Diary of a Mad Editor

I don’t like change. Whether it’s because I’m a Taurus or because I’m just set in my ways.

When one chapter in my life closes despite my own intentions to maintain the status quo, I usually require an interlude to get my bearings before I can move into the next chapter. Throughout the last year, I’ve been trying to hold fast against the forces of change. As life grows and crumbles around me, I’ve held onto every remnant of safety I could find. Then, last week, I received a cryptic email from the owner of my old home mic, Brenner’s Brew, where I peddled my sorry-ass poetry from more than a decade. After mulling over Barbara Brenner’s message for a couple of days, I decided to drop by the much loved and nearly legendary coffee house to say, “hi” and see what the what was.

“Oh John, I’m glad you stopped by,” Barbara said. Then, as if to add more suspense to the mystery, you led me to a dim corner near the back of the room.

“I got you’re message,” I said. “What’s up?”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Oh no, I thought, Barbara’s dying!

No. Not dying. But something almost as bad.

“I’ve decided to close up the shop,” she said.

“Brenner’s Brew is closing?”

“Yep. I can’t do it anymore.”

I knew business has been bad since the economy tanked a few years ago. But I, like, most of Barbara’s customers/poet-artist types, kind of took it for granted that she’d weather the storm and the Brew would press on.

I think, at that moment, I was too shocked to react honestly to the news. I instead played it cool and responded with the usual cliches when someone delivers bad news.

But really, the news was a wake-up call of sorts. A sign that there is simply nothing left to hold onto. A definitive close to a big chapter in my life that began with a profound heartbreaking disappointment in January 1997 and subsequently led to a artistic shift in my writing life and subsequent discovery of Brenner’s Brew and founding of Asterius Press.

I remember the first time I met Barbara. It was just a couple of months after she opened. There was also a new book store, The Hungry Reader, which had opened around the same time. I had been talking with Kitty, the book store’s owner, about carrying my first poetry chapbook. She agreed to carry it on consignment, but then suggested that I talk to Barbara Brenner, who’d  was starting up an open mic.  I met Barbara shortly after and formed a fast friendship. Less than a month later I read my poetry there for the first time. It was me, a Native American storyteller and a folk duo called My Louise. The open mic nights went through many incarnations and many hosts over the years.  Saturday, February 19 will be the last poetry event at Brenner’s Brew ever (Really. . . you may recall that I announce the demise of the open mic nights in 2007, but that turned out to be a false alarm. They started up again a few months later. No, this time its for real. No more Brenner’s. The current host, Chris Ney, will move the open mics to the nearby Bridgetown . . . but it just won’t be the same <sigh>).

Anyway, thanks Barbara. For your all your support over the years.  14 years is nothing to sneeze at. Being as most poetry venues don’t make it past their second anniversary, 14 years is an eternity in the life of a poet.