September 23, 1966

-- by Linda Ball

All sorts of people - beards, collegiate types, teenagers, middle agers, get together from time to time to listen to poetry.

Sometimes they crowd into the Gate. This is a small dark basement room of Trinity Cathedral. It gets hot and there aren't any more chairs but still they crowd in and stand and wait.

At the entrance to the Gate is a poster with a quote from John F. Kennedy:

"Healthy controversy is the hallmark of healthy change."

The room is clean. Tables and chairs are painted bright orange, green, yellow. There is a bar lighted with red bulbs. It sells Teem and Coke and coffee.

THE GATE is a coffee house opened last September by the University Christian Movement. A flyer you pick up as you enter says, "if you are lost/the gate is the place/u will not be alone."

We sit waiting for the reading to begin. rjs, a Cleveland State University student, asks if anyone who would like to read who hasn't signed up yet. He waves a yellow sheet with a list already long.

A high school boy opens the brown manila envelope he is carrying and spills pages and pages of poetry onto the table in front of us. "Which ones should I read? Hurry up. I need three. Hey, has anyone see d.a.?"

There is a lot of discussion about d.a. levy. "Is he here?" "Will he read?" "Did you know he read some of his poems to a third grade class?"

d.a. levy is the reigning poet of The Gate.

The poetry begins. There is a specified arrangement for the readings. Four poets read for five minutes each, followed by a ten-minute intermission.

Many read almost shyly, tonelessly and hurriedly return to their seats. Others read convincingly with anger, hate or compassion. Poems are written on scratch paper, notebook paper, cardboard and in elaborate little books with abstract covers.

THE AUDIENCE forms black silhouettes against the lighted platform where the poets read, and the candle on the podium throws dark shadows against the faces of the speakers.

Some of the better poems are sparks of insight. Others are only rough-edged expressions of thoughts. But everyone is listened to with interest and respect.

d.a. is introduced with a flourish. He is bearded and surprisingly small.

"The Support of Your City's Poets can has collected only $2.65," he raves. I This may be the last time you see me here. I'm going to start begging." A quarter thinks to the floor beside him and he picks it up.

"2.90," says d.a. levy.

He reads several of his poems. One, The Para-Concrete Manifesto, is an explanation of the poetry he writes.

A POET named Randy Rhody walks to the front of the room. He is wearing a red woolen sweater and a gold muffler. He is tall, thing and has long, well combed hair. He reads:

The hear sits heavily in the room, but few leave and more keep coming. Twenty-three poets read poems of Cleveland, pollution, political protest, despair, love and of their thoughts.

"I couldn't sleep one night, so I thought of this, and I remembered," one shaggy haired poet says softly.

NEARLY all The Gate's regular poets edit poetry journals - The Marijuana Quarterly, the Beginning, The Weed, The Eight Pager. The latest copy of The Eight Pager comes wrapped in a Wonder Bread sta-fresh bag. The journals and little mimeographed books of poems are on sale at one of the tables.

Programs at the Gate include panel discussions and folk singing as well as poetry. A big poetry reading is well premeditated with one or more poets putting out notices on his duplicating machine that he usually uses for soul stirring stuff.

The cathedral is on Euclid at E. 22^nd Street.

The Gate is for Friday-nighted people and according to d.a. levy it is not recommended for teen-y boppers.