When you start looking, verse is all around you
The local poetry scene is an evolutionary beast: open mics come and go, events are started with great enthusiasm and then abandoned, never to be heard from again. Despite what on the surface may seem like a bleak state of affairs, the desire to create and share poetry is alive and well in the community. Both professional and closeted poets want a poetry scene, and they want it to thrive.
In February of last year, this magazine published an article on the poetry scene titled “Many Voices, One Chorus” that highlighted some of the major players in the scene at the time as well as parsing through some of the major difficulties facing the community (namely, segregation).
While many of the individuals highlighted in that article are still active and involved in the community (Christian J. Collier’s documentary on the poetry scene, which was mentioned in “Many Voices, One Chorus”, premieres later this month), many of the standing events have fallen by the wayside, making room for a new generation of poetry events, and opening doors for poets to express themselves through perhaps previously unexplored avenues, from the ole standby open mic to typewriter poetry on the radio.
As a newcomer to the poetry scene, unearthing the pulse of poetry in Chattanooga felt a little bit like detective work with a side of anxiety; the poetry community was not particularly easy to locate, and while it teemed with professionals and performances, there didn’t seem to be a regular place for the casual poet: the person with a 9-to-5 job and no creative outlet. I reached out to several venues, and Stone Cup Cafe responded with open arms—they had been looking for someone to host a poetry open mic.
This was the beginning of Poetry, Pups, and Pints, a weekly, dog-friendly, poetry open mic at Stone Cup. I started this open mic selfishly—I wanted somewhere to share what I was writing, and as a recent college grad, I was sorely lacking in community. Soon, it was apparent that other people needed this space as well, and Triple P quickly grew into a warm and welcoming community where people could share their works in progress, their polished masterpieces, and anything in between.
As the open mic began to attract more seasoned poets (spoken-word magicians like Demond Moultrie and Denise Adeniyi made appearances), it was like I suddenly couldn’t unsee the poetry scene.
Once I knew where to look, it seemed like there were people all over town clamoring to have poetry heard or otherwise witnessed. At the Sunday market, for instance, typewriter poets have been cropping up as a weekly occurrence. I approached one of these street-poets-for-hire, Meredith Garrett, and she wrote a beautiful poem about poetry for me on the spot.
Meredith, who goes by the street name River City Street Poet (no pun intended), first saw someone producing typewriter poetry on an anniversary trip to New Orleans. The sound of the keys drew her in, and she had a poem written for her about the month of September. Drawn to the wistful charm of the typewriter, Meredith had already considered purchasing her own, and after seeing the unique craft of the street poet and realizing there was no one in Chattanooga regularly pursuing typewriter poetry, she set up camp on the bridge to create her own.
Without a mentor readily available, Meredith had to make her own way with street poetry, and since the practice is considered busking, she was able to set herself up at the market regularly. Perhaps the greatest marketing tool is pure visibility, because Meredith’s practice has grown and she is now hired for private events and has made appearances on the radio, typing out poems based on wild news stories (talk about improv!).
Typewriter poets and open mics aren’t the only outlets for poetry in town. The Chattanooga Poets Collective, organized by Bird White, meets approximately once a month to write and read poetry together as a small group. The poetry is often based on the place of the meeting, which changes each time.
If you’re trying to find a community of poets, look to open mic nights, organized poetry performances, or even your own friend’s living room. The poetry scene in Chattanooga once seemed elusive or inaccessible. Now, poets are crawling out of the woodwork from all corners of life and all corners of town. Maybe we were here the whole time…
Heck, maybe we were all just shy.