Poetry's Rockin' the City- Why not come along for the ride?

Someone once said, "It's easier to quote poems than to read them". Obviously, this person did not attend Sunday's Open Mic night at "Coffee Print" at 31 Bugrashov St. Tel Aviv once again welcomed poets and performers from all around.

Living in the Middle East, people sometimes forget that there are English speakers who produce work in their native language. The purpose of these evenings is to provide a platform for the artists among us, who can share their work in a friendly and artistic environment.

I was honored to host the Open Mic night once again and even more delighted to see new faces and to welcome back Farrah, who started the Open Mic venue last winter (and read a poem she wrote about Israel four years ago).

Mark Levinson's Voices Israel crew starred on stage, with newcomers such as Beverly and Valerie. Roy read his limericks and amazed us with his Australian wit. Mark paid tribute to his favorite poets and Doreen performed an outstanding short piece.

David Kuhn brought along some of Pushkin's poetry and added a bit of Russian flavor to the atmosphere.

"Coffee Print" also welcomed Dara Barnat, who teaches at Tel Aviv University and has published a number of her poems.

Of course, Open Mic nights are never complete without some students, who are slowly revolutionizing the poetic world: Avital, Avshalom, Sonya, Gil, DaVe and of course, Uri shined on stage with some of their original material (Avshalom and Uri bravely took words from the word stash a improvised new poems… about licorice and world domination…).

We ended the evening with Avital's tribute to Regina Spektor, my Alanis tune and DaVe's original song.

Well, Asher's on his way back to the Land of Milk and Honey and in the meantime, I want to wish everyone Shana Tova!

I hope this New Year will bring more poetry to our lives and even more performances in the future! As Aristophanes said, "Let each man exercise the art he knows".