On October 14th, I went to Rockford Ill. James Hamilton asked me to be on his radio show Verse’d on WBOM Streaming radio and an open mic that night. I didn’t really want to burn two vacation days, but thought I should take a chance.

I’m so glad I did. I met some great people and got a taste of the Rockford Ill. poetry culture.  Luckily my interview (my versus) was with Luke Welch.  I had met him before and he is a great guy. He brought along another poet named Denali. For the producer of the show, Savvy Magoo, she read a couple of poems.  Their poem on what it is like to function with autism was powerful.  Denali’s words were powerful and seemed beyond her experience. However, young people are often more in tune with the power of words. 

The radio is in the basement of the Mendelssohn Performing Arts Center.  The director Eric (?) was interesting . Exactly the guy you want to manage a place began in 1884 and focused on cultivating culture.  He was a hippy, long hair, a long beard, cool messenger bag, and sandals. He was great.

So i got to hear stories.  The engineer Rachel worked like three days a week over the weekend at an aeronautics plant in Rockford.  There is two and they are not really competing, but they are different places to work for.

Quickly it was time for the open mic that was held at the Burpee Museum of Natural History. It is a great museum, notable for housing Jane the dinosaur, the most complete Skelton ever found.

So many great poets! I will especially remember a poem by a Fauna. She described what it is like OCD. It was interesting to learn what it was like. And it was a powerful message to all of us that talk about how we have OCD. Sometimes we are particular about doing somethings, but the compulsion to to repeat behaviors is something we should honor.

It was such a great night of spoken word and music.  The Rockford area poets are proud of their community and should be!