Gloria's Cafe (1992) Part 1

This is where I found my voice 29th and Girard. Right between the Ghetto and The so called Brewery town of Philadelphia. On one side of Girard you had houses worth $29,000 to $40,000 and on the other side you had houses worth $200,000 to $400,000.

The tale of two societies in a 4 block radius. Nestled one half block down was Gloria's Cafe a small yet intimate bar. The owner Gerald Harold is a progressive thinking community activist who owned the bar. He also was a lover of Jazz and fashioned himself a Jazz singer who held his own with the best of them.

His passion and his love for the community lead him to open his space for local poets and performers. A tall 6 foot 3 inch dark skinned brother by the name of Anwar El hosted his poetry series every Sunday on the Third Floor of the building.

While passing the second floor you could smell the special Teriyaki Chicken and fries Gerald loved to cook for the patrons. But once you came to the Third Floor you heard Jazz and rhythmic words flowing to congas and flutes.

The likes of Kevin "The Blind Poet' was on the stage yelling " When all revolutionary are round up, If they come for me in the night, They'll come for your Black Ass in the Morning." The crowd came to their feet with a standing round of applause leaving me to say wow!!!

The place was on fire, I never experience black people in such a small place bringing so much energy. Soon after, a tall brown skinned slim female with long thin plats came to the stage. She was explaining to us about her relationship and stated that a man was in trouble if he was placed in a poem.

The name of the poem was "So I'm a Bitch"? and the sister name is Kimmika Williams,
This poem was crazy! This sister gave the history of how women stood up, cried, died, and comforted us even in our darkest moments as men and still held us up when we couldn't do it for ourselves.

This changed many men perspective about calling any woman a Bitch. By the time she left the stage men were holding their women and telling her they would never use the word Bitch again.

The host Amwar came back to the stage to introduce another one of his favorite poets Runett Nia Ebo. She called herself the roach lady because her most like poems was "God what you make those roaches for"? Her poem had everyone in stitches, it was comical but true poem of how some of us had to live with these roaches.

Well that night was look into my destiny. I meet all the poets that night with great respect. I asked them how they go started and how could I get to their level.

All of them pointed to one man in the back fashioning paper, card stock and staples into books. These were books for sale by the authors who had just performed.
This made me even more excited because they all was published, something I had dreamed of all my young life.

when I was in the 8th grade my English teacher gave a creative writing assignment and I wrote my first official poem entitled " A Dream." This poem got me a B- in her class and that was the day I knew I wanted to be a writer and most of all a Poet.

The man in the bck introduced himself as Dr. Maurice Henderson, The Executive Producer of the National Black Authors Tour. He was kind of smug when I asked him to tell me how could I get to know more about his group?

He replied that I had to take classes and what made me think my poetry was good enough to make his touring group? My reply to him was that my poetry was good and he needs me in his group.

Maurice smiled and said I hold work shops on Wednesdays and Saturdays in South Philly make it there and we will talk.