Some Spirit Drifts to the Cornelia St. Cafe & Tom Lux

My first attempts at open mics in New York were disappointing enough to convince me there was no ground-level community here. I kept finding a huge overlap in comedy, songwriting and poetry and purist me wanted poetry and only poetry.

So I gave up and not too long after stopped writing poetry. My hiatus lasted some years then ended (how specific was that?). Then I heard Tom Lux was going to read at the Cornelia St. Cafe.

Let me tell you about Tom Lux. He talked to me when I was in grad. school. He treated me as if I were an intelligent human being with reasonable insights. Not once did he appear worried I emitted noxious gaseous funk. He's like that, has a decent streak.

I didn't know Jackie Sheeler's Friday night Pink Pony reading was an event, a guaranteed room of poets, but it was, and for Lux the room was packed. I was second-to-last on the open mic list; I was so anxious (making this about me, not Lux).

This was the first time I'd read a poem in public in maybe eight years. Jackie Sheeler didn't know me from Emily Dickinson but she squeezed me in, giving me a chance to read "Some Spirit Drifts" (which I posted in yesterday's blog).

I'd reintroduced myself to Lux. When I read I fell back on the old Sarah Sarai strength and stage presence. I was fine, plus I'd found an open mic dedicated to poetry. I began to show up every week and found other open mics.

It was the beginning.