That is, we pimp ourselves, AND WHY NOT! We are fabulous without being fully gay. We are beautiful, especially when we take off our shirts. We are disgusting in that attractive, rubbernecking way.

We are reading together at Lix and Kix on Tuesday February 17. 806 Wine and Martini Bar is where we will just make it up as we go along.
Beware, I used to get drunk there ALOT. It may happen again and you poet groupies might get a chance at this lusciousness (lush-yness?)

I'm going to this, not just for the hotness of Neve's reading (and Neve's personal hotness) but it will be Tremont's favorite bookstore's second anniversary. What could be more erotic?

UPDATE

Ten score years ago, in a log cabin of Kentucky, on this, the second Thursday of February 12, the same as the Literary Café Poetry series, born was the President that kept our nation together by guile, compassion, and force. I speak of Abraham Lincoln, temporary tyrant of the northern union during the early 1860’s, the Cincinnatus of the New World, arguably the most respected of American presidents.

Come to the Literary Café on February 12 at 9:30 pm for our tribute to Honest Abe Yes, this, the ACTUAL date of his birth, before the government he so defended moved it around “for convenience,” the same cabal that once defined pi as equal to 3, instead of the irrational number that starts as 3.1417. (If the prefix, con, is the opposite of pro; then does that make congress the opposite of progress?).

And, YES, we will have that contest I wrote about 2 months ago, with a fabulous prize of massive poetic value thanks to the Language Foundry. The Lit Café Famous Poet Identification contest is to name the famous poets in the audience in a cartoon from a recent issue of Poetry magazine. Our feature poets, Terre Maher and Jason Venner Robert Frasier, will be there to inspire and maybe give hints .

Robert Fraser is the lead man of the poetry/ecletic band Hobo Monk. HB played at the Zygote in My City Festival where I was feature and they blew my mind with Frasier's verbal frolick. His first Book: Poems for the Short-Term Memory was published in 2007, by Cornerstone Books. It highlights the ridiculousness of modern life in our Monetary society, and the search for something more meaningful and real. Other than writing, Robert claims he works like everyone else and studys the Native American ways of living off the land.

Jason Venner recently graduated from the NEOMFA program based in UAkron, where he is an instructor. At a reading at Visible Voice last spring, he impressed me with maintaining his punkish edge while expressing his verse in sophisticated techniques that a good MFA program can provide. He has been published in The Akros, Luna Negra, The Penguin Review, and The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, and I believe in Barn Yard Review.

I first heard Terre Maher when we shared the venue at Mac’s Backs in February 2007. It was an interesting evening where she had to follow a poet (not me) that had striking hard core imagery and bludgeoning verbal style. She maintained composure as she changed her repertoire on the fly and softened the atmosphere so the audience was warmed and comfortable. This is the professionalism that Terre Maher keeps in both her writing and her art. Terre writes with clarity, insight, and music. She has done the illustrations for Naomi Shihab Nye’s “A Maze Me”, publish by Harper Collins.

So come out of the cold, get a warm dose of poetry with a libation chaser Thursday, February 12 at 9:30 pm at the Literary Café, 1031 Literary Road in the free and united neighborhood of Tremont in Cleveland.

UPDATE

The contest at the Lit Cafe Poetry Reading is postponed for a number of reasons. Mostly I'm a lazy bastard and disorganized and too winter-blasted to follow through on a good idea. Also, I'm too stupid to figure out all the poets.

But I'll do my best to get things up and running on our next poetry night in February.
(Remember we are on hiatus for January).

Like many last month, I was feeling the change in weather. The self-abuse done in the name of poetry caught up with me and I had to duck out of last month’s Literary Café reading. Stayed as long as I could and I was able to hear our fabulous features (they both showed up) as wellas long missed Jack McGuane and the reading virgin Neve Black at the open mike. Unfortunately, I missed a couple of other new faces and voices and regret both not experiencing them and not being there to support the newbies. I know the first time I got up and read to a crowd, I felt like everybody in the audience were experienced and accomplished poets, waiting to judge and deem me a literary failure. (They may still be right). I know how an encouraging word or a friendly nod can help overcome the abject nudity of reading your inner thoughts aloud.

A cartoon from a recent issue of Poetry magazine represented that nauseous terror of publically speaking our art. In it, a reader is at a podium and the audience is of the famous poeticrati. Though our feature readers, Elise Geither and Jayce Renner are far from being new to the microphone nor unfamiliar with the staring eyes of strangers (In fact, one or both of them receive puzzled gazes as they walk down the street), we will have a contest in their honor. So this Thursday December 11 at 9:30pm, the Lit Café Famous Poet Identification contest will have the audience name the famous poets in the crowd of the above mentioned cartoon. The winner with the most correct identifications will win something, maybe of value, or maybe a position with Homeland Security.

I might add that neither Nick, Nick’s evil brother Dick, nor I are eligible. Our talented feature poets will show grace under the pressure of our attention, but then our features are exempt from the contest. However, they are already winners since their selection as feature readers.

Elise Geither has long been in the Cleveland literary scene starting as many have, as a horse lover and keeper of riding crops. Many of her poems reflect that love and collection and yet avoids the topic of death, an easy downward spiral that I do not understand. Perhaps it is because she also is an accomplished playwright and interviewer (one question) of my heartthrob namesake, Stevie Nicks. Elise’s poems have appeared in Morpo, Big City Lit, Thundersandwich, Slant, and the Artful Dodge among others. She has had plays produced in NYC, LA, and around California and Ohio. Her play "the Poet's Box" was produced in LA and "Zephyr House" was an off-off broadway finalist. Her latest play, "Prom for Angel" debuted at The Blue Room in California. Her collection of monologues, "Horse Latitudes" (deepcleveland press) was presented as part of a summer theater workshop, of which she is thankful to her horse Mighty Thunder Cloud. Elise teaches ESL at Baldwin Wallace University and is finishing her PhD.

Jayce Renner has been writing and reading in Northeast Ohio since his early years at Kent State University where he got a degree in sculpture in 1999. One of those underground famous personalities, he sponsors an exclusive poetry retreat at his family cabin where the woods, bonfires, Yeungling, and an outhouse mingle with poets, vagabonds, and cowboy coffee to create an experiential nexus of creativity or tomfoolery, depending on your perspective. In the public world, Jayce is usually recognized by reading his poems from his PDA. He published one of his first poems in his school's newspaper in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and had been a number of local anthologies including Whiskey Island, Art Crimes, and 3x5. He is a highly regarded regular at Kent’s Jawbone Poetry Festival, and he works as a technology consultant for a marketing agency though we don’t hold it against him. Keeping Jayce on the straight and narrow are three cats and long-time girlfriend Connie, when she’s not napping.

So help deter nervousness, win a prize of questionable worth and hear top notch poetry as is the usual at the Literary Café, this Thursday December 11 at 9:30pm. The Lit is located at 1031 Literary Road in the comforting Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland. (Photo of Elise by Jesus Crisis. I just stole Jayce's.)

I think.

Where the hell have I been? Well, I was poetry partying with buds that I met in KC. Thanks to C.Allen Rearick and Brian Fugett, we had our own outlaw, underground, small press poetry festival. The details are below and I apologize for not let you know beforehand.

Since you missed it, I'll sum it up for you....IT WAS A BLAST!

Yup, I was one of the features.

Peer \'pir\
1: one that is of equal standing with another : equal ; especially : one belonging to the same societal group especially based on age, grade, or status
2: companion
3 a: a member of one of the five ranks (as duke, marquess, earl, viscount, or baron) of the British peerage
b: noble
— Merriam Webster

This thursday, November 13 at 9:30pm, the Literary Cafe will celebrate my peers. These are poets that I have shared the butterfly stomach, the cold sweat, the self-doubt of being on a stage. They have, with me, exposed themselves to the gaze and the gawk of strangers. Even more vulnerable than the nakedness from the deficiency or absence of adequate apparel, the flinging of verse directly from our hearts created a respect and comradery. These are my peers.

I had the honor of sharing the third prize in this years Hessler Street Fair Poetry contest with Steve Thomas. Born and raised in Old Brooklyn before it was called old Brooklyn, he graduated from J F Rhodes a long ass time ago. Steve started writing in high school, and while working for a print shop in Berea went to Baldwin Wallace College but got side tracked from writing for 20 yrs or so by children, his business, and (get this) by being a professional bowler. He finally graduated from BW in December of 2006. The better half of the "Third Steves" has been published in The Mill in 1984-85 and again in 2006-07, as well as in Split Whiskey Bag-o-Zines, and The City e-zine. His natural talent for reading has just begun to be recognized in the area and has performed at Insights and at Macs Backs with Wendy Shaffer and Russ Vidrick.

Rachelle Gallant shared the stage with me at this year's Tremont Art & Culture Festival. She is a modern poet for the new world. With twenty-five years of English and Literary experience, her uniquely poignant work, looks into the everyday human condition. She is a talent of both poetry and photography, which she
fuses into art pieces that strike at the heart of life’s randomness. "Ray" is one of the founding members of the Hybrid Collective Gallery in Tremont and her artwork has been featured at Edison’s Pub.

Though this pair's humility will argue the converse, I was honored to share the limelight with these two gifted wordsters. They truly represent the 3rd definition of peer, noble. so come to the Literary Cafe Thurs. November 13 at 9:30 and hear what fine words are supposed to sound like. The Lit Cafe is at 1031 Literary Road in the Tremont Peerage of Cleveland.

Boys and Girls, I am doing the ridiculous and moving after a little more than a year in my present abode. Okay maybe that isn't too ridiculous, but I'm sure that moving back to the apartment I was at before this one is. So I'm slightly insane.

I'm staying in my beloved Tremont neighborhood to be close with all my dear artistic and poetic friends, and to keep with the rhythm of the hipster beat in the cool drinking holes. No surprise. Mind you, I really don't have that much stuff and really only need help with the bigger things. I've been migrating boxes for a few weeks already.

So I'm looking for some helping hands and backs to help me get back home. Trucks and SUVs will quicken the time. I'm going to do the big move next saturday october 25. Figure we meet here at 10am and finish by 1pm. I'll have good coffee and donuts to start and I'll buy lunch for my good helping buddies after.

Leave a comment or drop me an email or call for particulars. Thanks my dear poetic siblings.

The Literary Café poetry night does NOT believe in diversity. It has no time for checking how many of what type we have there. It does not worry about whether we are fair to all walks of society. It has no material assets, so cares naught if the self righteous boycotts, the overly sensitive protests, or the self proclaimed holders of judgment fines it, garnishes it, or blocks donations.

The Literary Café poetry night is biased, is exclusive, is pretentious. It spits in the eye of fashionable causes. It rebels against sanctimony. It has only one cause celebre. The Literary Café poetry night only cares about GOOD POETRY. For that, we go to the bulwarks. We fight for independence. We explore the outer reaches of Akron, the mists of Toledo, climb the heights of Canton, wade the bogs of Burton. It is poetry of quality that is important. The poets are not important. We care little who they are, where they are from, what to they look like, what’s their orientation, are they from the orient. Do they like me, do I like them. Did they pay a bribe, did I pay them a bribe. Do I ever pay anybody anything. It does not matter! Only the poetry matters!

And so this Thursday, yet another in a long line of second Thurdays, October 9 at 9:30pm, we have GREAT poetry on demand. And yes from poets who do not matter except they make great poetry. And maybe that is reason enough for us to laud and respect our two features, Mwatabu Okantah and Bridget Kriner.

I first heard Mwatabu Okantah about 6 six years ago when he was the guest poet at the old Cleveland Slam nights at the Beachland. I was just getting into the scene and trying to find out what poetry was about, when this gentle man in dreadlocks and a smile read poems of heart and struggle in a soft voice. Between a couple of poems, he stopped and made just one comment that was a poem in itself. One that I have held as the reason why poetry is important. He said, “I don’t vote. I write poems.” Then he went to his next piece and I was searching for him again ever since, and now he is here to show how powerful a poem is, even compared to a vote. Mwatabu is an accomplished poet, musician, educator and has been published and performed widely. We are fortunate to have him with us.

Mwatabu S. Okantah holds the BA in English and African Studies from Kent State University (1976) and the MA in Creative Writing from the City College of New York (1982). Currently, he is an Assistant Professor and Poet in Residence in the Department of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University. He also serves as Director of the Center of Pan-African Culture. Afew of his books are: Afreeka Brass (1983), Collage (1984), Legacy: for Martin & Malcolm (1987) and Cheikh Anta Diop: Poem for the Living—published as a limited trilingual edition in English, French and Wolof (1997). He lives in Akron, Ohio with his wife and five of his seven children.

A familiar face in Tremont is Bridget Kriner, who r.a. washington introduced to me at Civilization just as she finished her M.A. from CSU in 2005. I read her thesis that afternoon and it was then I knew I was in the presence of a great poet. She has been published in Poetry Motel and Whiskey Island, which she served as the poetry editor for a time. She can’t quite recall the last publication she was in, but knows that it was good. I chased her for reading at the Lit for years, but Thursdays is working night when she slings beers at a local bar and restaurant. During the day she works as a counselor at a fantastic abortion clinic in Cleveland and lives in our happy little Tremont neighborhood with her cats, Nora & Stanley. When she grows up one day, she hopes to finish her book of poems and that someone will publish it. She also needs to read at more venues so we can all get the benefit of her words.

The benefit of maintaining high standards is that diversity follows. We have very diverse personages, with diverse motivations, and diverse styles. And yet Mwatabu and Bridget are the same in their love of poetry and their talent to write it. True excellence is diversity, not the other way around. For the rest of us that keep struggling and trying to find our excellence, the Literary Café allows us to show our efforts in the open mic portion of the evening. So come, this Thursday, October 9 at 9:30pm to hear the accomplished and to share our toil. The Literary Café is at 1031 Literary Road in the excellent (hence diverse) Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland.