An Open Note to Morgantown area poets

A call to local writers' groups and high schools in the Morgantown area: Be on the bus when it pulls out, or run to catch up.

I'm taking over the open microphone at Barnes & Noble in the area, I want bodies. Not just bodies. Poets. People who know how to write, who feel how to write. Who can and do write, and write right and well. I want to build it into a terrific venue.

Morgantown High School? You want the poets from University High School to upstage you and have more control over the microphone, the flow and the feel of the sessions? What about St. Francis? Clay-Battelle? I pretty much am writing off the creative writing department at WVU, since after two years I can't even get them to return my calls (must be pissed that the Morgantown Public Library carries more of my books).

I want academic poets, street poets, young, old, male and female, two of each unclean animal, seven of the clean ones. I want to have to cut off the list after twenty sign ups then have to worry about the logistics of requiring in-advance sign-ups (we are going to, for the time, have a sign up sheet at the information desk at B&N).

If I get a lot of people, I may not even have to read. If I get no one, I'll treat the sessions as open dates for me to work new material. Tag will be there, usually, and so will a deranged rag-tag crew of locals I've already met, shuttling in and out, looking for a place to call home.

But, no matter how it plays, I'm driving. The door is open. For now. I want poets and collaborators. Now.

By the way, E.J.'s new blog. Not bad.