The Poetry Café Phenomenon

Cafés have always been centers of literary culture -- think of Voltaire in the first Viennese café after the coffee bean came to Europe, Hemingway and Henry Miller and others in the cafés of Paris, the Beats reading in San Francisco coffeehouses.... And in recent years, poets have opened cafés and clubs specifically designed to serve as poetry performance venues -- your guide Bob Holman’s Bowery Poetry Club in New York, which opened as an all-poetry-all-the-time performance venue and hangout, and then turned itself into a study-abroad program for poets, and Luis J. Rodriguez’ Tia Chucha Café Cultural in the Los Angeles area, to name just two.... Now big business has jumped into the poetry café phenomenon -- Microsoft has declared a poetry café the best new small business idea in its Ultimate Challenge competition, and awarded the winners “$100,000 in start-up money, rent-free use of a New York City storefront for one year, and materials and software to help the winners get their business up and running.” Who are these winners? Poets! The Mayhem Poets

from UpStage Arts & Culture Magazine, New Jersey:
“The Mayhem Poets Prove Art Is Smart Business,” by Gary Wien

Good luck, boys!

Also see:
“Nothing to Lose but the Chains: Poetry in the Neighborhood, Arts in the Economy”