Having survived for well over 15 years, Poet’s Monday is one of Milwaukee’s longest-standing poetry traditions. The show was started by singer/poet Sheila Spargur at some point in the early-to-mid-‘90’s at the now defunct Café Melange near Third and Wisconsin. The weekly Monday night of open mic poetry followed be a featured performer has since moved to Linneman’s Riverwest Inn by way of the now defunct Thai Joe’s.
Currently hosted by talented performance poet/spoken word artist Timothy Kloss, tonight’s Poet’s Monday features one of the show’s past hostsJennifer Wolters-Gilmour.
The diminutive brown-haired poet has a very approachable style that manages to find the poetry in everyday reality. Her stage presence is very casual and conversational, gradually drifting into deeply poetic language that never quite drifts into the kind of stagnant, self-absorbed mirror gazing so common to even the most successful local poets. It’s been a while since Wolters-Gilmour has appeared onstage. Her appearance here is kind of a throwback to a mid-to-late ‘90’s era when there was a lot of interesting work being done on Milwaukee’s east side outside the well-respected, established stagnancy that tends to plague so much university poetry.
Poet’s Monday runs 8pm-to-later every Monday night at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn on 1001 East Locust Street.
