Dale Smith and Kent Johnson in Beatnik Bob's café at the City Museum in St. Louis last night. In attendance were Jonathan Mayhew, David Hess, Aaron Belz (series organizer), and Gabriel Gudding, and others whose names I didn't catch. We all went down the slide to the ground floor afterwards and had a drink by a fire in the funky setting of the Cabin Inn. Kent read first, only four poems. Two about the Iraq that I had read before and a discomfiting poem dedicated to Aaron. (Discomfiting to Aaron I'm sure!) Then a piece from Yasusada. His style of reading is quite effective.

Dale read some aphorisms at the end that I especially liked. He had recently been in Lawrence with Ken Irby and Lee Chapman. Gabe snapped some pictures of readers and audience members that might appear on his blog in a bit. David told us about his operation (don't ask, don't tell).