Last night (AKA the eve of Bubbles’ birthday), the DC Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency visited Coffy Cafe in Columbia Heights to share a two hour poetry set.
Around 20 people rolled through, along with 7-8 poets. Regulars Damian, Jessica, and Shahid hit the mic, alongside new friends Flavia, Charles Reese, Inkblot, and Michelle (who graced us with her first public poetry reading ever!).
It was our first indoor lyrical ambush at a new location, and it was especially wonderful to welcome participants of all ages. One entire family joined us, which hasn’t happened in awhile….
Highlights:
- Michelle spoke of how we’re judged not by how we love, but by our possessions
- Flavia shared water music flowing through her heart, revealing itself as the most essential form of art…. “All waters are One, and so are we, descending from the mountaintops down to the sea.”
- Inkblot depicted a gluttonous debt and a painful birth to anticipation; remixed Hollywood; offered the chance to lift each other up, rather than bow to fill our own greed; and explored the genders as yin & yang.
- Shahid shared a rhyming history of the FBI; examined CIA torture under the Bush administration; asked “What do you work towards in this world?”; mourned that “Justice is hard to find in this world”; and hyped the benefits of “reality rather than TV.”
- Jessica asked an amorphous beast, “How do I love thee?,” before counting the ways; observed that her turkey sandwich had gone missing (to the tune of a Michael Jackson song); and quested after a purpose.
- Damian planted a flag as the future of his history and observed holding twice the information with a third the education; has “a peace of peace, and dammit, is gonna keep it”; promised that if “You know this smirk, you’ll love this smile”; whined & bragged; and noted that con men and Congressmen all end up convicts.
Catch us next month, at Bossa in Adams-Morgan on Tuesday March 19, with the Akoma Drummers, and again on Wednesday March 27 back at Coffy Cafe in Columbia Heights!