Tonight was my regular poetry reading, but first I had to accompany Isabel and her friend to their street dance lesson. I should have taken an umbrella. It was drizzling when I left the house, coming down pretty steady when I met the girls, and pouring down after we got off the bus to walk up the hill to the school where they have their class.
Still, I left them there for Helena to pick up and went. When I got to Andel, I was still a little early but very aware of the fact that I hadn’t had any dinner, so I stopped at McDonald’s (yeah, I’m one of those low-class types that actually likes their food), and a couple of gypsy kids tried to con me/beg money, I don’t know what they were trying to do (‘Hey, that was my order!,’ the smaller one said)
I was still only about 5 minutes late, which normally is still early, but tonight it started right on time and the featured speaker was in full swing. He was good. A little rap, a little spoken word, with a definite them running through it: becoming. What am I becoming, when will I become it.
The interesting thing was that almost everybody was new. Not completely new, there were a few who’d been there last month, a couple who’d been there once or twice before, but I walked in and realized I was pretty much in a room of strangers.
It’s cool, Alchemy goes through these phases, where there’s a total change of people. It’s good. New blood. I liked the guy who did the ten word poems, with illustrations. That was creative. There were a couple of humorous, but mostly scatological, stories.
No women, though. Oh, plenty of women in attendance, but not one took the stage. I don’t know what can be done about that.
www.gurukalehuru.com 