By Brian Dunlap

After all these years, I finally attended Two Idiots Peddling Poetry. I finally got to the Ugly Mug in historic downtown Orange. I’ve always respected and appreciated the space they hold for people to express their reality, a place where writers can share their work in the Southland’s expansive literary scene.

The Ugly Mug is an intimate and homely venue located in a converted early 20th century craftsman home. The performance room off the front entrance feels partly like the house’s former living room, warmly welcoming attendees with the expectation of good conversation and literature. 20+ years in, Ben Trigg and Steve Ramirez are still hosting, now with poet Ellen Webre.

During the night’s first half of open mic readers, poet and Assistant Editor of Dryland, Nikolai Garcia read, as did Long Beach native Hector Son of Hector, who came down from the Bay. I also read, two poems, one from Vagabond Book’s anthology Reimagine America.

The night’s feature, Marilynn Montaño, is a poet most known as some one who works behind the scenes in the literary world, as the Events Coordinator for LibroMobile, Santa Ana’s only bookstore. Not only is she a literary events coordinator and writer, but Montaño is also a proud daughter of migrant parents from Puebla, Mexico. Coming from an immigrant family directly influences her writing as she explores the influx of gentrification, housing insecurities, police violence and immigration issues in her community and household. LibroMobile owner Sarah Rafael Garcia attended in support, but did not read during the open mic.

The poem of Montaño’s that I found most powerful and necessary was her longest, about the importance of never forgetting real, inclusive history, especially of people of color, so as not to erase them from, and their impact on, a specific place. The example she uses to explore these themes, is the history of her hometown, Santa Ana. Connecting these themes of history to her hometown, Montaño makes an already personal poem about knowing who she and her community are, even more personal, by adding an extra layer of complexity: for her and people like her, to know where they come from.

The second half of the open readers kicked off with Ellen Webre reading two new poems she wrote as part of National Poetry Month’s 30 Poems in 30 Days. It’s the first new writing she’s done, she said, since her debut poetry collection was released last Fall.

Several poems read that night were about the experiences that several female poets had with asshole men. About sexism and misogyny. Experiences all too common among women. An unintended thematic through-line for the night.

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It wasn’t until after the open mic, when a group of attendees decided to grab a bit to eat, that I was reminded how the Southland’s expansive literary scene can, at times, feels so small.

How poets and writers seemingly a world away, in such a disparate literary scene, can know about a little-known part of the literary community, that night the PondWater Society. A what are the odds type moment, reminiscent of the six degrees of Keven Bacon.

I was struck by how Hector Son of Hector struggled to remember the name of a local Southland open mic—“Flower something or water was in the title, maybe?”—led to that interesting conversation about PondWater, located in the San Gabriel Valley city of Covina. I’d heard of PondWater myself and their monthly reading from what I’ve found on their Facebook page, but had never heard anyone else mention them before. And how that conversation led to the brief mention of local poet Rich Ferguson, a poet I’ve met and seen read many times before.

I came all the way down from West L.Á. to Orange County on a Wednesday to finally check out Two Idiots Peddling Poetry and read my work, to enjoy an open mic, and was reminded how community makes the world more intimate.