Hey everyone,
this is Ian,
I'm the guy who used to run the Poetry Night at The Moondog for the past 2 years.
Things have gotten a bit quiet recently; a lot of regulars left and it seems to be hard to find new people interested in Poetry & The Spoken Word.
I'm trying to find a new format for the whole thing, maybe turning it into a poetry workshop, maybe combining it with other events (music/art), maybe meeting up to find a topic/angle before getting started or whatever.
So I'm looking for people who like to write, share or just listen.
A simple "I'm in!" is enough, but if you have any ideas or questions please post them in this thread.
Any and all languages welcome, of course.
Hope to get things started soon,
Ian
Well, to be frank, one problem for the poetry night has been that a lot of the people being in Moondog at the same time are simply not interested in poetry, making the sound level really high and this, combined with the somewhat poor quality of Moondog's mic, is not an optiimal condition for reading or listening to poetry.
One option to amend this could be to turn it into a workshop, so that people not interested in even listening would feel less compelled to come on that particular time. Another option would be to switch venue to one with a different and less loud crowd, I dunno, like, Muyuba has some art projects going.
But the wifi at Moondog is really helpful for people who come and then spontaneously wanna read a poem, I've noticed.
i m in.
maybe house poetry would get poetress hotters ?
Hey Ian.
I'm in.
I agree with Natsymir, Moondog's booming success as a bar makes it not an ideal venue for a poetry night, unless you wanted to do something super early on a weekday, before all the fooseball and such gets into full swing. You've mentioned As You Like as another option for a venue, which seems great to me: quiet, and never crowded. I think they have wifi too.
Another option could be halfway house, the whole place is set up around the stage, so it's harder for distracting ambient noise to dominate the place. Same with Memento, come to think of it.
If anyone's aware of a less-visited venue with a small stage and/or microphone, feel free to chime in.
I would like to see either a workshop or reading planned in a smaller/less popular venue, to see how many people would turn up just for that. Also, a less crowded venue would be a more comfortable environment for people to read publicly for the first time or share something they've created.
Just sayin.
Kasey
Just my 2 cents. I always thought that poetry should be read in a setting like a book store (Barnes and Nobles) or a library (for the benefit of students as well). I don't think a club is a good venue.
If I may ask, -why- isn't a club a good venue? What makes a library/book store better?
For me, it's part of the awesomeness of the Poetry Night that it's an unpretentious drop-in event where you're free to hang around afterwards and have a few beers, and I can't really see that work in any place except a bar. The Poetry Nights in my swedish hometown are quite successful and also set in a bar, it's just, that bar is, for some reason, not full of people who don't give a damn about poetry.
ok, here's MY 2 jiao.
if most people are more interested in drinking than poetry, why not have it at an earlier time before the drinking crowd rolls in? like 7 pm or something. then, only the die hard milton wannabe's will show up.
oh, and maybe give it an edgy name like "dead poets society". and it's not just a bunch of people reading poetry. the poetry needs to drip from their tongues.
Maybe in Sweden people don't go into a bar to lay waste to their brain cells.
There are lots of different drinking cultures around the world, and amoug different groups. When I was in Winton Ca. people only went to a bar 'to get loaded or get laid'.
