In the beginning I misunderstood. But now I’ve got it, the word is good. ~ Lennon/McCartney

Should I retire the Spoken Word category of my blog?  After a five year run of hearing from authors, actors, writing teachers, poets, bloggers, storytellers, lyricists, stand-up comics, journalists and radio essayists at the open mic on the third Saturday of every month, after seeing them come out of the woodwork wearing berets and reading while standing on chairs (or even a Darth Vadar costume), the stage is now quiet.

The last time I posted a blog entry on our local spoken word scene was September.  In October I posted a review by guest writer Pat Woodruff. I can’t remember if November and December Spoken Word night happened or if I went.  In January a notice in the Museletter (our 25 year old local grassroots newsletter) announced that the Spoken Word was cancelled for the rest of the winter months.   So goes the loss of momentum that the event has recently been afflicted with.

The Spoken Word Open Mic (a new incarnation on past spoken word initiatives) began in the fall of 2005 at the Café del Sol.   It was hosted by The Floyd Writer’s Circle and Sally Walker, owner of the Café del Sol.  The Café del Sol closed a year ago this month and the writer’s circle has been inactive almost as long.  We moved the event to the Black Water Loft and had some memorable nights there, but soon, as new interest and energy dwindled, it felt like pushing a rock up a hill for Mara Robbins and me, the last two writers circle members involved.

For me personally, the venue helped me to heal my public speaking phobia.  It invigorated my writing and thoroughly entertained me.   Over the years, we’ve featured forensics, acoustics, skits and even a ventriloquist.  We’ve heard from bards and banshees, town criers and fish tale liars.  But mostly there were truth tellers, telling it like it is in the way that only a poet can do.

We put words to our frustration over the war in Iraq, ate birthday cake together and Mara’s home baked cookies when a reading was scheduled 5 days after the Virginia Tech shootings.  We hosted standing room only readings of contributors to Moonshine, Floyd’s literary magazine and even hosted a memorial reading after one of the writing circle founding members died.

The thing that I’m most proud of that Spoken Word night accomplished was that it provided a forum for people of all ages and literary skill.  It fostered young people, brought out first timers willing to risk putting themselves out there, and gave established writers a new audience.

It was a good run.  I’d like to thank the community of readers and listeners, the tried and true supporters of the Spoken Word for enriching my life for the past five years.

Post note: Mara believes there is sprouting that needs some tending that could flower into a resurgence of the literary arts in Floyd.  I don’t know.  But I’m more than willing to take up the mic again if I’m invited.   A history of past Spoken Word nights via words and pictures is HERE.

~ It was the 5th anniversary of the monthly Spoken Word night in Floyd but none of the founders of the event were in attendance. The following entry is from guest reporter Patricia Woodruff, artist and author of Strange Tales of Floyd County.

It was a pretty small affair this Spoken Word, but you know that the institution has taken on a life of its own, when Colleen, Mara, Jayn and our young performers, Marsden, Kyla, Cameron and Coriander all can’t attend, yet the night still was full of poetry and song. The unintentional theme seemed to be of circles, cycles and spirals.

After the drum roll of the Black Water Loft blender, Gloria Gerritz acted as MC and was our first reader. She started with an entrance test for her creation “The Society of Simpletons.” She explained “there’s no right answers” and read off the questions and answers: A,B,C or D. (But if I have to guess you would qualify if you answered “B – What does “is” mean?”) Gloria progressed to free-form poetry on the ocean, the musings in bed, lies, and love like milkweed silk. We also got a brief history lesson on how milkweed silk was collected during the war and trainloads of it were used to make life jackets. (You never know what you’re going to learn at Spoken Word!!)

I imparted what I had learned about tankas from Mara (that they are similar to haikus but with two extra lines.) Since her invention of “Tanka Tuesday”, shared through our “Virtual Floyd” community on Facebook, I have generated a few of these short poems and shared four of them ranging from the cycle of the seasons, to a poem about having mono.

Dr. Sue Osborn read from a literary cookbook which had the distinction of being written by Lillian Hellman and Peter Feibleman “Eating Together; Recipes and Recollections.” It talked about his way and her way and many times they gave different recipes for the same thing, since they disagreed on the correct way to cook it. It has delightful categories such as “Foods for Seduction” to “Foods for the Self Absorbed,” as well as essays. Dr. Sue’s literary selection talks about Peter’s story of Lillian’s dying, and Lillian’s lament about her imminent demise where she viewed it as “the worst case of writer’s block” she ever had.

Jack Callan read from his book “Knucklehead Poems” and then a new collection of poems that he has grouped as “Writing from the Meadows of Daniel”. Much of Jack’s inspiration on his poems (and his paintings) comes from camping here in the nature of Floyd. His first poem stated “I will take a stone from this river. I will leave a poem.” It becomes almost a foreshadowing of his latest poems written by the banks of the same river; including such wonderful imagery as, “The shadow of the Buffalo is dark, lush and green; Silent, as is fitting a holy mountain.”

Chelsea Adams read about saying “Yes!” to Autumn, with a “shameless red maple”. Then two poems inspired by the line “The man in the moon disappeared.” She concluded with a very visual poem of a woman laughing as she melted her frozen heart by embracing the sun.

This was Caroline Romano’s last performance (for now), as her family is moving to Georgia. Caroline’s first Spoken Word was exactly a year ago. It was the first time she ever sang one of her own compositions in front of an audience. She spoke of the confidence it has brought her, sharing her songs with a lovely, supportive audience. She played her guitar and sang, “Empty Cup”, then “You Called My Name” (see on YouTube) which was the song she first played last year. On musing on her two songs, she said the earlier one she wrote is almost an answer to the question posed in the later one. Caroline very profoundly observed, “There’s a circular aspect to our lives. We revisit things but with a different viewpoint, spiraling around.”  ~ Patricia Woodruff

New reader William Yearout (pictured right ) read a free verse poem set in the Black Water Loft, our Spoken Word host coffee house.  Our regular hostess Rose wasn’t there because she was getting married the next day (Congratulations, Rose and Haden!).  Her sister Grace took over and took good care of us all.

David Henley, our resident bard, came up from Roanoke again to sing his history in rhyme about growing up in West Virginia, son of a coalminer.  Greg Locke read a poem about exhibiting his paintings and wishing someone would buy one.  His paintings were actually hanging on the Loft walls, creating a surreal and vibrant backdrop for the evening’s spoken fare.

For me, it was my second reading in two nights, which is where the title of this post comes from.  I’ve written a lot this month but only two bits of poetry, or two bites considering THIS poem. I have more fall poetry than any other season, so I had a lot to draw from, like THIS, which is one of my favorites.

Back to the drawing board. See you next month on the third Saturday.

Katherine, Jayn, and I drank red rooibos tea because it was late in the day and rooibos has no caffeine. The sun was setting outside the window of Lucy Monroe’s coffee house in Christiansburg, where Chelsea and Bill were setting up microphone equipment for an evening of jazz and poetry. The subject was coffee and tea.  Chelsea read from her Java Poems book and Katherine (pictured) from A Tea Poet’s Journey. Bill played guitar as they read and the only thing that was missing was their berets (which Chelsea didn’t bring because she couldn’t remember where she put them).

Seductive words over hip jazz beats spurred more than a couple of people to order yummy hot drinks. At one point a group of kids in Virginia Tech t-shirts and pumpkin colored wigs came in.  I read haiku from Teapoet and Jayn read a poem about T, the letter not the beverage.  Although the brew figured in.  Some in the audience cheered when Chelsea read that the latest studies have confirmed,  coffee is good for you.

That’s what our emcee Cameron announced to the Spoken Word crowd on Saturday.  At 7:30 there were only six readers signed up on a pie plate. “That’s never happened before,” he said.   His plea must have worked   because by the end of the evening the count had changed to eleven readers.

Cameron led us in several moments of speechlessness.  His mother was in the crowd, so he noted that he couldn’t swear because she charges him 25 cents a swear word.  Talking into his cell phone as if it was a microphone, he gave dramatic introductions to each reader and gave me a new spoken word tagline: Quick Quote Colleen.  I think it’s better than Soul Crusher Colleen (coined by Tom Ryan because my book The Jim and Dan Stories made him cry).

Chelsea (pictured in the second photo) read a series of poems related to trees, and first time reader Gary (above)  from New Jersey (originally from Michigan, he would like me to add, seeing as how New Jersey is viewed these days) read a series of poems about the Blue Ridge Mountains.   Mars, introduced by Cameron as The God of War, read what he calls a “table poem,” which means that he made it up on spot and that it was inspired by things on the coffeehouse table. I wish I could read my own writing in my notebook so I could quote a line or two here. Something about a coffee spill and a brownie that hadn’t been paid for yet.

Did you know that Telletubbies (characters from the TV show for preschoolers) only eat pink custard and toast, have televisions in their bellies, live in a bomb shelter and babble incoherently (a long way from the sensible Sesame Street fare)? We learned that from Coriander who read a piece about a lost Telletubby named Bruce.

Carolyn and Nico sang and Skip read the Rudyard Kipling poem The Gods of the Copybook Headings. By the end of the evening Cameron only owed his mom 25 cents.

Note: Read more about Floyd’s third Saturday Spoken Word Open Mic and view more photos  HERE.

It was a busy night in downtown Floyd with Laura Reed and Deep Pocket playing a free in concert as a Floydfest (our town’s four day music/art festival) kickoff at Dogtown Roadhouse.  The parking lot was full at the Jacksonville Center for the Arts, and I knew of at least one party taking place (an 80’s workout party at my friend Rowan’s house).  Even with that, we managed to draw a crowd of familiar and new faces presenting haiku, essay, storytelling, song and more.

Hot of the press?  Inspired by an image of the recent crescent moon, still burning in my mind, I scribbled a poem while driving to spoken word.  “Is sickle spelled with an S or a C,” I asked some of the resident kid poets when I arrived at the Loft.  Still hot and glowing … the moon is branded … a silver sickle … in a pasture of sky … After opening with that bitty ditty, I read some “Fit to be Quipped” one-liners from my blog and an essay about last year’s Floydfest.

I loved Mara’s poem “Weed Whacking the Graveyard” (written for her father), which I had heard earlier in the week when we played Scrabble … No grave marks the place your ashes lay …Creek stones, perhaps, still cradle your remains … She also read and performed the poetry of others and acted as town crier (calling to people on the street from the Loft’s high porch), and our eloquent evening’s emcee (video HERE).

It’s about time, Tom Bruneau, that you showed your face. We missed you.  Tom was a first-timer in this latest incarnation of spoken word but years ago was instrumental in bringing spoken word to Floyd.  A teacher (the short version of explaining him), Tom read (reading each stanza three times) “the oldest poem in this hemisphere,” that was discovered carved in rock: Your eyes … The stars … 10,000 years. He also read a poem that has recently been accepted for publication, another titled “Cosmos the Most Almost,” and his original haiku (the hallmark of which is that each line can be read in any order, Tom explained).

Precocious and poetic, Coriander Woodruff (pictured in black in the first picture) delivers poetry rants that are always moving and poetry is just one of her many artistic talents.  She is an actress, photographer, a GarageBand music composer, and an always creative dresser.

Another proven young talent and spoken word regular is Carolyn Romano, opera and folk singer who graced the stage with two of her original songs … I only dance in the afternoon … she fell in love with a midnight moon … My favorite dish ran away with the spoon … and the cat plays classical guitar … (video HERE).

I love to see new faces! It was my first time hearing readings by Roger Orton and Carmen Lytle, both from Roanoke, (because due to my grandson’s 2^nd birthday and going to Massachusetts to help my mother, I missed May and June’s spoken word).  Little girl, twirl your paper parasol … Roger read in a poem titled “Days of Sun and Sand.”

Steve Saft read a new poem about Abe Lincoln. Bethlehem Cherrix read her reflections about Floydfest, created on the spot, and Cameron Woodruff chocked us up with a story/poem about a daisy chain and his little brother Natty who died at the age of 2.

Because Greg Loft (picture above in tattoos) had earlier read a poem lamenting the loss of handwritten letters and denouncing texting and email, Mara wound the evening even down by reading a just crafted handwritten letter thanking everyone for coming and giving thanks for the welcoming comfortable space.

After letting it rip, one by one, we then Let it Be, closing the evening’s entertainment by singing along with Kyla Robbins’ sweet rendition of the Beatle song.

Post Note: Read about and view pictures of more Spoken Word nights HERE.

“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, sing-a-longs, original songwriting, Peter Pan poems, and more from performers ranging in age from 12 to 70 and up.

The Black Water Loft is an especially photogenic coffee house venue and all the readers looked better against the backdrop of Heather Kappy Keoppe’s dramatic artwork.  Loft host (and Young Actors Co-op director) Rose McCutcheon served up refreshments, and Mara Robbins (pictured above), who opened the evening with a series of poems about the demoted planet Pluto, made everyone feel welcome as the night’s emcee.

The range of performances included every thing from an original Virginia state song, performed by new reader David Henley, to Wolf Cherrix’s memorable vibrating gerbil skit character.  Several Young Actor’s Co-op (YAC) members were in the house, after having just returned from an acting gig in Galax. Coriander Woodruff’s blow-by-blow poetic rant about the underwhelmed audience they performed to had the crowd in an uproar.

Picture this: We have Cameron in a kilt and head band; Wolf in a pink Asian robe on jumping stilts; me in a black-and-white Harlequin outfit on my unicycle; Kyla in a leather jacket and purple hair …  And then …    We drip of stage like ooze from a lab experiment gone wrong…Coriander read.

“Not poetry or prose. What could it be?”  I asked when I took my turn on stage.  In keeping with the night of surprising literary styles, I did one-liners from my blog and nursery rhymes.  Wolf Cherrix, still dressed as his YAC character Emperor Ming, took questions from the audience in an impromptu Q and A session.  Kyla Robbins, who has an American Idol-like local following, sang “Firefly” and later joined her friend Grace Ross (pictured) for a sing-along of John Lennon’s Imagine.

Cheryl Spangler performed an original song about the history of Planet Earth to the tune of The Beverly Hillbillies in honor of Earth Day.  In the story that Greg Locke (pictured above) told, a cigarette fell down his high school buddy’s chest cast and they put it out with a coke.

Poet Arden Hill was visiting from Washington D.C.  He had recently done a featured reading in Boston and is currently preparing to move to Nebraska to get his PhD in creative writing and English at the University of Nebraska.   Among other poems, Arden read a Prairie Sestina … I know the failed cardiogram of cartography before I travel there … While we whisper the distant grass is growing … I will miss you, I will write, is with dread growing up like ambitious prairie weed aimed at the sky …

It’s anybody’s guess who will show up and what will happen at next month’s Spoken Word, scheduled at the Black Water Loft for May 15^th at 7:00.  In the meantime, you can watch an improv skit involving a blind seamstress driving Big Bird and Peter Pan around in a car  HERE. Other video clips are linked in the post above.

There was a leftover love poem from February’s Spoken Word that was cancelled because of wintry weather and Jayn Avery’s poem began: Dear Winter.

Steve Saft read a moving tribute to a past professor who inspired his love of literature and writing and a poem with the intriguing title “ Thoughts on Bette Midler While Washing the Dishes at Night.”

Under the surreal spell of Acourt Bason’s hanging art, fifteen readers took their turn on stage. “I feel like a worm making a chrysalis. It can be painful,” Heather Kappy Keoppe,” said before breaking out her rhyme.

Gloria Gerritz read a poem about missing her mother’s ashes after finally scattering them. “Why didn’t I leave them in the trunk of my car where I could visit them?” she asked.  Coriander Woodruff, in Dharma Punk black, sat with the reader’s chair turned around.  “Teenage angst. I’m good at that,” she said.

Haden Polseno-Hensley read a couple of chapters from his novel, a work-in-progress, and  Kyla Robbins and Caroline Romano graced the stage with song.   There was at least one new reader and some new faces in the audience, cappuccino sipping, listening, and clapping.

Did I mention that my computer crashed again?  Unable to access my storehouse of poetry or to print it out, my choice of reading was narrowed to the one sheet of paper of poems that I had recently brought to a writer’s workshop. Besides being number 13 on the sign-up list, which causes me hold my breath from 1 –12, and missing my therapeutic pre-reading mug of beer (that always calmed my nerves at our previous Café del Sol venue), I enjoyed the fare and fellowship and am heartened that the spoken word lives on in Floyd.

Thanks to Rose and the rest of the Loft crew for the warm welcome.

Photos: Heather listening to a reader.  Steve Saft.  Jayn Avery reading.  Colleen finally letting her breath out.

I recently took some time to reminisce about the café by browsing my blog posts and was glad to see that I have a record of so many fun times there, mostly Spoken Word nights: like the time is was done in costume, with a puppet, on the sidewalk, as a memorial to a friend who died, and as a celebration for a new local literary publication.  How about the night all the poets got free T-shirts, the time we wore green and spoke in Irish accents, stood on chairs, did it in ruby red slippers?

Apart from Spoken Word nights, I have other good memories of time spent at the café: like the time my friend Mara made everyone write on her pants or the time she balanced a Scrabble box on our friend Bruce’s head. Once we played Scrabble with two boards, six players at two tables. Another time my blog friend Naomi called from from Los Angeles because she knew from my blog post that I was there playing Scrabble. And I’ll never forget when the deer crashed into the café window. After I posted about it, I got a couple of blog comments saying that Floyd was like Northern Exposure, southern style.

I know there are new and exciting things to come in the space (these friends have taken over the lease), but in the meantime, I take my purple poet’s beret off to Frank and Sally Walker and say “thank you.”

Post Notes: Thanks to the folks at the Black Water Loft coffee house for agreeing to host the next Spoken Word Night on March 20, at 7:00. We’ve had the event there before and it worked out great. The stories I wrote for All About Her on Sally and the Black Water Loft and noteBooks are HERE and HERE.  Click on the sidebar “Spoken Word” and “Scrabble” for more.  Stay tuned …

Three members of the Floyd Writer’s Circle, Rosemary Wyman, Mara Robbins, and I opened the evening with poetry interpretations to Lora Geissler’s abstract art that hung on the Café Walls. Eight contributors to the new spring issue of Floyd County Moonshine shared their literary talents. Two poets visiting from Washington D.C. joined the performing line-up, along with returning members of the Spoken Word community and a couple of first time readers.

Mara, Floyd County Moonshine’s new associate editor and acting emcee, stood on the café coffee table, projecting her voice over the crowd, welcoming them and reviewing the open mic guidelines. With twenty-eight readers of short stories, poetry, essays, and excerpts from novels and memoirs, the ten minute reading slots had to be cut back to five minutes.

The first Moonshine reader Charles Swanson, who teaches creative writing and composition at Gretna High School, followed Mara’s lead and stood on the coffee table until café owner Sally Walker arrived with the PA system that someone said she borrowed from the Floyd Country Store. Ropes of spider webs hanging …from the low log lintel … we knocked back with a stick … and Granddad made … with twigs and tobacco twine … a broom to sweep the floor, Swanson read from a poem titled “Broom” about reclaiming a barn from an overgrown tobacco patch. He also read a poem about the drinkable kind of Moonshine, which was written from a variety of voices.

“I don’t think I can shout haiku,” I said when it was my turn to share my minute of tiny poems inspired by Lora’s paintings. By the time I returned to the stage later in the evening for the four minutes remaining of my five minute slot, I was speaking into a mic. From my “Fit to Be Quipped” punch line series excerpted from my blog, I read, My husband Joe has thick curly hair. When my kids were little and Joe needed a haircut, they would tease him by calling him “Ofra” Winfrey. Now when he needs a haircut we just call him Rob Blagojevich. Although I could perfectly pronounce “Blagojevich” all through the day, when I read it on stage I needed the help of the audience to get it right.

Other Floyd County Moonshine contributors reading included Floyd Moonshine editor Aaron Moore, author Neva Bryan, Emory and Henry teacher Felicia Mitchell, Radford poet Cynthia Ring, Hollins University Creative Writing student Sharon Mirtaheri, and Floyd’s own Jayn Avery, who Mara introduced as “potter by trade and writer by impulse.”

Before reading an excerpt from his novel Barn Blazing, Aaron told the crowd that the deadline for the summer Floyd County Moonshine is June 30. It will be an all Floyd edition, he said.

Civilizations crumbled beneath me–a plethora of insects and spiders fled beneath the swipes of the pendulating scythe. I, being a veritable voyeur, only relented at the sight of one thing: preying mantis sex. The male was much lesser in stature than the female, propped on the female’s back sitting rigid while hugging her reddish-purple thorax. She was a massive creature compared to him, beautiful in an alien sort of fashion. When they were alerted to my presence, she bore him with her and he held on. ~ From Barn Blazing by Aaron Moore

Post notes: Contributors pictured reading from Floyd Country Moonshine are Charles Swanson, Cynthia Ring, Felicia Mitchell, and Sharon Mirtaheri. Submissions to Floyd County Moonshine, a regional literary and art magazine, should be sent as an attachment to floydshine@gmail.com. Inquiries about advertising and subscriptions can also be made at that address. Copies of Moonshine are available in cafes around town for $7.

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.

3. Sam read a short story. Gloria read a poem about a classified ad and motorcycle ride. Greg read a piece spurred by the low turnout for the Veteran’s Day Parade, and Rosemary read about her children growing up and leaving home. There were nineteen readers in all, a few were first timers. Others spoke of taking writing classes at the Writers’ Bloc, run by Haden Polseno-Hensley a block down the street.

4. It was Heather’s birthday and Laura (who also read) baked the cake. The whole room joined in a Happy Birthday song to Heather when she took her turn at the mic (photo is of Heather receiving our song). She spoke about being moved by last month’s event at the Black Water Loft, her first Spoken Word Open Mic, and said she couldn’t wait for the next one. She belted out an Erykah Badu song that she has sang as a girl’s camp counselor, one about lightening the load of emotional baggage. Confessing that she has no aspirations to be a singer, she told us that singing in public scares her and that singing for us was a way to face her fears.

5. It’s always a pleasure when singer and Café del Sol owner Sally MC’s the monthly event. She introduces each reader with a knack for ad lib. “You’re not going to steal my band,” she joked after Heather sang.

6. The youth of Floyd was well represented, with at least four members of Young Actors Coop in the house, each one took a turn at the mic demonstrating their theatrical flair. Crystal (not a member, pictured above), a recent Floyd High graduate, read some stream of consciousness power packed poetry from her laptop.

7. I read the entire contents of my new TEAPOET chapbook, but because the meditative poems in it were all short … serving up sips of haiku and other poetic brew … it fell well under the 10 minute time slot limit. Rose, who later read a poem about a rose, took the photo of me. That’s my New Castle beer on the table (too late in the night for tea) and my basket of writer’s wares (books) that I have taken to carrying around.

8. Mara read new poetry and also joined with her daughter Kyla in song. The announcement of THIS song brought cheers and some sang along.

9. Associate editor of Floyd’s new literary and art publication, Floyd County Moonshine, Jay Settle returned after attending last month’s event at the Black Water Loft where we featured readings from the publication. Jay, an English teacher in Radford, read one of his poems.

10. The open mic is not limited to poetry, storytelling, and literature, or even accapella song. Mrs. Claus ended the night with some humor, which included a question for Santa and for us. “Does this red suit make my butt look big?” she asked as she spun around.

Post note: For more posts on past Spoken Word’s click HERE and scroll down.