Poet's Cafe

Growing up I used to go to poet's café's in NYC and there is a whole culture around it. We wanted to recreate that scene going even farther back to the Beatniks. Girls don't really know what that is but we just had fun with it and set the mood.

Jazz music, dim lighting and instead of clapping, everyone had to snap their fingers.

We asked girls to prepare a poem/essay in advance about being a mother. They had to keep it clean of course.

To introduce them two leaders dressed in all black and scarves (or a beret is preferable) entered the room to a jazz song (very smooth/strong bass/etc). One leader called herself SMOOTH, the other was JAZZ and together they were "SMOOTH JAZZZZZZ"... Each leader made up a silly poem and had to read it very seriously, poetically and with a beat or rhythm almost like a song.

"roses are red
violets are blue
sunflowers are yellow...yeah"

Then instead of clapping, the audience was to snap their fingers and the characters would talk about how smooth or deep the other's poem was....then when we were done we introduced the girls one by one to share their poems.

They were a little nervous, but seeing us be silly, helped them to be ok with sharing themselves. The girls laughed a lot through the skit. So many moms write poetry or write in journals to express their pain. They often don't share it with anyone but this gave them opportunity to do just that in a safe place.

Shared by Karil Greaves-Bronx, NY