Little Grill: June 14, 2007

To what turned out to be a pretty big crowd, biggest we've seen at the open mic for a while, I read a few of my new poems with one older one.

I started off with one I'd just written at the diner counter in back: 'Rome Was Not Built in a Day'. I think I then did 'This Third Thing' (2004) because I'd bellyached one night about the difficulty of being a poet in English--so few words rhyme with 'love'. I think I got everyone of them in that poem save for 'shove'. Point made, I hope.

Assuming I remember correctly, I then did 'It Felt Like Love' then 'I'll Show You a Communist'.

In honor of Father's Day coming up I then did 'Diplomatic Relations With Hell', apologizing first for showing them why I became a poet. You can have a good father and become a poet, I admitted, but the quicker route . .

I rounded things out with my favorite of the night: 'I Know What It Was'.

'The Renaissance Man' Chris Somebody-or-Other showed and read from some of his published poetry. Alex Albrecht, as usual, was in fine form with his white-boy blues (which sound an awful lot like Delta blues). Somebody brought family from Philly and New Jersey for his bit (just can't remember his name for the moment).

Russ told some more of his humorous stories. And I remember the 'Michael, Joseph, and Joshua' trio well for obvious reasons. 'Joseph' is my middle name. Turns out Chris' brother's name is 'Michael', the guy sitting right next to me at the counter was 'Michael', and the guy paying at the register was also 'Michael'. We discovered that as Chris Howdyshell, venerable M.C. of the night's proceedings, referred to me by name from the mic and our parting guest responded.

All-in-all a fun night at the Grill.