Another Cool Monsoon Voices

The evening of June 12th fell in the middle of a cold snap—a Phoenix cold snap, with the temperature not topping 100 degrees for two weeks running. So a little group of us gathered at Unlimited Coffee to share some warmth, heart to heart, and make the best of the chilly evening. On June 12th Monsoon Voices happened.

It’s a fine Friday for some voices just before the monsoon. I drive over early to put my head in the right frame with a few tunes from the Brazen Heads. After I join the group asking Annie ‘Who’s yer Paddy?’ a few hundred times, I can’t resist singing ‘His Dream’ – never can – but then I need to ramp it up with ‘One-Eyed Reilly.” Blood properly pumping, I spot new sawhorse-signs showing the way to Monsoon Voices! We grow and grow.

For once I get to the room early, get a spot at the great table, and watch the room fill in around me. Plenty early to plop down a few notes. Seven laptops are flipped open and three ‘analog’ writers scrawl around the room. The setting sun slants across the whatever writing surface gets in its way. Luckily, a big headed laptop-user is shading me from the rays.

I spot Traci & Patrick ducking out the east door as I come in the west. They’d set up the table with the sign-in-for news list and the love donation vase. They’re so soft-sell.

So far the mood is totally mellow. Will it build? We’ve had a mellow night or two, but we’ve had plenty where the crowd and the ice-cruncher battled for dominance. Jenny won’t bring Rowan because she’s afraid is little baby ears will be harmed. There’s a family across the way with a baby younger than Rowan – if that little one doesn’t like our work she’ll let us know!

During my noting, the room has filled in. MaryAnn has come in and greeted me, and introduced me to Betsy. With my usual grace I tell her how great it is to finally meet her, and tell her how much I enjoyed taking her online course last year. The look on her face is one I’ve seen so often: once again, I have enthusiastically made a fool of myself. This is not the Betsy (Andrews) I knew from the digital world; this is an analog Betsy (McPhee) who terms herself a new writer but later shows herself to be an old soul. But she’s gracious and the awkward moment passes quickly.

MaryAnn gives Betsy some advice on reading to a group and shortly another first-time reader, Catania, joins them and MaryAnn takes them on tour, up to the front where the microphone will be. I take a moment to order an iced mocha, and while it’s being thrown together, a man comes in and stands near me at the counter. “Wow, what’s going on in here?” he breathes out, stunned by the fullness of the room. He’s young and sandy haired, disheveled and windblown, and he might even be half my age. I smile at him.
“We’re going to read some crazy poetry and short essay, fun stuff. It’s a cheery group.”
“Cool. I can get into that.” He smiles too, and I notice his pierced lower lip. My coffee’s ready and I take it, and think it’s just as well that he probably doesn’t go for the overweight 50ish mocha-drinking writer type, ‘cause I’m married and hate those piercings.

When I settle back at the great table, carefully losing track of the pierced child, Patrick and Traci are making their way to the microphone. Good, good, hooray, we’re getting started.

The Moores welcome everyone and call on Catania Larson, our first reader. Catania is the mom of the cute little infant and her two older sisters. Three little ones and still writing! She offers up five poems (about four more than I managed the year James was born) and they are lovely, well-formed, diverse observations of life. The first, ‘Voice’ (how appropriate to the reading) discusses the sound of life running through life. ‘Merry’ (a Christmas poem) visits with past holiday Catanias. ‘The Spider’, which Catania shyly announced as a sonnet, certainly is a good one, in which a busy spider gets a meal she almost couldn’t handle, but does. ‘Happiness is…’ exults in the moments of pleasure, day to day. ‘The Moroccan Box’ holds a precious mundane treasure, because the extraordinary treasures can’t be fit in boxes. Catania celebrates the treasures of her life in every words she writes.

After the listeners show Catania their appreciation, Patrick introduces me. I read an essay called ‘Mosquitoes,’ which is in its seventh incarnation since last fall. That poor essay! It’s been long and short and funny and bitter and sweet. This group gets the short version, which they seem to like. They laugh at the right places. As a humor writer, you come to love the laughs that come in the right places. The ones that come in the wrong places, you learn to work with.

Candice Aragon sings two songs as I resume breathing at my seat.
Candice is 23 and lovely and so talented. Her first song, ‘Pitter patter,’ is a sad song to wrap around your shoulders, rain against the window. She helps us move on with ‘Your old Heart,’ a cheery love song full of wild rhymes and exultant repeated “I love you”s that sweep us into the break.

During the break, I go and visit with the restroom. It’s more than just going to the restroom or visiting the restroom, because at Ultimate Coffee, the restroom is very personable. It’s an old friend. In fact, once you go in and sit down, you get a message: “I am sensitive. Please hold down my handle for at least 5 seconds, and be sparing in your use of paper. Thank you.” It’s signed “The Ultimate Toilets” and has a self-portrait off to one side. It always makes me feel like family.
There’s a chance that reflects badly on my concept of family. If it does, blame it on my brothers.
I get back to the table just in time to hear Gary Bowers tell the crowd about the upcoming Bard’s Books event. Then came an invitation to a reading at Glendale Public Library. I miss the name of the young woman who invited us to GPL, but recognize her as the writer of the blog Heart-Shaped Hole. I even go to her when she sits down, and tell her how much I love her blog, but am simply not smart enough to get her name. I’m really bad at this social-skill stuff.

We start again with MaryAnn McCullough at the mic. MaryAnn is a veteran writer and the essay she reads is recently published in A Cup of Comfort for Dog Lovers II. I am steeled up, determined not to cry in front of all these folks, but MaryAnn saves me: the essay is funny and she delivers it wonderfully, and pulls out after saying that she and her companion are aging gracefully. As she does everything.

Susan Vespoli, who claims to have ‘moved to a shack in the forest to attend poetry school,’ makes me wish I could go find that shack. It must have poetry magic in it. Susan tells us that this is only ‘my second time reading in public, and my first without tequilia.’ She belied her words with the ease of her reading. Where are all these graceful women from, anyway? She reads ‘Another nice thing about Dogs’ and ‘Daylilies.’ You can read Another Nice Thing at the Monsoon Voices blog, but if you do, be sure to imagine a beautiful woman with easy humor reading it. ‘Daylilies’ is about the aftermath of an argument, and after she reads it she gets a big hug from the other argument participant, which makes us all clap even harder.

Candice finishes up the evening with three more songs. On the last of them she instructs us all to clap, because it’s a clapping song. We clap, and we are enthusiastic clappers, but we are not good at it. A roomful of writers! Bright cheery, good writers. Bad clappers.

Seriously, if you’ve read this far but never treated yourself to Monsoon Voices, talk to your therapist. You deserve this kind of easy happiness. We all do. Real life is more fun than blogs.

Bard's Books -- even more lit events!

If you are already sick of summer 'television'....
If you love bookstores...
If you like to save money, meet people with working brains, see a business engage in community outreach, or enjoy a comfortable seat while you pore over your potential purchases...
You have to visit Bard's Books!
and if you enjoy listening to the poetry of the ages read by local vocal artists, you have to visit Bard's Books twice this month!
Sven and Leeann Rosckowff and Gary Bowers have designed a two-night event called "Let us now praise Great Poets." Several Sonoran Bard readers will offer selections from the poets they admire most. The names being tossed around include Thomas Hardy, Gregory Corso, Leonard Cohen, Alan Ginsberg, Algernon Swinburne, e.e. cummings, and Billy Collins, and the list is growing. There is so much joy to be found in hearing these writers out loud -- don't deny yourself this pleasure.
So much excitement has built up around this event that one Friday night wasn't enough: we're going to read on June 19th and June 26th. Check Bard's Books website (link at left) for location and time, and peek at the event calendar for all the other great community activities this very exciting store offers.

Long Time Gone

The Spring semester ate up all my writing energy, so this is the first post in months! I had two great classes online, got a lot of work done and took refuge from the big bad world, so no regrets. Now there is good reason for me to visit the Beachglass house again: Monsoon Voices will be in session this Friday.
Traci and Patrick have kindly asked me to read, so I'm spending this week reading and practicing and probably getting sick to death of my essay 'Mosquitoes'. But before that I'm enjoying frissons of anticipation for the other readers: Catania Larson and Susan Vespoli, who I have not heard before, and Maryann McCullough, who I have and who is terrific, and then Betsy McPhee. I've read Betsy's work and can't wait to meet her, because I've taken an online class from her and she's a great teacher!
One of the quirky aspects of online classes is getting to know people through their work and comments, sharing learning but never actually meeting them. Later on you run into them at a reading, in another class or even on campus, and it's joyous and scary as you run through your mental file cabinet pulling out memory files so you can speak to them halfway intelligently. I'm particularly bad at this. I've embarrassed myself horribly by pouring out my admiration about pieces to a writer only to discover that while she admired the work as well, she was not the author. My facial-recognition skills leave much to be desired. I'm thinking about asking online classmates to post photos to help me out!
Save money and have fun this Friday by coming out to Unlimited Coffee for Monsoon Voices. There'll be laughter and noise and soul-comforting literature, and the Unlimited folks will sell you tummy-cheering drinks and gelato. You can't go wrong!
Monsoon Voices (a live literary magazine)
at Unlimited Coffee
741 E. Glendale Ave, East of 7th Street on the south side of Glendale
7:30 p.m.

Traci and Patrick Moore host this great event, and you can visit their blog by clicking on the link at the left. Hope I get to meet you there!