All Comments on 'First Reading at Caf? No'

Cafe No was a local poet's den, now defunct. After much battle with my fears, I decided to go to my first "open mike" night, and selected the poems I wanted to read. Then I practiced & practiced, wanting my first reading of my work to go well.

The night finally arrived, and after much thought and second-guessing, I welled up the courage to put my name on the list.

The second fellow to come to the mike announced to the crowd that he was not going to read his own work, but rather some poems from a quarterly digest that had just come out. He cleared his throat and proceeded to read one of my poems! The very poem I was going to start off with!!!

I was flattered, shocked and bummed.

The night ended well, however. They had an open spot on their calendar, and the club owner asked if I would consider doing a poetry reading that night. (Duh!) I still have one of the flyers kicking around somewhere.

Okay, I'll be honest. I know EXACTLY where the flyer is. (LOL)

I loved the metaphor of children (and their attributes) as currency, and the "apparent" larceny of the blind. Great work, JD4G!

Some folks don't like an explanation, but I never turn

one down.

Some folks don't like an explanation, but I do from time

to time. This was one of them.

you pick the ripe moments / and look at them with a wonderful touch of both empathy and distance / your flow is gentle and strong at once /

comes across almost like conversation....so matter of factly...it almost seems stating the obvious....so you never see the sucker punch coming.

*no thermometer in use

Thanks for the poem and especially what inspired it. It's nice to see where poetry is born?what an experience too!

You know I loved it. You have such a talent which I admire. Keep the beautiful poetry coming :)

So nice to see this on the top list, hope it sticks.as

A poem about someone else reading you one of your own poems for a fee. Good.

This poem was selected from Lit's archive of over 39,000 poems for inclusion in today's Archival Review.<br>

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