Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

Womens History Night was planned before we ever planned to the close the cafe. It was a great way to celebrate with our final open mic, full of creative feminine energy. The pictures speak for themselves I do believe. Thanks to all who participated, and for all the testimonies too. We heard Tony and Martha, [...]

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The news is full of Vallejo lately. As usual, it seems for all the wrong reasons, or for whatever reason or angle already exists to twist the story, ridicule or point to as the thing not to do. What we do, here at Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe in downtown Vallejo, is listen and [...]

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From our local city council controversy over when to go bankrupt, to our national struggle for democracy in the twenty first century, there’s plenty if current events to keep our conversations centered on the present. Part of finding a path to the future is looking back and learning from the past. Last Friday we focused [...]

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Sometimes for us, Friday nights melt into Saturday mornings, since we close late and re-open early. It’s just one long creative jam of free expression, learning, creating and general carrying on by people of all ages. So, here’s the pics going from Friday night open mic for poetry, when we had plenty of creative folks [...]

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You know that when the poets come out, when the poetry publisher comes out, when the unofficial poet laureate of Vallejo comes out, when legendary poet Craig Easley volunteers to drive the feature from San Francisco, then you know that what you’re going to get is the pure stuff, poetry for poets. Gail Mitchell lived [...]

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Mostly there are plenty of poets for the open mic on Friday nights. But occasionally there are more people who want to listen than be heard. That’s what it was like last Friday, when we had the musicians, we had the spirit, and those who did share came with family, plenty poetry and couple of [...]

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Celebrating his 71rst Birthday and the publication of a volume of his poetry entitled “Whose Really Blues,” we featured Q.R. Hand Jr. last Friday during the open mic. We had a full house, a full list, and a wonderful time, as you can see in the pictures below. But you don’t have to take my [...]

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Thanks to Richard Freedman’s article in the Times Herald (http://www.timesheraldonline.com/sundayoutlook/ci_8027366) we’ve had some phone calls from people learning about our existence for the first time. That’s Richard sitting on our couch early last Thursday morning, when he showed up with his tape recorder for the interview. Don’t worry, we gave him a cup of the [...]

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Last Friday we had another crowd for the poetry open mic. If you want to express yourself, Friday night is the night to spotlight yourself. We had full list of ten poets, and more who participated in the freestyle final round. We featured Billy Tuggle, a Chicago Slam poet currently on tour in northern California.

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We’ve been on a limited holiday schedule, and even took an extra day off today! (We’ll be back to serving hot coffee tomorrow though, at 7am.) But we didn’t shut down the open mic, and it’s a good thing we didn’t because there was a lot of expressing needing to be done. Also as usual, [...]

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The other half of Listen & Be Heard took a trip to East Coast last week, leaving me to keep the mic open on Friday night. I didn’t take as many pictures as usual, and we didn’t get the Listen & Be Heard song delivered in the deep tones that only Tony can give us. [...]

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Last Friday Paul Neal called in sick. CarlTrent was sick too, but he made it anyway. Me too. You can’t tell I was there, because no one took a picture of me…but I took some pictures…and I can testify that the poetry and the drum raised our spirits above our bodies. Those who showed up [...]

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It’s not called Shit Talking Tuesday to make you feel bad. The point is to crack a smile. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at the person sitting next to you. Most of all laugh with or at the comedians. Whether it’s their first time on the stage, or a seasoned comedian working on new material, First [...]

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This past Saturday you could have walked into the cafe at almost any time, and their would have been more than coffee and health food being served up for your enjoyment. In the morning a ukelele player named Phil joined our jam host Ed Rivers. They worked on songs that they were able to play [...]

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Last Friday not every poet who came to the cafe got to sign the list because it filled up quick. Everyone wanted to be heard and spread their word. Those who weren’t impatient got to share anyway in the third round, when pretty much anything goes. There were young poets in high school, and older [...]

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