Poetry Announcement for the week from Maryee

TEEN POETRY CAFE

Beatnix Coffeehouse will be closed from today (Monday) til Wednesday. That means No Teen Poetry Cafe tomorrow night. They will re-open Thursday, bright and early at 7am for coffee and pastries and we will have Open Mic Poetry at 7:30pm as scheduled.

If you haven't been out, please come and bring some upbeat poems if you have any. Last week was kinda melancholy and we need the HOTPoets to always have a poem or two handy to lift the mood when it starts to get too dark in the place. The crowd has been good even though it's summer time, but hey, that may be a Waco thing, cause there's no other consistent Open Mic poetry nights going on and not much to do on a Thursday night.

OBSERVATIONS FROM MARYEE

• I've noticed that most of the poets are reading their own work. We try and provide a safe place in which to share at Open Mic Poetry Night, which is good. Most of us share intimate and personal stuff, so that's helpful for them and others also and very therapeutic. Sometimes it gets pretty deep.
• The young folks amaze me by not being fearful of reading in front of a crowd. They add a nice balance for Thursday evenings and put the older folks to shame with their courage and creativity. Tuesdays have been nice as well and the poetry prompts I‘ve been giving the teens have been put to good use.
• Something else I've noticed is how many folks are becoming inspired to write their own "anthems" if you will, partly from others who have shared their own. Nick Stewart's "Screw You Ex-Girlfriend" has "spawned" others into writing from their own perspective. He said he’ll be reading it this Thursday.
• The self-censuring has been going fairly well. Beatnix is in business to make money, not run off customers who get offended when they walk in the doors to get a Chai tea and a danish and hear something lewd or offensive come from the stage. So, as a reminder, please be considerate of the Coffeehouse, the patrons, and the fellow poets when you read yours or someone else's work. IOW, use wise discretion.

PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES
I have been uploading pictures in my fotki account. If you would like to check them out, please do. If you want to purchase any, that would be great also. Check back often cause when I get the time to upload I will. If you want a picture but need it edited first (lightened, cropped, red-eye removed, etc), let me know and I'll clean it up before you purchase it. Right now, I'm just uploading pictures mostly without major touch-ups.

The link is: http://public.fotki.com/MsMaryee/beatnix_coffeehouse/

VIDEOS VIDEOS VIDEOS

As of last Thursday I also started videotaping the poets which means I took less still still shots, but captured as many poets as possible reciting their poetry. My digital camera as some of you know is also a camcorder and audio recorder as well, which means, you can have your stuff recorded by me with still or moving pictures, and solely audio as well.

I'm not working this summer substitute teaching so I thought it would be a good idea to offer my services in photography for those who are willing to help me out while I have fun doing what I love, which is capturing moments, visually, digitally and audibly. We've had a lot of memorable moments at Beatnix and I wish I had been capturing them all since the beginning, but hey, at least we are doing what we are doing. So support my side gig and purchase some pictures.

Believe it or not, it is a bit time consuming dealing with hundreds of photos. Downloading and editing can be a bear, especially when uploading video to google.com. I'm finding out the hard way that I need more hard drive space on my computer to handle all of picture and mSo I do what I want to do because I enjoy it, but if you want me to do a "paid" project for you, I'll be more than happy to discuss it with you via email or at Beatnix. Penney is helping me get my portfolio together, so if anyone wants to join in and support my efforts, that would be great.

The videos I have uploaded so far are here:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=beatnix+coffeehouse
If you want to see some, check out google video. They are allowing for comments and ratings for google members, so please know that if I upload your video someone whom you do not know may comment. Just an FYI…

HOTPOETS.ORG WEBSITE
The hotpoets.org website is under construction. So, for now any announcements and updates will be coming either from the hotpoets newsletter group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hotpoetsnl/

my blog: http://www.wacopoetryandmusic.blogspot.com

or http://www.beatnixcoffee.com

WANT YOUR POEM ADDED TO YOUR PICTURE?

If you want me to add your poem under your picture on the blog, just email me with the text and I’ll add a the poem with the picture. If there’s anything you do not want, say a picture of your, etc, just email me off line and let me know and I’ll fix it.

HAVE A BLOG OR WEBSITE?

Send me your links to your blogs/websites and I’ll add them to the links in my Waco blog. You can also add your links into the newsletter group, by clicking on “links” when you are in the group.

Well, that’s all for now. Your comments and suggestions are welcomed. Looking forward to seeing you out on Thursday night!

Maryee