People have been lauding Adam Mankoski and Troy Hawkins (and rightly so) for their tireless work in launching and maintaining the 2nd Saturday Art Hop in Redding. Two others who have been in the trenches for the sake of art for quite some time are Peter and Nadia Robbins.
I was reminded of what a gift they provide after catching the Poetry Open Mic last night at Sue’s Java Cafe in Redding. Nadia and Peter, whose group is called the Traveling Bohemians, host the Poetry Open Mic from 7 to 9 p.m. every second Wednesday of the month at Sue’s (1712 Churn Creek).
Every third Friday of the month (and that happens to be this Friday), they also host an event called More Than Just an Open Mic: Open Floor at 7:30 p.m. at the Old City Hall Arts Center (1313 Market St.) in Redding. They’ve been doing these events for years.
The Poetry Open Mic at Sue’s focuses on poets and storytellers, but also includes songwriters, who tend to play after the poets are done. The third Friday event focuses a bit more on musicians, but also includes poetry, dance and, frankly, anything a person wants to perform.
What a great experience to listen to the poets last night. Everyone who read crafted such rich visuals. Their words evoked emotion and brought forth the poignancy of the individual human experience.
There’s something about just hearing words and certain combination of words.
And the experience also teaches you to really listen. Listening is the true lost art of our time. So often at these poetry events, I haven’t listened well because my mind was lost about some song I was planning to perform. It’s really a shame and my loss. We have to calm down the noise in our heads to truly listen sometimes.
