Poem: Once were poets

The time when I wrote this poem, and the time that I wrote the poem about, feel like a lifetime ago. Maybe several lifetimes. It was definitely a different time: Northeastern Pennsylvania had a thriving poetry scene, with poetry and prose open mics being held nearly every week somewhere. For a while I set out to maintain a calendar to let people know just what was going on, and where and when it was happening. Sometimes the biggest problem was the sheer number of events happening at the same time - check out the March 2014 entry, which noted that there were three events happening on a single day.

But all good things must come to an end, and maybe, as many people told me consolingly in the aftermath, an art community is an inherently unstable thing. Strong personalities and inflated egos lead to conflicts. Limited time and other resources force people to pick and choose what events they support. Cliques form, friendships get strained, relationships end. Life takes people in new directions, sometimes far, far away.

Venues close.

This poem was written in the aftermath of the closure of the Vintage, the Scranton arthouse and coffee shop where the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writers' Collective had our weekly writing group and put on our monthly open mics. The writing group did not long survive the closing of the Vintage at the end of August 2014 - by some measures, less than two hours after the last visit to the Vintage for its everything-must-go sale, the group was effectively broken up. The poem was read for the first time at Arts Seen in Wilkes-Barre, a venue that would not survive 2015. 

There is still a poetry scene here. For a while I retreated to the more genteel scene of the Old School group in Springville, peopled by older and more established poets, poets who didn't act like they were trying to prove anything to anyone. But eventually magister poet and host Craig Czury moved away, possibly forever, bringing that series to an end. I have been a featured reader twice at the Writers' Showcase at the Olde Brick Theatre in Scranton, I have been published three times in the Osterhout literary magazine Word Fountain, and my poems have appeared three times on Luzerne County Transit Authority buses as part of the Poetry in Transit program. Until my work schedule presented a conflict, I was a regular reader at the Be Daring Open Mic at Adezzo in Scranton, which primarily focuses on music and comedy. I know there are a few other open mics and scheduled readings, mostly in Scranton. Maybe someday I will find my way to them, maybe as an audience member, maybe as a poet. I don't know.

This poem was put into its final form on January 29, 2015.

Once were poets

We were poets once
long, long ago
before the curtain fell
and the lights went down
before the egos rose
and the poison spread
we were poets

We were poets then
opening our veins to show the world
the fire that burned within
our innermost truths
deepest secrets
our hopes, our fears,
our loves, our failures
we were poets

We are poets still
as long as we are unafraid
to rip ourselves open
let the words press out
through our hands and our lips and our tongues
push up the curtain
set fire to the lights
suck out the poison
and spit it in the faces of those who would silence us

We were poets once
long long ago
We were poets then
and we are poets now.