The second season of London Open Mic Poetry Night opens on September 4th, 2013. Frank Beltrano will be the featured poet.
Frank is familiar to most London poetry aficionados, as he has been heavily involved in the scene here for the past eight years, ttending and organizing workshops and readings. He even made a large contribution to the success of the open mic by strongly suggesting (as did Andreas Gripp) that we use the Mykonos Restaurant as our venue. Otherwise, we might very well be meeting in some dingy bar.
Frank is familiar to most London poetry aficionados, as he has been heavily involved in the scene here for the past eight years, ttending and organizing workshops and readings. He even made a large contribution to the success of the open mic by strongly suggesting (as did Andreas Gripp) that we use the Mykonos Restaurant as our venue. Otherwise, we might very well be meeting in some dingy bar.
1. On This Beautiful Day
to Jack
Thinking of your death
I imagined a sound
amid the last of the firewood
in the abyss between the garages
I wanted to see you as a mouse
dark and furtive
alive in the blackness.
On this beautiful day
a butterfly struggled by instead
against the gravity of it all,
my thoughts of how
you were depressed.
You reminded me
of my father near his end
always a man’s man hunting,
killing in a sacred way.
Your son found you
three days missing, in a field,
rolled you over hoping a heart attack,
found you faceless
with one of your guns
in the same field
where his mother
your first true love
spent the last of
her cancer-ridden days
among monarchs.
© Frank Beltrano
2. The Days of Angry
I remember
the days of angry.
city speed for
inches of advantage
the rush and fuss
of billing 9 or 91/2 hours
into 8 hour days
overtime racoons
on fences
down dark alleyways
midnights motoring away from
mangled mortise cylinders
pager calls
dim lit halls
walkie talkie
locksmith lingo
knocking on doors
locking up crack houses
showing respect for whores
taking orders from pimps
home to read
politically correct fairy tales.
And sometimes to cry for tired
wishing sleep
shaking, still at the wheel
of a parked truck
no peace, no luck
but big pay cheques
and home at all hours
up early
customers difficult
managers squirrelly
picking cylinders
slipping linkages
jimmying latches
retracting bolts
delivering assurances
supplying quotes.
“If they want to get in badly enough
nothing will stop them”
Seldom asking who they are
stopping them
with long, shiny, stainless steel screws
threaded through jams into 2 by 4s
working with two by fours
And working with words
like pillars of belief
giving support, relief
to single moms
locking in battered women
and stolen cigarettes
stopping cigarette smoking
mostly men
doing it again, for
elderly women, widows and widowers
broken men
with their own ideas
about how this is done
pussy cats all
who ask, “Are you bonded?”
For what it is worth
I am trusted
to fight fear with mirth
by mobsters
not pussy cats at all
ex-KGB
stripper lords
slum lords
real estate moguls
proprietors of rentals
VIP owners
of Lincoln continentals
and rusted out colts
wanting at midnight
doors with gaskets, magnetics
push button bolts.
And before morning
come low voltage shocks
testing electric locks
(a coffee comes as much to warm the hands as drink )
oily at dawn
delivering parts
in brown paper bags
hands wrapped in rags.
And when this is done
I go away,
and to myself, I say
“I have been
here before
been— there before
I have therefore been
before”
I become a spinning dervish
inscribing circles in the dust
when I am done
out comes the anger
up comes the sun
that propels the day
I remember
the days of angry.
© Frank Beltrano
Toward the Light, summer, 2007, with honourable mention
3. Terza Rima Sunset
(Editor: Invented by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in the late thirteenth century to structure his three-part epic poem, The Divine Comedy, terza rima is composed of tercets woven into a rhyme scheme that requires the end-word of the second line in one tercet to supply the rhyme for the first and third lines in the following tercet. Thus, the rhyme scheme (aba, bcb, cdc, ded) continues through to the final stanza or line. Dante chose to end each canto of the The Divine Comedy with a single line that completes the rhyme scheme with the end-word of the second line of the preceding tercet. Terza rima is typically written in an iambic line, and in English, most often in iambic pentameter. If another line length is chosen, such as tetrameter, the lines should be of the same length. There are no limits to the number of lines a poem composed in terza rima may have.)
Terza Rima Sunset
Bayfield Ontario July 17th 2013
The evening ritual is our walk to the sunset
Together we stroll in the heat swatting flies
Long shadows of maples are a comfort you bet
But it’s hot and the salt from our sweat stings our eyes.
To the top of the stairs leading down to the beach
The red sun setting becomes a surprise
Though we’ve seen it before it is new to us each
Night a little different falling from a height
Tangerine pandemonium swirling and shaped like a peach
With sunglasses we stare dumbfounded into bright
in love with a wedge of moon
To be frightened by the night.
Having fallen across the sky since apogee at noon
Our star strikes the cold lake to the call of a loon.
© Frank Beltrano
4. Exact Sentences
(Editor: This poem is in the form of a glosa, a relatively unknown poetic form, except for here in Canada, thanks in large part to P.K. Page who published a book called Hologram, A Book of Glosas. The form originated in the Renaissance Spanish court of the 14th and 15th centuries. In a glosa, tribute is paid to another poet. The opening quatrain, called a cabeza, is by another poet, and each of their four lines are imbedded elsewhere in the glosa. The opening quatrain is followed by four stanzas, each of which is generally ten lines long, that elaborate or "glosses" on the cabeza chosen. Each ending line (10th line) of the four following stanzas is taken from the cabeza. The usual rhyme scheme of a glosa is final word rhyming of the 6th, 9th and the borrowed 10th lines.)
Exact Sentences
Come to me, said the world.
This is not to say
it spoke in exact sentences
but that I perceived beauty in this manner.
October #3 from
Averno by Louise Glück
A child, I played out of doors
with butterflies and caterpillars
built fake fires of burnt match sticks
made mud bricks and tepees,
above these childish Indian homes
raised pirate flags unfurled
sang nursery rhymes, ate popcorn
had time for joy until
into the fray I was hurled.
Come to me, said the world.
And in my teens all music was
the thing, fashion and youthful society,
the distancing from the norm, parents,
family, and home, the taking up with
friends. Late evenings of partying
staying out past the end of the day
discovering sex,
imagining independence, a new
adventure and home of my own away.
This is not to say
I disliked my childish pursuits
or would soon forsake them
to be truly, truly mature, responsible,
independent out in the world
but I did delude myself
with false modesty and shallow repentances
into believing I heard a voice
of wisdom, vision and premonition
leading me triumphantly covering great distances
it spoke in exact sentences.
And I was determined defective
perhaps schizophrenic or manic depressive
living in valleys and on mountain tops
both passively and actively aggressive
grazing on pharmacological disaster
when all that I needed was dexterity of grammar
to express my pent-up elation
or to climb from the depths of despair
with words and phrases hard as a hammer
I perceived beauty in this manner.
© Frank Beltrano
5. Klimt T-Shirt
There is a woman today
in the café with a Gustav Klimt
painting on her weathered t-shirt.
It is nowhere near as golden
and splendid as the original.
“A lovely thing,” I say, nonetheless.
I try to be friendly, not more or less
don’t want trouble from her husband today.
I am in love with the original
a masterpiece of the Viennese Klimt
resembling the Byzantine mosaic art, golden.
This is not new, a washed-out t-shirt
that has travelled with dignity, a t-shirt
that undoubtedly cost a lot less
than the 135 million dollar painting, gorgeous and golden
the second most expensive painting in the world today.
Why so much for a work by Klimt?
Has value been added to the Viennese original
by the Nazis confiscating the original
leaving its Jewish owners with barely the shirts
on their backs, storing the stolen loot in bunkers? The Klimts
were traded for exit visas and less.
A fortunate few descendants of the owners survive today
having escaped the S.S. by paying with paintings of gold.
It is the Viennese Mona Lisa, that I love, the Golden
Lady as named by the Nazis, ashamed of the original
Jewish name, Adele Bloch-Bauer— the painting’s title again today.
It is made famous by the court case, the posters, t-shirts
notoriety in the press and less
the skill and genius of the painter, Klimt.
What might Klimt
think of his golden
masterpiece now? Less
a work of original
genius, more a subject for a t-shirt
seen in the cafe today
worn today in tribute to Klimt
well worn t-shirt not quite as golden
as the original but inspiring nonetheless.
© Frank Beltrano
THE EVENT
WHERE: All of our reading events except the April one are held in the Mykonos Restaurant at 572 Adelaide St. North, London, Ontario. The restaurant has a large, covered terrace just behind the main restaurant, which comfortably holds 60 poetry lovers. Mediterranean food and drinks are available. The terrace is open to the parking lot behind. Overflow parking is available across the side street and in the large lot one block north, in front of Trad’s Furniture.
WHEN: September 4th. Music begins at 6:15, poetry at 7:00.
LIVE MUSIC: The Light Of East Ensemble, a group of up to seven internationally-inspired musicians, will open the event at 6:15. The group will also play during the intermission and at the end of the event. The Light Of East Ensemble, a London-based instrumental group, performs music from the Near and Middle East, including traditional, folk, classical Arabic, Greek Rembetika, and modern urban music of the 20th century from regions such as Armenia, Greece (Asia Minor - Smyrni, and Konstantinoupoli), Turkey, and other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria.
The Light of East Ensemble is the winner of the 2013 Jack Richardson Music Award, and the 2013 London Music Award in the category of World Music, also the winner of the 2011 Jack Richardson Music Award in the category of World Music and a London Music Award in both 2011 and 2008. The group’s music may not be what Western listeners grew up hearing, but the rhythms and melodies are instantly captivating and listeners are quickly drawn into the intensity of the music.
For many audio and video samplings
Audio tracks:From a Greek folk song
From a traditional Arabic song
THE FEATURED POET, Frank Beltrano, opens the poetry portion of the event with a reading that begins at 7:00, followed by a Q&A.
OPEN MIC: Following the featured poet, there is about 1.5 hours of open mic, ending about 9:00 pm. Each poet has five minutes (which is about two good pages of poetry, but it should be timed at home). Names are selected at random, so there is no need to come especially early just to get on the list of readers.
RAFFLE PRIZES: Anyone who donates to London Open Mic Poetry Night receives a ticket for a raffle prize, three of which will be picked after the intermission. The prizes consist of poetry books donated by Brick Books and The Ontario Poetry Society. Donations are our only source of income. We still haven't paid off our initial debt.
The Wisdom of Birds
The birds don’t know
that Osama Bin Laden
is dead, and don’t care.
They are singing
their mating songs,
turning up wet leaves
in search of worms—
life goes on— and
a man who kills men
is no news to birds.
They have no knowledge
of the words of the Koran,
the Bible, the Torah
and what’s more
I’d rather hear birds sing
than those people who cheered
in the Arab world on 9/11
or those who sang American anthems
in Washington last night because
Osama Bin Laden is dead.
© Frank Beltrano
Before I Write
After the lighting of a beeswax candle
held aloft by the cast iron mouse
I return to my chair
although turned around I turn it back
as if to invite myself to sit
as long as I can
as though I cared
because before
I write
even if I pause
even though I do
how wonderful it feels
if only I knew
since I don’t know
that which will be
though it will most assuredly be
unless I pause
until a pause becomes a stop
when push comes to shove
whatever time it takes
where do good words come from
while I paused and stopped
it seems to have written itself.
© Frank Beltrano
even if I pause
even though I do
how wonderful it feels
if only I knew
since I don’t know
that which will be
though it will most assuredly be
unless I pause
until a pause becomes a stop
when push comes to shove
whatever time it takes
where do good words come from
while I paused and stopped
it seems to have written itself.
© Frank Beltrano
THE EVENT
WHERE: All of our reading events except the April one are held in the Mykonos Restaurant at 572 Adelaide St. North, London, Ontario. The restaurant has a large, covered terrace just behind the main restaurant, which comfortably holds 60 poetry lovers. Mediterranean food and drinks are available. The terrace is open to the parking lot behind. Overflow parking is available across the side street and in the large lot one block north, in front of Trad’s Furniture.
WHEN: September 4th. Music begins at 6:15, poetry at 7:00.
LIVE MUSIC: The Light Of East Ensemble, a group of up to seven internationally-inspired musicians, will open the event at 6:15. The group will also play during the intermission and at the end of the event. The Light Of East Ensemble, a London-based instrumental group, performs music from the Near and Middle East, including traditional, folk, classical Arabic, Greek Rembetika, and modern urban music of the 20th century from regions such as Armenia, Greece (Asia Minor - Smyrni, and Konstantinoupoli), Turkey, and other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria.
The Light of East Ensemble is the winner of the 2013 Jack Richardson Music Award, and the 2013 London Music Award in the category of World Music, also the winner of the 2011 Jack Richardson Music Award in the category of World Music and a London Music Award in both 2011 and 2008. The group’s music may not be what Western listeners grew up hearing, but the rhythms and melodies are instantly captivating and listeners are quickly drawn into the intensity of the music.
For many audio and video samplings
Audio tracks:From a Greek folk song
From a traditional Arabic song
THE FEATURED POET, Frank Beltrano, opens the poetry portion of the event with a reading that begins at 7:00, followed by a Q&A.
OPEN MIC: Following the featured poet, there is about 1.5 hours of open mic, ending about 9:00 pm. Each poet has five minutes (which is about two good pages of poetry, but it should be timed at home). Names are selected at random, so there is no need to come especially early just to get on the list of readers.
RAFFLE PRIZES: Anyone who donates to London Open Mic Poetry Night receives a ticket for a raffle prize, three of which will be picked after the intermission. The prizes consist of poetry books donated by Brick Books and The Ontario Poetry Society. Donations are our only source of income. We still haven't paid off our initial debt.
to Jack
Thinking of your death
I imagined a sound
amid the last of the firewood
in the abyss between the garages
I wanted to see you as a mouse
dark and furtive
alive in the blackness.
On this beautiful day
a butterfly struggled by instead
against the gravity of it all,
my thoughts of how
you were depressed.
You reminded me
of my father near his end
always a man’s man hunting,
killing in a sacred way.
Your son found you
three days missing, in a field,
rolled you over hoping a heart attack,
found you faceless
with one of your guns
in the same field
where his mother
your first true love
spent the last of
her cancer-ridden days
among monarchs.
© Frank Beltrano
2. The Days of Angry
I remember
the days of angry.
city speed for
inches of advantage
the rush and fuss
of billing 9 or 91/2 hours
into 8 hour days
overtime racoons
on fences
down dark alleyways
midnights motoring away from
mangled mortise cylinders
pager calls
dim lit halls
walkie talkie
locksmith lingo
knocking on doors
locking up crack houses
showing respect for whores
taking orders from pimps
home to read
politically correct fairy tales.
And sometimes to cry for tired
wishing sleep
shaking, still at the wheel
of a parked truck
no peace, no luck
but big pay cheques
and home at all hours
up early
customers difficult
managers squirrelly
picking cylinders
slipping linkages
jimmying latches
retracting bolts
delivering assurances
supplying quotes.
“If they want to get in badly enough
nothing will stop them”
Seldom asking who they are
stopping them
with long, shiny, stainless steel screws
threaded through jams into 2 by 4s
working with two by fours
And working with words
like pillars of belief
giving support, relief
to single moms
locking in battered women
and stolen cigarettes
stopping cigarette smoking
mostly men
doing it again, for
elderly women, widows and widowers
broken men
with their own ideas
about how this is done
pussy cats all
who ask, “Are you bonded?”
For what it is worth
I am trusted
to fight fear with mirth
by mobsters
not pussy cats at all
ex-KGB
stripper lords
slum lords
real estate moguls
proprietors of rentals
VIP owners
of Lincoln continentals
and rusted out colts
wanting at midnight
doors with gaskets, magnetics
push button bolts.
And before morning
come low voltage shocks
testing electric locks
(a coffee comes as much to warm the hands as drink )
oily at dawn
delivering parts
in brown paper bags
hands wrapped in rags.
And when this is done
I go away,
and to myself, I say
“I have been
here before
been— there before
I have therefore been
before”
I become a spinning dervish
inscribing circles in the dust
when I am done
out comes the anger
up comes the sun
that propels the day
I remember
the days of angry.
© Frank Beltrano
Toward the Light, summer, 2007, with honourable mention
3. Terza Rima Sunset
(Editor: Invented by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri in the late thirteenth century to structure his three-part epic poem, The Divine Comedy, terza rima is composed of tercets woven into a rhyme scheme that requires the end-word of the second line in one tercet to supply the rhyme for the first and third lines in the following tercet. Thus, the rhyme scheme (aba, bcb, cdc, ded) continues through to the final stanza or line. Dante chose to end each canto of the The Divine Comedy with a single line that completes the rhyme scheme with the end-word of the second line of the preceding tercet. Terza rima is typically written in an iambic line, and in English, most often in iambic pentameter. If another line length is chosen, such as tetrameter, the lines should be of the same length. There are no limits to the number of lines a poem composed in terza rima may have.)
Terza Rima Sunset
Bayfield Ontario July 17th 2013
The evening ritual is our walk to the sunset
Together we stroll in the heat swatting flies
Long shadows of maples are a comfort you bet
But it’s hot and the salt from our sweat stings our eyes.
To the top of the stairs leading down to the beach
The red sun setting becomes a surprise
Though we’ve seen it before it is new to us each
Night a little different falling from a height
Tangerine pandemonium swirling and shaped like a peach
With sunglasses we stare dumbfounded into bright
in love with a wedge of moon
To be frightened by the night.
Having fallen across the sky since apogee at noon
Our star strikes the cold lake to the call of a loon.
© Frank Beltrano
4. Exact Sentences
(Editor: This poem is in the form of a glosa, a relatively unknown poetic form, except for here in Canada, thanks in large part to P.K. Page who published a book called Hologram, A Book of Glosas. The form originated in the Renaissance Spanish court of the 14th and 15th centuries. In a glosa, tribute is paid to another poet. The opening quatrain, called a cabeza, is by another poet, and each of their four lines are imbedded elsewhere in the glosa. The opening quatrain is followed by four stanzas, each of which is generally ten lines long, that elaborate or "glosses" on the cabeza chosen. Each ending line (10th line) of the four following stanzas is taken from the cabeza. The usual rhyme scheme of a glosa is final word rhyming of the 6th, 9th and the borrowed 10th lines.)
Exact Sentences
Come to me, said the world.
This is not to say
it spoke in exact sentences
but that I perceived beauty in this manner.
October #3 from
Averno by Louise Glück
A child, I played out of doors
with butterflies and caterpillars
built fake fires of burnt match sticks
made mud bricks and tepees,
above these childish Indian homes
raised pirate flags unfurled
sang nursery rhymes, ate popcorn
had time for joy until
into the fray I was hurled.
Come to me, said the world.
And in my teens all music was
the thing, fashion and youthful society,
the distancing from the norm, parents,
family, and home, the taking up with
friends. Late evenings of partying
staying out past the end of the day
discovering sex,
imagining independence, a new
adventure and home of my own away.
This is not to say
I disliked my childish pursuits
or would soon forsake them
to be truly, truly mature, responsible,
independent out in the world
but I did delude myself
with false modesty and shallow repentances
into believing I heard a voice
of wisdom, vision and premonition
leading me triumphantly covering great distances
it spoke in exact sentences.
And I was determined defective
perhaps schizophrenic or manic depressive
living in valleys and on mountain tops
both passively and actively aggressive
grazing on pharmacological disaster
when all that I needed was dexterity of grammar
to express my pent-up elation
or to climb from the depths of despair
with words and phrases hard as a hammer
I perceived beauty in this manner.
© Frank Beltrano
5. Klimt T-Shirt
There is a woman today
in the café with a Gustav Klimt
painting on her weathered t-shirt.
It is nowhere near as golden
and splendid as the original.
“A lovely thing,” I say, nonetheless.
I try to be friendly, not more or less
don’t want trouble from her husband today.
I am in love with the original
a masterpiece of the Viennese Klimt
resembling the Byzantine mosaic art, golden.
This is not new, a washed-out t-shirt
that has travelled with dignity, a t-shirt
that undoubtedly cost a lot less
than the 135 million dollar painting, gorgeous and golden
the second most expensive painting in the world today.
Why so much for a work by Klimt?
Has value been added to the Viennese original
by the Nazis confiscating the original
leaving its Jewish owners with barely the shirts
on their backs, storing the stolen loot in bunkers? The Klimts
were traded for exit visas and less.
A fortunate few descendants of the owners survive today
having escaped the S.S. by paying with paintings of gold.
It is the Viennese Mona Lisa, that I love, the Golden
Lady as named by the Nazis, ashamed of the original
Jewish name, Adele Bloch-Bauer— the painting’s title again today.
It is made famous by the court case, the posters, t-shirts
notoriety in the press and less
the skill and genius of the painter, Klimt.
What might Klimt
think of his golden
masterpiece now? Less
a work of original
genius, more a subject for a t-shirt
seen in the cafe today
worn today in tribute to Klimt
well worn t-shirt not quite as golden
as the original but inspiring nonetheless.
© Frank Beltrano
THE EVENT
WHERE: All of our reading events except the April one are held in the Mykonos Restaurant at 572 Adelaide St. North, London, Ontario. The restaurant has a large, covered terrace just behind the main restaurant, which comfortably holds 60 poetry lovers. Mediterranean food and drinks are available. The terrace is open to the parking lot behind. Overflow parking is available across the side street and in the large lot one block north, in front of Trad’s Furniture.
WHEN: September 4th. Music begins at 6:15, poetry at 7:00.
LIVE MUSIC: The Light Of East Ensemble, a group of up to seven internationally-inspired musicians, will open the event at 6:15. The group will also play during the intermission and at the end of the event. The Light Of East Ensemble, a London-based instrumental group, performs music from the Near and Middle East, including traditional, folk, classical Arabic, Greek Rembetika, and modern urban music of the 20th century from regions such as Armenia, Greece (Asia Minor - Smyrni, and Konstantinoupoli), Turkey, and other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria.
The Light of East Ensemble is the winner of the 2013 Jack Richardson Music Award, and the 2013 London Music Award in the category of World Music, also the winner of the 2011 Jack Richardson Music Award in the category of World Music and a London Music Award in both 2011 and 2008. The group’s music may not be what Western listeners grew up hearing, but the rhythms and melodies are instantly captivating and listeners are quickly drawn into the intensity of the music.
For many audio and video samplings
Audio tracks:From a Greek folk song
From a traditional Arabic song
THE FEATURED POET, Frank Beltrano, opens the poetry portion of the event with a reading that begins at 7:00, followed by a Q&A.
OPEN MIC: Following the featured poet, there is about 1.5 hours of open mic, ending about 9:00 pm. Each poet has five minutes (which is about two good pages of poetry, but it should be timed at home). Names are selected at random, so there is no need to come especially early just to get on the list of readers.
RAFFLE PRIZES: Anyone who donates to London Open Mic Poetry Night receives a ticket for a raffle prize, three of which will be picked after the intermission. The prizes consist of poetry books donated by Brick Books and The Ontario Poetry Society. Donations are our only source of income. We still haven't paid off our initial debt.
The Wisdom of Birds
The birds don’t know
that Osama Bin Laden
is dead, and don’t care.
They are singing
their mating songs,
turning up wet leaves
in search of worms—
life goes on— and
a man who kills men
is no news to birds.
They have no knowledge
of the words of the Koran,
the Bible, the Torah
and what’s more
I’d rather hear birds sing
than those people who cheered
in the Arab world on 9/11
or those who sang American anthems
in Washington last night because
Osama Bin Laden is dead.
© Frank Beltrano
Before I Write
After the lighting of a beeswax candle
held aloft by the cast iron mouse
I return to my chair
although turned around I turn it back
as if to invite myself to sit
as long as I can
as though I cared
because before
I write
even if I pause
even though I do
how wonderful it feels
if only I knew
since I don’t know
that which will be
though it will most assuredly be
unless I pause
until a pause becomes a stop
when push comes to shove
whatever time it takes
where do good words come from
while I paused and stopped
it seems to have written itself.
© Frank Beltrano
even if I pause
even though I do
how wonderful it feels
if only I knew
since I don’t know
that which will be
though it will most assuredly be
unless I pause
until a pause becomes a stop
when push comes to shove
whatever time it takes
where do good words come from
while I paused and stopped
it seems to have written itself.
© Frank Beltrano
THE EVENT
WHERE: All of our reading events except the April one are held in the Mykonos Restaurant at 572 Adelaide St. North, London, Ontario. The restaurant has a large, covered terrace just behind the main restaurant, which comfortably holds 60 poetry lovers. Mediterranean food and drinks are available. The terrace is open to the parking lot behind. Overflow parking is available across the side street and in the large lot one block north, in front of Trad’s Furniture.
WHEN: September 4th. Music begins at 6:15, poetry at 7:00.
LIVE MUSIC: The Light Of East Ensemble, a group of up to seven internationally-inspired musicians, will open the event at 6:15. The group will also play during the intermission and at the end of the event. The Light Of East Ensemble, a London-based instrumental group, performs music from the Near and Middle East, including traditional, folk, classical Arabic, Greek Rembetika, and modern urban music of the 20th century from regions such as Armenia, Greece (Asia Minor - Smyrni, and Konstantinoupoli), Turkey, and other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria.
The Light of East Ensemble is the winner of the 2013 Jack Richardson Music Award, and the 2013 London Music Award in the category of World Music, also the winner of the 2011 Jack Richardson Music Award in the category of World Music and a London Music Award in both 2011 and 2008. The group’s music may not be what Western listeners grew up hearing, but the rhythms and melodies are instantly captivating and listeners are quickly drawn into the intensity of the music.
For many audio and video samplings
Audio tracks:From a Greek folk song
From a traditional Arabic song
THE FEATURED POET, Frank Beltrano, opens the poetry portion of the event with a reading that begins at 7:00, followed by a Q&A.
OPEN MIC: Following the featured poet, there is about 1.5 hours of open mic, ending about 9:00 pm. Each poet has five minutes (which is about two good pages of poetry, but it should be timed at home). Names are selected at random, so there is no need to come especially early just to get on the list of readers.
RAFFLE PRIZES: Anyone who donates to London Open Mic Poetry Night receives a ticket for a raffle prize, three of which will be picked after the intermission. The prizes consist of poetry books donated by Brick Books and The Ontario Poetry Society. Donations are our only source of income. We still haven't paid off our initial debt.
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