Books in Real Life, Episode 5: Every Last Word

For this month's Books In Real Life we chose... Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone! Both Alexa and I were blown away by Every Last Word and we love that we get to feature it today. Especially because it led us to attend our very first open mic night. (And in case you were wondering, we were just spectators!) 

The Poet In New York is an open mic that happens every Monday, 9pm at Bowery Poetry. We had no idea what to expect but we really enjoyed ourselves. It also got us talking about our days of writing poetry (way, way back when) and the courage it must take to get up in front of a bunch of strangers the way these people did. 

Almost immediately, Bowery Poetry felt like an exclusive club. When you walk in, there's a hallway wallpapered with words and at the end, there's another door to actually let you in. Once you do, you buy a ticket (and a drink if you like) and take a seat around the stage. 

In the picture on the left are the two hosts for the night. They were super warm and friendly and genuinely excited to see everyone in the crowd. The person on the right was the first person to go and it was her first time to ever do this. And man, did she just blow everyone away. There was a powerful rhythm to her words and I personally thought she was a tough act to follow. 

These are the other two poets I enjoyed listening to, particularly the one on the left. (Seriously, let's hear it for the ladies!) She was amazing. Half the words she spoke I wanted to write down to remember for later. She was eloquent, confident and extremely moving. At the end of these open mic nights, a single winner is chosen (as voted by the audience) and she had actually won before. After listening to her speak, I wouldn't have been surprised if she continued to win many more. 

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Survey time! At the end of every Books In Real Life post, we are going to answer a few questions: 

Anything you wish you'd known beforehand? We didn't know what to expect and given that we were already exhausted from work, we had only planned to stay for the first 30-45 minutes. If I had known how much we were going to enjoy it, we probably would've stayed for the whole thing. 

What was your favorite part? Each poet had 3 minutes so even in the limited time we were there, we listened to a handful of people. Some were a little out there but listening to the two I mentioned earlier was by far my favorite part. 

Would we do it again? Yes! It would be fun to go again and stay to vote too. There were so many people in the audience, from all over the country, and it felt like we had stumbled upon a well-hidden secret (just like Sam in Every Last Word!).