Left of Write Puts Local Poets on the Mic

An audience of about a dozen writers, readers and supporters convened Thursday evening to share poems—about sexuality, about identity, and of course, about writing—at  coffee house.

Like most community workshops, the neighborhood open-mic writing roundtable, known as “Left of Write,” is defined by a confessional element that marks group members as undertaking the challenge of expression.

Co-founders Rachel Diamond and George Hornbostel talked about starting a writing group back in April of this year.

Diamond, whose son Colin works at Grooveground, agreed to pitch the idea to his supervisors, and off they went.

“The whole concept was to get people out of hiding to come out and perform and show their stuff; to provide enough friendship and enough of a support system,” Diamond said of Left of Write.

“It’s (about) basic respect for each other’s work. It’s more about positive reinforcement than (word choice),” she said.

Diamond, who says her own productivity as a writer has improved since founding the group, said Left of Write supports any kind of performance within the genre of spoken word.

The group's sound mixes prose, short stories, monologues, and comedy skits—including a good cop/bad cop therapist sketch, which will debut at Left of Write's next meeting on Sept. 15.

The content, Diamond said, “is variable.”

“We’ve had a member give an entire monologue about S&M,” Diamond said of poetry content.

Robert Geise traveled the farthest of any attendee Thursday evening, driving in from Ocean City.

“I decided to come because September is my birthday month, and as a gift to myself I’m doing as many open mics and readings as I can find in the area,” Geise said.

Geise, who has been writing since the mid-1980s, describes New Jersey's poetry scene as “very segmented.”

“It’s disconnected from New York or Philly, but at the same time, it’s a very nurturing environment,” said Geise.

One of the evening’s most colorful presenters was Concetta Risilia, whose poetry collection, Surviving Love, Sin, and Meatballs, is anchored in the lexicon of South Philly Italian neighborhoods.

She deflected any criticism of her plain-spoken homily Love is Wisdom, by prefacing, “It’s not about anger and all that; it’s a very un-clever poem.”

The piece opens with homage to the fools-rush-in cliché, declaring:

“Love cannot be layered upon a fool, but an
unschooled innocent may be lifted to wisdom.”

“There’s a kind of fool that’s closed to love,” Risilia said. “But there’s another who needs to be schooled.”

Paula Forte, a music composition major at Rowan University, said the biweekly meet-up has helped sharpen her poetry in a way that lyricism hadn’t demanded of her before.

“With song lyrics, you can take a single syllable and stretch it over an infinite number of measures,” Forte said. “You’re much more limited with poetry because you have to be much more precise with your words.”

Most importantly, she said, Left of Write engenders “a sense of family,” among writers.

“There’s no criticism; just friendliness and openness,” Forte said, adding that Left of Write lets writers become “a little more daring.”