Coffee House Poetry

The Cult of Coffee House Poetry

by Matt Jackson

The cause for the recent rash of poetry readings, workshops, and open mic nights in Central Pennsylvania is not easy to discover. One might think that a singular rational reason would explain why many of them began in the late 1990s and maintain their viability in 2001, but several possibilities exist.

Perhaps economic prosperity in the 1990s persuaded would-be entrepreneurs to brave the risk of opening their own coffee shops. Or, maybe the emergence of the Internet and e-mail in everyday life has made it easier and cheaper for devotees of the arts to search one another out and to organize events to showcase and share their craft.

Or maybe it was the Wal-Marting of America — maybe the growth of strip malls on the outskirts of small towns such as Hanover and Dillsburg — put traditional downtown retailers out of business, thereby opening real estate for a new breed of idealistic capitalists. John Stoughill, owner of the Artistville Café, credits these phenomena for enabling him to find very inexpensive retail space in downtown Dillsburg.

Mike Hoover, devotee of poetry workshops and readings at the Reader’s Café in Hanover, offers a fourth and more general reason — the revival of poetry in America. Pointing to the steady stream of readings by well-known poets at colleges, art galleries, and large bookstores in the late 1990s, Hoover says, “People are more willing to write and to listen than they were several years ago.”

Derf Maitland, owner of the Reader’s Café, offers a cultural backlash theory to explain the rash. “I think you can blame it on coffee,” he said. Citing the fact that coffee shops, such as Starbucks and Seattle’s Best Coffee, became the rage in the western U.S. before migrating to busy street corners in east coast cities, Maitland believes that the coffee shop became an alternative to media saturated homes and noisy, smoky bars, “The sports bar has changed the psyche of people who would like to socialize in public places. You don’t want football or television invading a conversation.” And so, would-be poets began searching for quiet, comfortable places where they could contemplate their art while meeting like-minded individuals. Supply followed demand, and a cottage industry of coffee/art houses cropped up.

Whatever the reason or reasons for the proliferation of poetry gatherings and the loyal followings they attract, on almost any given night in central Pennsylvania, one can go to an independent book shop, coffee shop, café, jazz club, deli, corporate bookstore, or cultural center and find poets reading their works to sympathetic ears. All told, at least 10 venues in the area provide open mic sessions, readings, or workshops during the course of any month.

Not all venues have the same feel. During open mic nights at Harrisburg’s classy St. Moritz Jazz club, Carlisle’s bohemian Pomfret Street Books, and Dillsburg’s mellow Artistville Café, the emphasis often is on performing one’s art, ventilating raw emotions, and raging against injustice and oppressive forces. Readings at these locations often are accompanied by jazz music, drum beats, or guitar riffs.

By contrast, workshops at Hanover’s aerie Reader’s Café emphasize, amongst other things, consistency in tone, tense, and pronoun use; effective sound devices; evocative and meaningful imagery; logical aesthetic layout; and, as T.S. Eliot put it, “making it new” — offering a fresh or novel expressive approach.

As self-admitted poetry groupie Tammi Hitchcock explained, “The Harrisburg venues are known as more Bohemian, and the Hanover group is known as more academic.” Hitchcock enjoys the diversity of the venues so much that she drives to forums in Harrisburg, York, Lancaster, and Hanover to attend at least two readings or workshops each week.

In 1999, when Kevyn Knox and his wife, Jeanette Trout, were distributing copies of his Experimental Forest poetry publication to Carlisle’s Pomfret Street Books, the owner suggested that he organize weekly poetry readings at the store. As a result, every Wednesday night for the last year-and-a-half, some 10-20 guests have settled into soft couches and chairs surrounding a wooden stool reserved for readers.

Although the room is lined with tall shelves filled with the dense works of Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Thackeray, and the Brownings, the environment is warm, friendly, and anything but intimidating; attendants between the ages of 15 and 60 provide a supporting environment for anyone who braves the stool to read an original poem.

“Most people here have had bad experiences with academic writing, so doing free verse, brain drain, or stream-of-consciousness is the alternative,” said Hitchcock, a frequent participant in the Pomfret Street gatherings.

Both Knox and Hitchcock agree that, at Pomfret, the focus is on broadcasting one’s private message to a group for the first time. However, they caution against dismissing open mic readings as mere therapy outlets and crude attempts at poetry, insteadlikening the sessions to creative incubators of sorts.

The range of talent represented at such readings enables beginners to dwell on the sounds and images voiced by the more experienced poets. As Hitchcock said, “Once you make yourself vulnerable by expressing yourself, you also open yourself to the craft.”

Predominantly caucasian and blue-collar, Hanover is a town without a college and where the majority of factory workers are non-unionized. However, on the third Monday of every month, poets come from near and far to participate in 8 p.m. workshops at the Reader’s Café, near the town’s center square.
Unlike other gatherings in the region, the Hanover poets share about a dozen copies of their poems with the others in the group. The presenter then reads his or her poem and a constructively critical discussion follows. Afterwards, readers pass back their copies scrawled with suggestions, opinions, questions, and words of encouragement.

By the summer of 1997, a poetry critique group comprised of 10 people spun off from a book reading club and began to meet each month. Currently, the third Monday of each month is reserved for critique sessions, which attract 10-20 people from Hanover, York, and Harrisburg, Lancaster, Baltimore, and Westminster. On the fourth Monday the Café draws 20-50 people for a featured poet reading followed by open mic readings.

“Initially, I was very skeptical,” Maitland recalled. “Poetry. Hanover. I don’t think so. But it’s become just the opposite of what I envisioned and hugely successful. I am surprised to know how many people in this town are thinkers — people who live right around the corner.”

People like aforementioned Hanover resident Mike Hoover. “I was hungry for something,” he acknowledged. “I needed to touch base and find other artists. I would sprawl my poems out on a table at KClinger’s Tavern and edit for hours while alternating between beer and coffee. I was doing the 1830s version, thinking that, like Edgar Alan Poe, I would meet other writers at the local pub.”

Once the Café opened and he became acquainted with members of the reading group there, it was clear to Hoover that he had found the venue he needed. “If we didn’t have a proper forum, we wouldn’t be able to exist,” he said.

Maitland agreed that the environment of the venue contributes to the success of the poetry gatherings. “[Corporate bookstores] have their running poetry series, but it’s an industrial environment,” said Maitland. “During a reading, the intercom chimes in, and hundreds of people mosey by who are not interested in poetry.”
By contrast, at smaller, independent venues, most people come for the poetry and are not distracted. “Here, it’s a destination,” Maitland said. “For one thing: poetry.” Not surprisingly, a goal of the more academic Hanover group is to give participants ideas on how to improve their works for submission to Digge’s Choice, a four-year-old publication.

“This is something that we want to have as a record of Hanover’s poetry,” said Maitland. “We want someone who picks up this journals 20 years from now to say, ‘These guys wrote damn good poetry.’”

So what explains the growing poetry culture in central Pennsylvania and its culmination in two publications? When talking to the people who are genuinely passionate about the readings and workshops and observing their actions during and after their gatherings, one gets the sense that the five possible reasons offered at the article’s outset are incomplete explanations or indirect causal factors.

Instead, on a more human level, the one obvious and common denominator found at each gathering is genuine friendship. “I met most of my best friends through these readings,” admitted Knox.

In fact, despite the myth of intuitive, frustrated poets toiling in private isolation, poetry essentially is a social process and a social act that demands recognition, collaboration, and publication. “Being on your own is not helpful. Most people think that writing a poem is a very private thing, but the whole object is to read it out loud and to publish it,” said Hoover.

As Hoover says about those frightful, silent minutes when others ponder one’s work and the subsequent group dissection, “You are revealing a lot about yourself. You get down to the essence of humanity. And, as with all relationships, you become vulnerable, and during a critique session, you are very vulnerable,” he said. “But realizing that everyone else is doing the same thing strengthens your association with those people.”

This process forges formidable mutual admiration societies in which participants are unafraid to experiment and express. Camaraderie, friendship, and respect are evident at every workshop and open mike session in the region. And, after events end, emotions and initial interpretations often carry over into lingering laughter and refined thought as poets make their ways to watering holes and car pools. Not unlike the groping free verse the poets pen, these are endless conversations spilling out into streets in search of the sublime and the meaningful.