While staying in Bath, England, for a few days during June 2008, I attended an evening “poetry can” (a poetry open mic, with host and featured poets) at the St. James Wine Vaults . At the poetry can, I heard local poets of all ages, including a young performance poet (with a British accent, of course), a group of poetry students from Bath Spa University, and a gentleman who told me that he had set up a press in his own home in order to assemble his own chapbooks.

This poetry can was similar to the poetry open mics in my hometown of Albany, New York. The host of the poetry can schedules featured poets (called “can openers”) and, on the evening of the event, signs-up other folks to read before and after the featured poets. In addition, it was uncanny how similar the British poetry host’s publicity fliers were to those of local poetry host Dan Wilcox: they were the same small size and shape and contained similar information. Looking at those fliers, I could have sworn that I was still in Albany! Both Dan and the Brits must have independently figured out the most efficient and effective way to advertise poetry events. Great minds think alike.

Some small pieces of framed art were hung on the walls of the upstairs room in which the poetry can occurred. Although no poet at that evening’s event read an ekphrastic poem, one of the university poets in attendance told me that he, too, has studied ekphrasis. His name is Alan Summers, and he writes a haiku blog “Area 17″. (I’ve created a permanent link to Alan’s blog under my blog’s left sidebar category “Blogroll.”)