I had talked about going for as long as I could remember. Twice a month in Long Beach. The first and third Mondays. At the Long Beach Unified Bar & Lounge.

Under Mic Influence is an open mic hosted by spoken word poet Kuahmel. Like a lot of literary events, Under Mic Influence kicked off on the 15th fashionably late. 8:30pm.

The venue was smaller than I had pictured in my head. It was long and skinny with a row of about eight stools lined up along the counter with about five booths in a line along the west wall. Plastered across the front entrance were the names of many, if not all, of the famous people that had graduated from Long Beach Poly. The owner had graduated from the school, hence the bar’s name.

The crowd was smaller than I expected. When I arrived only the feature Beach City Poetress, was there with a friend sitting in the second booth. DJ Kev Jam set up to the left of the entrance, in front of a flatscreen mounted to the middle of the wall. Before the night kicked off, a mic was set in front of Kev Jam, where the night’s participants would read from.

I was pleasantly surprised when poet Derek D. Brown arrived. Author of Articulate Scares, a collection of poetry on love, revolution, grief, pain, joy and awareness that we all experience, he is a big presence who takes up space. He usually brandishes a smile and cracks jokes as he did on this night. I hadn’t seen him in a while and we took a moment to catch up. Brown and Kuahmel were the only people I knew. By the time Under Mic Influence began nine or 10 people had arrived.

One of the night’s first performers was a young woman who graced the mic with music. The only singer of the night. She sang two songs, one by Nina Simone, the second a song she wrote herself. She sang with an enticing Jazz inflected voice.

Poet Adeeb Shabazz graced the mic with a poem he wrote in 2001. It had been 20 years since he’d spit a poem on the mic. To hear Shabazz read his poem, it was like a person who learns to ride a bike: no matter how much time has passed since they last read, it was as if they’d never stopped.

When playwright, producer, director and spoken word artist Larry Love read his poem “You Don’t Want That Smoke” which won a national contest to be performed by Love in an upcoming anti-smoking ad, his rhythm and cadence was smooth and his words sharp like the best MC’s.

Even Kuahmal cracked a joke about it, how the poets who have disclaimers about how they just wrote this poem, they haven’t performed in a while, end up spitting fire. What’s up with that?

Throughout the evening, Kuahmel had these moments of serious humor that I’d experienced before, where sometimes he’d appear to be upset or mad as he delivers a joke or in response to one flung his way, for comedic effect. These moments made the evening a bit more relaxed and familiar.

Before Beach City Poetress featured, Derek D. Brown read one of his sexiest poems, that shook up the crowd. Just as sexy as when I’d heard him read it at the Book Jewel.

Beach City Poetress responded by reading one of her erotic poems that complimented Brown’s before she dove into her set. First, she began with a difficult, personal, revealing poem, in which her mother passed on generational trauma, that illustrates an instance of how family can be a person’s first bully. How her mother commented and criticized her weight essentially from the day she was born. Criticized what she ate and how she looked. A heartbreaking poem.

Yet, Beach City Poetress is a poet who used self-expression to survive the pandemic. During isolation and social distancing, she penned her self-published debut I Am Beach City Poetress: Poems I Wrote While the Whole World Closed Vol. 1. It’s about some of the most essential questions we asked ourselves when the world was closed: a journey through love, living, and thriving while questioning what the future held.

As Beach City Poetress read more poems about love, living in this crazy world, the small audience was enticed. Brown even joked with her for a moment after she read her initial poem, which helped add a level of comfort and familiarity to the evening.

Unfortunately Long Beach Unified has a two-drink minimum that I forgot about. As some one who doesn’t drink I found it kind of annoying, but I understood because the venue is a business. They need to make money to stay open. Still, even ordering club soda, I found it hard to be thirsty enough to finish my first drink to get to my second.

After I’d read, introduced myself and spoke to Larry Love and Toledo, a poet from Sacramento, who attended Long Beach State and stayed in Greater L.Á. upon graduation, I was glad I attended. I had talked about going for long enough Kuahmel had stopped believing I’d show.