BY PUMA PERL | I couldn’t be happier to report that the spirit of discovery is alive and well as demonstrated by the Rocky Presents shows, and that a new generation is learning that poetry lives on in the streets, and in the hearts and souls of those who least expect it. It’s amazing how everything different can be the same again.
“Rocky” is Rocky LaMontagne, founder and producer of “All That!” — which debuted at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in 1993 and is currently the longest running open mic series in New York City. LaMontagne has since relocated to Arizona, and Dii Lewis has joined forces with him to co-produce “All That!” as well as “Words” and “Women of Words,” two additional series that blend hip hop with poetry.
About forty years ago, Miguel Algarin, one of the founders of the Nuyorican, got sick of everyone hanging around his East Sixth Street apartment, and, with a group of poet friends, rented a storefront directly across from his building. I wandered in there the second night it opened, and never really left until it went on hiatus after the move to Third Street. Along with countless other Lower East Side residents, I learned that the transformative power of poetry and performance was accessible, regardless of class and academic achievement. If you couldn’t write, you made poems in your head, perhaps in Spanish, perhaps in English, or some new combination of both. Loisaida language.
Although most of the regulars were from the block and the surrounding area, you never knew who might wander in. Naturally, iconic poets like the late Pedro Pietri and Tato Laviera were founding members and often in attendance, but on any given night you might see William Burroughs confounding the audience, Ntozake Shange dancing a mean mambo with Algarin, or Amiri Baraka patiently awaiting his turn to read.
I lived around the corner and the Cafe became the same nightly stop that CBGB probably would have been if I lived several blocks west. Sometimes, it’s all about geography and circumstance. I had an infant son and he grew up sitting on the floor clapping as each poet took the stage. I realize now that a collective force of making something out of nothing was sweeping both sides of Avenue A. On the east side, Eddie Gomez, the younger brother of co-founder Miguel Pinero, was just out of the Army and working the bar. He was very good-looking and all the girls loved him. I must have loved him a little more than most, because several years later we had a child together, Juliet. She recited her first poem at the Third Street location at age four. It was about hot dogs. She went on to host open rooms and slams and became an avid attendee of Rocky’s shows. As Kurt Vonnegut said, “so it goes.”
Fast-forward a decade or three to 10 p.m. on a warm August evening, and I’m headed to the Nuyorican with my photographer friend, Lynn Cappiello, as an anonymous reporter for this publication. Dii Lewis greets me warmly, and I grab a seat at the bar, which is manned by Pepe, who has been in attendance for as long as I can remember at this location. “All That!” is straight up open mic, and participants are accompanied by a trio of astounding musicians. Chris Eddleton holds it down on drums, and Keith Witty adds the unique sound of a solid body electric stand-up bass. The third component is the keyboard, and on my two visits I saw different musicians, Mike Ekroth and Michael Bellar, who had never before played with the group. Both Chris and Keith have extensive backgrounds in jazz and have recorded internationally. They open with a musical jam — free-form as well as riffs on standards like “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone,” and spend the rest of the session accompanying every performer. They always seem to find a way to work it out, whether it’s poetry or song, hip hop, rap, or some sort of hybrid.
After everyone has settled in, the affable host, Gaston, takes the reins and is eventually joined by his cohort Wise Guy. They are MC’s, poets, musicians, producers, and videographers and are both entertaining and welcoming to the audience. Gaston does the inevitable geographical roll call, and there is one hand raised from the Lower East Side. Mine. Since it’s a mid-summer, many of the audience members and participants hail from all over the world, including Australia and South Africa. The level of performance is exceptional, ranging from polished artists to first-timers, all of whom had waited on line to pay their $10 and sign up. The crowd is racially diverse, young, and supportive of one another. As I watch the trio make magic, tuning into and enhancing each poem or song, I start to wonder how, as an older white woman, I would be received if I came back and got on the open mic. It would make for a more interesting article, I tell myself, knowing I’m half lying and that part of my agenda is getting a chance to try out a piece with these kick-ass musicians.
“All That!” takes place on the first Wednesday of each month, and in September I return, solo. This time, the attendees are more local to the boroughs and surrounding areas. It’s not quite as crowded, and it’s a bit less racially diverse. Dii tells me she wants to give me a shout-out and I caution her not to — anonymity is key to my social experiment. I sign the open mic list and sit by myself in the first row, watching a series of talented young people bravely take the stage. Most of them are novices and all of them bring it. One girl had just written her song hours before and holds several scraps of paper. For the most part, everyone is off the page. Some give the musicians a little direction and others just flow with it. A young man from New Jersey requests an a cappella performance and is firmly discouraged.
One of the few rules is that everyone plays with the band. Another is that you write down what kind of performance you are delivering. Poetry and song are both accepted. I’ve performed hundreds, maybe thousands, of times, with and without bands, and I feel more nervous than I can recall feeling in a very long time. Out of my comfort zone. Alone. It’s that heart pounding, dry-mouthed anxiety known as stage fright, and as my name is called I tell myself that it doesn’t matter if I forget the words since nobody knows my work anyway. I tell the musicians that I will trust them to follow along, inform the audience that I have a question for them, and recite my first line: “Do you believe in grace and madness?” Chris, the drummer, answers with a beat. We all laugh, and we are off. The band is with me, the audience is with me, and I receive fist pounds and hugs for the rest of the evening. I feel as good about this three-minute poem as I do after a one hour set, and I leave happy, less for myself than for the shared experience and the hope it brings for the future.
I decide to ask someone who attended “All That!” in the early days how it was — and who better to consult than my daughter, the aforementioned Juliet, who lives and breathes hip hop. “What was so special about both “All That!” and “Words,” ” she tells me, “is that poetry, for the first time, was acknowledged as the bare bones of both rap and hip hop, and Rocky provided a place for poets who loved those genres. I used to see people like Lemon Andersen, muMs, and Mariposa waiting on line to get on an open mic. Hip hop stars like Common and Talib Kweli would just drop in, and this was before it blew up into Def Poets on HBO and Broadway. It was a place for the talent that might go unnoticed to emerge.”
And this continues to be the mission of the Rocky Presents team — giving a home to emerging artists of all ages, uniting the genres, and providing new cultural experiences to both novices and established performers. When I first stumbled into the Nuyorican, there were no lines, no admission, a different cast of characters. Many of the originals are gone, and so is much of the chaos that accompanies a brand new experience. But every experience is new to someone. Things change and remain the same, thanks to the poetry Gods watching over us all.
Visit Rockypresents.com to sign up for the mailing list and keep up with events. “All That!” takes place the first Wednesday of each month, “Words” on the third Saturday. Both events are at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (236 E. Third St., btw. Aves. B & C). To access the calendar and find other events, visit nuyorican.org.
Puma Perl and Friends will perform at Otto’s Shrunken Head (538 E. 14th St., btw. Aves. A & B) at 11 p.m. on Sun., Nov. 9, as part of the Nine Days of Wood Birthday Celebration. They will also perform at 10 p.m. on Sat., Nov. 15, as part of the 7 p.m. AHPresents! event at Sidewalk Cafe (95 Ave. A, at Sixth St.), in honor of photographer Alan Rand, and at the joint birthday celebration of Deborah Gentit Verno and Harold C. Black at The Delancey Lounge (168 Delancey St., at Clinton St.) on Tues., Nov. 18, time TBA. Visit pumaperl.blogspot.com.
