“Letter Rip” was coined by Black Water Loft’s Grace McCutchan in her recent chalk board announcement for our community’s monthly Spoken Word Open Mic, held at Loft. With 14 readers presenting a variety of literary styles, we did just that on Saturday night.
It was a busy night in downtown Floyd with Laura Reed and Deep [...]
“Phenomenal” was how I described April’s Spoken Word to Joe when I got home from attending last night. What was most striking about this month’s event was the variety of literary styles that fell under the “spoken word” umbrella and the fact that the roster of performers spanned the generations. There were improv skits, storytelling, [...]
The poets came out of the woodwork for a Spring Equinox reading at the Black Water Loft coffee house in downtown Floyd Saturday night. Poems about daffodils and wild strawberries were mixed with readings of Hemingway, Jane Hirschfield, and Shakespeare.
There was a leftover love poem from February’s Spoken Word that was cancelled because of wintry [...]
“It was a good run,” Café del Sol co-owner Frank Walker was recently quoted as saying. His wife Sally (aka The Countess of Coffee) posted her goodbye on their website. For seven years the café has been a Floyd hub and a beautiful downtown second home to many. For six years the writer’s [...]
Saturday’s night life in downtown Floyd included a quotable line delivered by poet Mara Robbins. From the Café del Sol Spoken Word stage she announced that “Pat Robertson is to Christians what Kanye West is to musicians,” referring to Robertson’s ludicrous remark about the earthquake in Haiti being a result of the country’s pact [...]
And sometimes the spoken word is sung. At Cafe del Sol’s October Spoken Word Open Mic, Carolyn (Kirby) Romano sang THIS original song. She’ll be performing opera with the Kandinsky Trio in a benefit concert for the Jacksonville Center next Saturday at the center.
Young Actor’s Co-op’s Abraham “Wolf” came from the Maryland [...]
The literary flavor of summer’s Floyd County Moonshine is as striking as the bright red wildflowers on its cover and as local as the next door neighbor … That’s how the story I’m working on about the latest issue of the Floyd-based literary magazine begins. The issue spotlights Floyd writers with [...]
I was in two places at the same time, or nearly. Arriving late to the Spoken Word and leaving early to take pictures for the paper of the all-day Relay For Life, a fundraising event for the American Cancer Society. I was a little discombobulated, but relieved to know that after nearly four [...]
An overflowing crowd packed the Café del Sol for June’s Spoken Word Open Mic. With the warm glow of evening sun streaming in, the café was abuzz with a celebratory din left over from the town’s Jubilee festival that day. There was pizza eating, card playing, cappuccino sipping, and socializing, but all quieted [...]
One might have thought that April’s Spoken Word would bring seasonal poems about spring, Earth Day, or even taxes. But what we got included a letter from Julius Caesar, some frolicking ferrets, a dead orange, and an adaptation of The Raven involving an appendectomy (quote the surgeon nevermore). Although, Neva Brown did return to [...]
The Rubik Cube was invented in 1974 by Erno Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture, Abraham Wolf Cherrix told the overflow crowd at March’s Spoken Word night at the Café del Sol. Wolf followed that comment by announcing he would solve the puzzle in less than 3 minutes for his open mic [...]
There was no drinking and driving involved in the ride from Floyd down the Pig Path into Radford. And the only moonshine proof there was to be enjoyed was in the readings from the second edition of Floyd County Moonshine at the Coffee Mill on Main Street.
Moonshine, in this case, refers to the “flavor” [...]
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. [...]
1. It was a rainy night, five days before Christmas, so I wasn’t expecting much of a turnout for the third Saturday Spoken Word night at the Café Del Sol. But when I arrived, I flung open the door and there was Darth Vader, Mrs. Claus, and a birthday party with cake being passed [...]
We were short on chairs and long on readers at November’s Spoken Word Open Mic. A record-breaking twenty readers performed to an overflowing enthusiastic crowd. Rose and the crew at the Blackwater Loft did a great job accommodating the last minute change in venue (due to a concert in the hall adjacent to [...]
A couple plays a game of Shogi, a man works at his laptop, a tourist stretches out on the Café Del Sol comfy couch reading a book to the sound of barista Melissa grinding coffee beans for lattes.
Young, soon-to-be thirteen years old Mars, a frequent spoken word open mic participant, offers to be the evening’s [...]
We could see the sun set from the Café Del Sol comfy couch at September’s Spoken Word. It filled the café with a golden glow and shone on early readers at the open mic. A few of us were slightly overdressed in fancier than normal clothing, having come from our friend [...]
Mara’s introduction for Hollins University writing teacher Thorpe Moeckel at the Café Del Sol was so well crafted and delivered that Thorpe thought maybe he shouldn’t read any poetry, after all. Her words were a hard act to follow. But follow them he did, taking us listeners on a ride [...]
