Loose Leaf Notes

Sitting in the wallflower chair in the far corner of the café at February’s Spoken Word night, I realized that my nerves at poetry readings are directly related to the size of the crowd that turns out. The bigger it is the bigger they are. From my corner perch I counted 45 people. This is a small town. Chairs had to be brought in from the Winter Sun Music Hall. Where is my comfy couch when I need it?

Café del Sol owner Sally was in form as the emcee ring leader. “I’ll be short and sweet. I’m already short and sweet,” said the five-foot musician barista.

The usual suspects were joined by a few first-timers. One newcomer to the café stage, Christine Behrens, begged her cat Lotus not to bring dead mice in the house by way of a poem she read while wearing my borrowed reading glasses. She also read an ode to life in Floyd, saying that poetry has been flowing since she’s been in here.

Several read from the hot-off-the-press second printing of the Floyd’s new literary and arts magazine, Floyd Country Moonshine. Wise Countian author Neva Bryan saved her Moonshine flavor, “The Devil’s Better Half,” for the end of the evening because of its subject matter. “How R rated can a girl from Wise County be?” Sally asked as she called Neva up for a second reading. Sex, drugs, and jail Dixie Chicks style (reminiscent of their song “Earl”) was the answer.

Jayn Avery read a poem about an abandoned house and the sap being tapped from the maple trees on her farm. Katherine Chantal announced a new genre of poems to add to her signature tea poems. Grandchildren. ‘Will it be a boy or a girl?’ she asked in a poem dealing with the adjustment she had to make learning the sex of her grandchildren early by way of high tech machinery.
Don Nathan read from The Tao of Pooh, followed by his first poem in 30 years. And did you know that Pluto was now a verb? After poet Mara Robbins explained that “pluto” now means “to demote,” she read “Pluto takes out the garbage,” inspired by the recent meteor that fell in Texas.

Both Aaron Moore and Jay Settle, editor and co-editor of Floyd County Moonshine, read works of some of the magazine’s contributors who were unable to attend the open mic. Jay also read his poem “Canning Season,” and Aaron read from a novel he’s working on called “Barn Blazing.”

“Speak now or forever hold your peace,” Young Actor’s Coop (YAC) actor Cameron Woodruff, who can’t hold his peace, read while wearing the dark sunglasses of his adopted brother Wolf, who recently attended a Spoken Word as Darth Vader, causing barista Ann to shout from the latte steamer behind the counter, “How does Darth Vader look like John Lennon?” We all sent Wolf (Abraham Cherrix) our well wishes upon hearing that he has pneumonia.

YAC actor Bedila McGrath read a well told and moving story she wrote in her high school English class called “The Deer in the Woods.”

Along with two new poems, I read my Moonshine contribution “Jesus Paints Graffiti” … Jesus wears a bathrobe and reads the obituaries … He has a long braid like Willie Nelson’s … He drinks his tea black … leaves the cap off the toothpaste … and never uses an ATM machine …

Gloria Gerritz went to Kent State? Or was that poem fiction? Laura… Heather…. Stephanie…I forgot to bring home the sign up sheet, so I’m likely forgetting some readers. It was a thoroughly entertaining evening. The 7-9 time slot morphed into 7-10:30

Post notes: The Floyd County Moonshine can be purchased in local Floyd cafes for $7. Photos: 1. Crowd 2. Christine Behrens 3. Neva Bryan 4. Aaron Moore. Click and scroll HERE for more Spoken Word posts with photos.