100 people show up, consistently, to share and supposedly listen to poetry. A rare free speech opportunity where everyone is comfortable to say whatever they want. You speak for five minutes or less, a modicum of applause follows. I ask what is it worth? Is it a self esteem builder? A forum to share ideas? A good way to kill a Tuesday?

For me poetry is a pastime inherently different than watching television. Interaction. (Okay you can talk back to the TV, but you’re fooling yourself if you think you’ll get a better program.) 

I’m talking about The Principle of Interactivty, a working set of checks and balances. If I get up and say “George Bush is a doofus,” I’ve said nothing if everyone nods, grunts “mmm hmm,” and runs over their lines. If I get up and say George Bush’s grandfather profited from selling weapons to Germany during WWII, I’ve said nothing if people don’t react to it. If I say George I is profiting off of the current war and all the closet republicans in the audience remain silent, they’ve done a disservice to their master. Someone should shout “show me the evidence.” And if I’m not prepared to say, “Look into the Carlisle Group” I have been rightly deposed. 

Sherman Alexie said at UCSD the other night, and I happen to agree, that we have to challenge “them.” Any time someone says something that is racist or ill informed it is our duty as artists to say “No that isn’t right.” 

When someone says “brown people want to be white,” he’s looking for a reaction. Fishing, even if he’s trying to be ironic. When someone says “Jimmy I love George Bush” from the microphone a pathway for communication is opened. I can let it ride and say, “Yeah Bush II is just peachy," or I can fulfill my role in the relationship by saying, “No. Bush is a chimp. An evil plotting chimp.” 

By a different token, when someone speaks while I’m doing my poem, I have the power (via microphone) to put him in his place. It becomes my pleasure. Everyone in the room is part of the show. 

Open mic night could be more about intercourse than masturbation if we allow it. A man who speaks for five minutes, or a featured performer who speaks for 25, without a single real gutfelt reaction hasn’t necessarily failed as an artist, but he has failed to inspire the other actors in the play to do their part. Like a punk rock show, where the bands are only as interesting to watch as the kids moshing, stage diving and fighting, everyone is an actor at open mic night. The host has a role, the barrista has a role, the owner of the cafe has a role, the cops have a role, the passerby just getting a jolt of java has a role, the chapbook capitalists and the 100 people supposedly listening have an active, not passive, role. 

There are others out there, better minds, better poets, who have chosen to stay home. Chosen not to participate in the culture. They are the most passive of all, but they can be lured back by rumors of quality.

Coffee shop patrons are notoriously cheap, but those with money have the obligation to support quality art and venues that enable free speech. Without the coffee shop forum, without the open mic, those under 21 years of age are denied a voice in this city. If the featured performer is dull, save your dollar, but put two or three or five dollars in the kitty when you experience real art. Define real art for yourself, but remember preaching to the choir is not an art. Art must challenge. To challenge consistently is the greatest art. Muhammad Ali was a great artist, the greatest poem was a beard. 

For awhile at least it seems we need someone to take on the role of instigator, trickster and jester to keep this relationship alive (more than breathing, full of life.) Open mic night should not be a newfangled masturbation machine. We can quibble about politeness and rule of law, but we can no longer let a single poem come off that stage unchallenged. 

We should start by attacking content, and progress to attacking form. Bring your bullshit detector to every reading. Later we will depose weak rhymes, journal mumblers, and extraneous words. We will demand that poets find and use their own real voice. You would think that coming to open mic night would be like going to the gym, that eventually you would lose that extra weight and put on muscle, but sitting on a couch drinking coffee and clapping is like watching the aerobics class. 

The Principle of Interactivity can be our knife sharpener. Speaking is only half of free speech. Masturbation has done a lot for me, but never gave me self esteem. 

 FAQ #1 Poetry is just a hobby for me, I enjoy open mic night, it’s cheaper than a movie. 

 Answer: Whatever. 

 FAQ #2 Are you talking about heckling? 

 Answer: Not exclusively. But those two old men on the Muppet Show were the only ones paying attention. 

 FAQ #3 Didn’t Nietzsche say “Polite always?” 

 Answer: Yes, but he also said, “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
 
 
 

*pictures from Dennis Copper's Horror Hospital Unplugged and Mel Gordon's Voluptuous Panic.