Wednesday 6th February 08 - Open Mic Night at The Locomotive Inn, York (2/3) By Michelle Dee

(1/3), (2/3) (3/3)

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The fledgling guitarist sat perched on a bar stool, guitar in hand to do Wonderwall by Oasis. He delivered chords confidently and youthful vocals, backed up by Benny on drums and Mike C on second guitar. Accolades for the young lad's performance could be heard around the room during and afterwards and he gets sustained applause as he leaves the stage.

Our two are up next: Mike Watts is first and he brings us the gamblers sorry tale in Wheel of Misfortune and the potent poetic power of Debbie. Now She's Gone, another new poem published on this site a few weeks ago, tells the regretful story of the one that got away and contains the inspired line, "transform our tongues into light sabres."

He finished with Come On You 'Ull - that well and truly nails his colours to the wall. Check out the video on You Tube. It's clear that this crowd have never heard poetry done quite this way before and Mike captures the rapt crowd with ease.

Wait till they get a load of Joe. Joe was indeed next up and he too had the crowd eating out of his hand. Lads, lasses young and older were hanging on his every word as he dusted off a few of his oldies, Crystal, Those Special Brew Blues, Two Cops In A Subaru. The thing is, to these people if you say poetry, they probably think of clouds and trees, lines of aesthetically pleasing verse, verbose and inaccessible. The spoken word that both Mike and Joe do is written in a way that reaches these people far more than any Byron or Chaucer anthology could.

This kind of poetry speaks to these people in a voice they recognise and about things they understand. Girls gone to the bad, take-away meals, hoodies and lager drinking tramps; it's all real, it's honest and it's happening every day. And just remember Joes only been doing this a year and he's already won a National award, been nominated by Farrago for another and recently signed a spoken word contract. After being short-listed last year for an intense residential course, he stood out to the selectors, secured a place on said course and will be joining five other artists from the U.K. starting in Manchester later this month.

A chap called Don, who came to our table afterwards, said, "I don't really read poetry but your stuff is all about what's happening now." Joe finished up with one of his latest that caused such an outcry a week ago, Indie Chicks. So to all his detractors on this site, shove it up your arses, it was committed to memory in double quick time and proved a winner tonight.

Continued...Next Page (3/3)

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