Loose Leaf Notes

“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.