College Avenue’s parking and traffic are consistently a shitshow, so I bike up and over from East Lake as the sun sets, lock my ride up in front of Local Economy, and walk in the open door. It’s an open mic night for works-in-progress only, and Thao Nguyen, local rockstar (though “I don’t identify as that; working musician”) opens the night with a story from her memoir-in-essays forthcoming from Graywolf. It traverses bearing up under misunderstandings of her sexuality and marriage by her father, to watching her own walls keep him at a distance, until the moment of connection, in the essay, finds its way through the brambles in a song. Working musician – there’s got to be music. The Local Economy host turns on the song that’s in the story for us all to hear. A real cowboy song, her father would say, and he says “Mamma mia!” when she turns it on in the memory, and she marvels, we all marvel: “Mamma mia!” What a phrase.
After that, the floor is open. The event listing said 43 people were coming, but the final showing was around 25 (RSVP etiquette really has taken a post-pandemic dive): the perfect sized crowd, both attentive and intimate. Eleven people signed up to share their works-in-progress, which was also pretty much perfect. I read a couple poems to open the open mic, Ryan followed by reading a fantastic interview he’d conducted with a survivor of the Eaton fire who lost her home, then Truc (say their name like you’re a bird, chirping) shared a video of a performance piece she’s developing to show this spring (Thao jumped up to hold the iPad if necessary, but it wasn’t). The lights went off, the amp turned on, and we in the front row got low so everyone could see: Memories and images and their mother’s voice, recorded during Truc’s first ever visit to their mother’s home village in Viet Nam, projected across their torso in the performance video, a video now held up against their torso in the room.
When the lights came back up, older women shared personal essays about hating their name, which was also their mom’s name and about how good they were at playing football as girls; someone younger than me read from her novel that had people doing MDMA in it. Tyler told the story of his grandfather, and their shared identity as gay Bay Area men. Becky is writing about pain, and linked together the excruciation of a bad nipple latch with the pain of giving her son weekly injections 4 years later, her role as mother to soothe and reassure both of them. I had read the first piece of Jenny’s memoir-in-progress in a Bather’s Library Calendar and Minimag, and now in this episode, her mom had gotten popped for another DUI and was in jail. The sad absurdities of addiction’s careless, radiating percussions and repercussions wove the room into quiet attention. Following Jenny, the woman running the next Works-in-Progress event read her poem and invited us to gather again in November. Some of the WIP readers were Local Economy members, but several were not. It’s a community space, and the reading was free to all who read and listened. If a spot’s open in the next event’s RSVP list, anyone’s welcome to take it. There’s a newsletter, sign up and see what’s coming (or add yourself to the membership waitlist.)
The works in progress were GOOD. Talent thick on the ground. A few folks asked to read the poems I’d read again, and it reminded me of the Duncan and Spicer poetry circle, where poets would read their work to each other a couple times, so those in the circle could hear it once, and then really listen again. I talked with Rena (listener) and Ryan (reader) about what they were working on – an exhibition at Root Division and a whole book on housing problems and solutions. Making progress.
Given a cactus-to-go and leaving before the mop came out for the night, I threw the bike in neutral and rolled down the hill all the way on Broadway, until I took a right and ended up at Bar Shiru, where Tongo Eisen-Martin was spinning D’Angelo followed with John Coltrane and other records that several of us--conveniently present with our pens and notebooks--have decided is good for writing to. But before I’ve even ordered a drink, Noor (Tritone poetry reading curator at Tamarack, occasional alley reader) is there, saying hello; I chat with them and Sam, who gave them their delicate, lovely earrings. Then back to the bar to see what might come, what might hit just right when, later, I look back over what I’ve written, and possibly think, ok, this is good. The woman next to me is journaling and chats with a few people who sit next to her, acquaintances turning into more. One of them hands over a print newsletter from 1080 Press featuring Tongo's work and I recall that I joined for their newsletter when it was Sophia Dahlin on Gertrude Stein, but, dammit my copy never arrived.
A day or two after running into Noor, they invite me to read at the next Tritone event in the ongoing Tamarack poetry series (Friday 11/14, 6:30pm sharp). And a couple weeks after, I spot Tyler ladling out food at a Dia de los Muertos gathering put on by Maribel for Artelar in Temescal Alley. I point at his face, you were at the Local Economy Works-in-Progress!, and we keep talking.
The wonderful thing about works in progress is that the answer to “what happens next” is “I don’t know, but it’s gonna be great.” Ten years here in Oakland is just getting started.