Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

The good old days of open-mics

The good old days of poetry readings

Back when i met my friend jim, he was down on his luck. he can still have tough times from time to time. but right when i met him, he happened to have a poem win a prize in rhino magazine, a local evanston literary journal, and his poetry career began to look better. Rhino magazine had a poetry open-mic at the brothers k cafe on friday nights, so jim went to another cafe, cafe express, the oldest cafe in Evanston, that had been there long before any starbucks ever arived, and asked if he could start poetry readings there. the owner asked him, "Do you have any experience?" and he said, "Yes," but he really didn't. so he started his own poetry open-mic and invited me to participate. One of the other people was a lady named Moira who read a lot of her poetry. and frank was another co-host. But jim, who is rather odd to begin with, held aspecial Halloween poetry reading one halloween night. he had his orange pumpkin shirt on and lit candles and read his terrifying halloween poetry. well it just so happened that one of my mother's friends was there, and said the event was permanently locked in her head as something that never ceases to scare her. Then one night they had a musical night wherre a bunch of people would play music. we had northwestern professors and students even attending. above all we brought in many intellectual people, and i used to bring in my art and try and sell it. one time i met a lady who walked around on her cane with her young daughter and i met her there and she really loved my art, and i'd always see her walking around evanston with her daughter and she'd say, "How's your art going?" and the last time I saw her was at blick art store in downtown Evanston and she was buying her daughter art supplies. people in evanston seem to like the arts although the government of evanston can't seem to see this. but at any rate the Brothers k Rhino magazine poetry reading still goes on on the last fridays of the month, although cafe express, the oldest cafe in Evanston, eventually closed it's doors and is now a bagel store called bagel art. i'm sure it's a good restaurant, and they get enough business to stay open, but everytime i walk by i can't think about the old days of that poetry open-mic, and how things have changed. I still attend the brothers k poetry readings and i've started collecting poetry chapbooks signed by their authors, and i've also started collecting other artists art as well. hopefully a supreme being is the ultimate creator who created us all and lovingly watches over all of us, and it is he who is our muse, and even cares when a lowly sparrow falls. i believe everyone has a story to tell, but not everybody can tell it through poetry or art. not everybody is knowledgable about everything, and the older i get, i realize the less i know. but perhaps, that is where the wisdom comes in.

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