighteen.
15. Iman (sp?) recited a slammy poem inspired by two different people.
16. Tom took a while to get set up. He had an app called Band in a Box on his iPhone. He played guitar and sang “Harvest Time” about a guy stealing corn, all the while being accompanied by the virtual band on his phone.
17. Vicki/Vicky/Vickie read two poems about spring, “The Art of Waiting” and “We Have Not Met, Not Yet.”
18. Ryan Cyrano (sp?) sang and played guitar.
19. Britney/Brittany sang and played guitar.
20. Alex played guitar and sang Death Cab for Cutie’s “I’ll Follow You into the Dark.”
21. Richard played guitar and sang “Roll Over, Beethoven.”
22. Francisco played what looked like a mini-guitar and sang a Dolly Parton song, accompanied by Alex and Richard.
23. Raven, whose first time it was on stage, sang “Frankie and Johnny.”
24. Our host Alessandra played guitar and sang a song by her band, Lucky Penny. She also had solo CDs to buy.

I wonder if Raquel would enjoy this open mic, since it’s not all poetry? She was still at the gym when I left, so I didn’t have a chance to invite her along.

You know whom I’ve been told I need to write more about? Jacob Slobodien. Yes, Jacob Slobodien. Like a whispering zephyr through the branches of the willow under moonlight, Jacob Slobodien. Like a garbage truck of the Apocalypose violently spewing steel trash cans through the living-room picture windows of ranch houses on a once-quiet suburban street, Jacob Slobodien. Like the grip of the python, Jacob Slobodien. Like the five o’clock factory whistle, Jacob Slobodien. Where are the snows of yesteryear? With Jacob Slobodien.

Jacob.

Slobodien.

Jacob.

Slobodien.

Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien. Jacob Slobodien.

Okay, I think I’ve gotten that out of my system. For now.

Like fine wines or cheeses, Phil’s microwave tamales and nachos grow ever more savory as the weeks pass. Not really, but not not-really, either. We all have eaten worse food at home. This time, I tried the chili-cheese tamale; I think I prefer the pork.

This week, Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at The Ugly Mug featured a fundraiser for ¡Duende!, a collective of young slam poets from the Long Beach area and their two coaches, Mae Ramirez and Michelle Denise Jackson.

Martha Stothard was present when I arrived, but not Robert “LilBob” Lanphar, who had just become a grandfather. Congratulations, LilBob!

I don’t know what’s going on with the usual equipment, but once again, the Poetry Idiots used Phil’s gear and Steve Ramirez got to chill on the couch with Carrie.

Raundi Moore-Kondo showed up, but only for a fraction of a millisecond. I think it was some quantum thingamadeal.

Oh, boy, who was there that stuck around but didn’t read during the open reading? Lee Weissman, with daughter Sara, showed up for the second week in a row. Heidi Denkers came. Everyone else that I know took a turn at the mic.

1. Ben offered up a Robert Wynne 30/30 poem to get us started.
2. David “the Sidewinder” Ohlsen loves you. Just know this. He read two 30/30 pieces, “The Ownership of Color” and “We All Scream for Ice Cream.”
3. Seth also read some 30/30 poems: “The Farmer,” “The Inexorably Complicated yet Incomparably Simple Game,” and “The Year of My Awakening.” Apparently, Seth has been very scrupulous about following the official prompts, wherever he happens to get them from.
4. Carrie was yet another one sharing 30/30 poems: “Conversations with a Pitcher of Sangria on My Birthday” and “Ode to Boron.” The latter poem made Ben laugh so hard he cried. Jacob Slobodien and I had a fun time watching him.
5. Leslie Maryann Neal read “The Apple Never Falls Far from the Tree — She Jumps,” “Single,” and “Very Superstitious.”
6. Suddenly, a sense of overwhelming duende seized the audience. Okay, no, anyway, ¡Duende! took the stage — six teenaged members of the official slam team, their two coaches, and the unofficial grand-slam champion. They were and are trying to raise money to get to Brave New Voices in San Francisco. So far, they have raised $1800, which is just enough to register and get two of the group up there. So far, they have thus not raised nearly enough. I hope they reach their financial goal. Coach Mae Ramirez performed first. She recited “Espiritu and Godwin” and her response to a Sandra Cisneros poem, “You Bring Out the Mexican in Me.” The other coach, Michelle Denise Jackson, then performed two pieces from her chapbook, a poem about mating and evolution (or lack thereof) and “Away We Go.” The first member of the slam team, Claudia Chen, who is just shy of eighteen years old, performed a lovelorn piece with a title I missed, followed by a happy piece (“Resilient”) and an inspirational piece (“Empathy”). Abrielle Parker’s poem began “I am a seed…” and discussed the process of growing up. Then Hatefas Yop, a nineteen-year-old from Santa Ana, recited a fierce poem about being a “womyn” and a poem about and for her dad, whom she blames for so much but whose acceptance she craves. Bucket Manyweather, insouciant transgressor of gender boundaries, performed “Conversations with Socially-Constructed Gender Norms” and a piece that begins, “She has skyscraper fantasies…” India Ford addressed “My Community” and a love poem that starts “I once read on somebody’s Facebook…” The next poet scored the highest in the recent grand slam; Xavier Buck’s two poems begin “I am invisible…” and “There was a time when I couldn’t understand…” The final poet from ¡Duende!, Mr. Ade Ford, turned out to be the seventh wheel on the six-wheel slam team, hence his role as the “unofficial” grand-slam champion. His coaches hope that at seventeen, he still has two more years to secure his place and get to nationals. His poem starts, “I never really fit into a box…”
7. After the break, during which I bought a twelve-dollar ¡Duende! t-shirt for twenty bucks — I was just going to give them twenty bucks, but I liked the t-shirt — Ben read a 30/30 piece by Daniel McGinn.
8. Okay, my turn to read. I was frigging nervous. The poems I picked to read were pretty bleak and could paint me in a terrible light. The first one, “Reverie,” discusses reflecting on a group assault on a teenage girl back in high school days, an assault in which the speaker (“I”) is complicit. The second, “Cancer Is the Answer,” is a bitter, not entirely ironic dark prayer in which I myself deal with my mother’s death by asking God to give me terminal cancer, too. I was especially worried about the second poem because everyone has a loved one who has suffered from, died from, or is wrestling with cancer; I still recall my manuscript getting shot down by a publisher whose wife had died of cancer, who found my poem in unforgivably bad taste. What to do? I decided to go for it, to explain and contextualize beforehand, but then really put my heart into each piece while I was up on the stage. I think it worked. At least, no one whom I offended let me know. Jacob Slobodien gave me a fist-bump when I returned to our table. LeAnne said it was awesome. Phew!
9. Mike Cantin lightened the mood with three 30/30 poems: “At Play,” “The Cretaceous Carnivore Cantankerous,” and “The Sting of Obsession,” in which he uncovers the creepiness at the heart of that one Police song.
10. A recently clean-shaven Samuel Rees had been sitting at my table before the reading, writing intently. Then he darted away, until this moment, when he took the stage to read “Depravity.” I was very impressed by the quality of a poem he had banged out just an hour earlier.
11. Cole Steffenson read poetry at an open-mic for the first time anywhere last night. He read the first poem he had ever written, “Where They Find It,” plus “It Gets Better.” For a first-timer reading a first poem, he was utterly fantastic.
12. Jacob Slobodien read “What I See” and “The First Time.”
13. LeAnne Hunt read her 30/30 pieces, about which she seemed ambivalent, at best. I thought they were fine. She read a piece that starts, “Hatched bald but for a few tufts…” and then “For Tamara” and “The Year of the Takeoff.”
14. Steve Ramirez busted out his 30/30 poems, which had been impressing a lot of people of Facebook, it seems. He read the ones that begin “The insomniac’s bible is written in Braille…” and “In the mirror, he shaves with the wrong hand…” Then he read “We Were Lesbians That Summer Strictly for Political Reasons.”
15. Ben Trigg pulled out his own 30/30 poems: “Poem Beginning with a Ghost Line by April Lindner,” “The Thing about My Beard,” and “Poetry Weight Loss.” It’s cool to experience when the Two Idiots set hosting aside for a second to demonstrate their own respectable poetic chops.

After the reading, Seth came up to me and shook my hand. He really liked the poem. His dad died of cancer and some of my poem’s images rang true for him. It was good to talk with Seth, to listen to him tell me about his father, a former bodybuilder, a jokester to the end, despite the weight loss, despite the medical complications. It was good to meet and see and get to know another person.

P.S. — Jacob Slobodien

I like Danielle Mitchell. I first met her last week at The Gypsy Den in Santa Ana, when she sat at my group of tables. The poems she read during the open reading were splendid. Then she turned out to be friendly and very nice, so I friended her on Facebook. Tuesday evening, I got to witness much more of her poetic kung-fu prowess at the Marina Pacifica Barnes and Noble in Long Beach. Her poetry was even splendider, and she was still very nice. I like gracious people. They provide me with positive examples to emulate, so I can stop acting squirrelly and suspecting I have Asperger’s.

Also attending were Leigh White, Alan Passman, and a bunch of open readers:

1. Host G. Murray Thomas started us off with Robert Wynne‘s “Thomas Kinkade’s The Crucifixion,” in honor of the schlock artist’s death on Good Friday. Since Poetry magazine had sent him a bunch of free copies, he read from one of them a poem, Rick Barot‘s “The Wooden Overcoat,” and a brief non-fiction piece about Patricia Smith‘s meeting Gwendolyn Brooks.
2. Luke Salazar read “Just Your Tune,” “Trashdigger,” and “Parsnips.” I wish Luke had his own website. I keep seeing him at readings and want to link his name to something that is all his own.
3. Nicole Street read “She Bought into Barbie” and “Beyond Baroque.”
4. Linda Delmont read “F1433 at the DMV” and “The Prize Fighter.”
5. Lori McGinn read poems that begin “You will find me in the blue mountains…,” “I love my mom, don’t get me wrong…,” and “In this winter land, eyes lifted up…”
6. Daniel Romo read “Little League Primer” and “General News, August 3rd, 2011.” I hope my making-a-living-teaching-as-a-college-adjunct-professor mojo rubs off on him and his getting-one’s-own-book-published mojo rubs off on me.
7. Eric Lawson read “Always Evolving, Never Growing Up” and “Snobservation.”
8. Danielle Mitchell started her set by semi-reciting “Witchery,” from her 2010 chapbook Poem Food and from here. Also from her chapbook and that online poetry sampler came “Mr. Floppy, Winkie, Wilma, Winterfred, and Roy.” Then she read two Sylvia-Plath-related poems, one dedicated to Nicholas Hughes, Plath’s son, a scientist who committed suicide in 2009 — “The Migration” — and “Photograph Advertisement for the Barbizon Hotel for Women. Circa 1953,” which is also one of her 30/30 poems (#4). She read a postcard poem, “Postcard from Naples — Long Beach, CA,” as well as “Level One” and “Fragments of a Lover.” Her last three poems were “How to Act Natural,” “This Message Is Brought to You by…,” and “What Open Windows Do.” As she finished each poem, she dropped its page to the floor. She molted verse.
9. I read “Sheltered Boy” and “Glib.” Eh, I did okay. Both poems are pretty new but not brand spanking, 30/30 new — maybe from February?
10. Tobi Cogswell read “The Insistence of Extraordinary” and the first of her 30/30s, “The Bench Outside the Thrift Store.”
11. Jeff Alfier read “Terlingua, Texas” and “Passeggiata.”
12. Ken Starks read “The Preacher Man” and “They, Rabbit People.”
13. Murray read Mary Powell’s “Sagittarius” for her. She thought Murray would do a better job of reading it than she. Murray does read well. But Mary does fine, too. Still, it’s probably kinda neat to hear your words come out of someone else’s mouth.
14. Daniel McGinn read “These Are the Jokes, Folks” and “Flower Child.”
15. Ricki Mandeville read “Enough of Paris” and “My First Cocktail Party as an Army Wife.”
16. Ben Trigg, whom I gently poked to ensure he is not a hologram that does not exist outside the confines of The Ugly Mug, read several 30/30 poems, “Daniel McGinn Says It’s a Poem, So It Is,” “On the Day the Cat Died,” and “Poetry Weight Loss.”
17. Jeff Wile (sp?) read “Lot’s Wife” and “Feeding Cats.”
18. Murray read two of his own poems, “This Song Always Reminds Me of…” and “Learning to Dance,” both pieces about love, rejection, and music.

After the reading, I picked up a free copy of Poetry and a copy of Poem Food. Danielle signed and dated her chapbook, but didn’t write a personal note, which made me a little sad. Oh well.

She also didn’t have change for my twenty, so Eric Lawson lent me five bucks so I could get it, which I both hate and appreciate. Now I owe Tom Thomas $15 and Eric $5. Even as I pay off my credit cards, I grow indebted to my friends.

Tonight’s event was going to be held in Exhibit [A] Gallery, the usual spot for After the Carnival gigs, but some double-booking had taken place, so we scootched a block down Pine to another, newer Vayden Roi space.

First, the charming and lovely Sarah Miller welcomed everyone. Then Raindog said a few words about the value of small presses. Then the young superhero team known as Bank Heavy Press said a few words about the launch of their new publications, the anthology Avoid Ninja Stars and the split chapbook by Zack Nelson Lopiccolo and Josue Mendoza, Dancing with Scissors/Dying Quietly in a Crowded Room.

1. Clifton Snider began the reading with “The James Dean Memory Club” and “History.”
2. Ian Koehler, whose appearance in Avoid Ninja Stars marks his first journal publication, read “Benzodiazepine Blues” and “Mister Samsa.”
3. Bobby Lux, another first-time publishee, read “In Residual Memoriam” and (I think) “The Reel Awards Were All Too Real.”
4. Luke Salazar, tonight’s feature (he’s the featured poet in Avoid Ninja Stars), wriggled into an early spot long enough to read one poem, since he had three friends in the audience who had to leave pretty soon. He read “I Promised Myself I’d Only Write One Bitter Divorce Poem, and This Is It.”
5. Olivia Somes, with whom I will feature at the next Bank-Heavy Variety Show on Thursday, April 26, read “Rough Draft” and “Upon My Release from Prison: A To-Do List from Solitary Confinement.”
6. Tamara Madison read “Coping with Addiction” and “Missing Whom.”
7. Casey Holman read “It’s sort of about fidelity” and “California State Highway 74.”
8. Linda Delmont read “Jujube” and (I think) “On Burying a Heron.”
9. After a break that was supposed to last three minutes but magically expanded, things got wetter, wilder, and woollier. Apollo gave way to Dionysus. People started getting louder and interruptier. Whoop, whoop! Luke finished the rest of his set. He read “Even My Bad Ideas Are Pretty Fucking Good” and four haikuses. While reciting “Yet Another of My Many Bad Ideas,” he wandered to the back of the room and poured himself some more wine; I was sincerely impressed by his multitasking. I would have made a mess. He spent some time speaking out in favor of clapping after each poem, to implicate the audience better in the performance. Then he read “To the Curb” and “Almost Empty” before shifting tonal gears with “Her Life Is Like a Smiths Song.” Finally, he read “ICU (for Mom)” as he once more wandered to the back of the room for additional refreshments.
10. Josue and Zack read selections from the chapbook. Zack read “A Bad Poem.” Josue read “Twilight Has Left Me Poor and Romanceless”; at first, I thought he said “Toilet” instead of “Twilight” — a Freudian auditory slip? Zack read “Sex,” and then Josue read “Men Are Bears, Women Are Firefighters.”
11. Cory read “A List of Hobos.” That one, kind of a bummer in its bleak examination of the homeless, calmed people down a bit.
12. Karie read “Longevity” and “An Example of Bad Love Poetry.”
13. Tonight’s poetic caboose, Jeff Epley, read “The New Civility Is the Old Civility with a String Tied Around Its Finger” and “The Paris Code of Conduct.”

After the reading, I went over to Clint and Anna’s house, where a magical cone of silence and impenetrable blackness fell over the proceedings inside. I left pretty early, because I didn’t want to alienate Raquel, but I wish I could have stayed longer. People I like, including me, were having fun.