Typing Poetry at La La Cafe

La La Cafe in northeast ABQ has become one of our favorite venues for impromptu typewriter meet-ups


Joe's writing iron of choice, a 1929 Corona 3, in spectacularly good condition, with new rubber and a rebuilt carry case

Practice makes perfect, and here you can see the title at the top is not well centered!

We, Matthew and I, had originally planned to do some actual, honest-to-gosh public poetry busking, with our typewriters, at another coffee shop in the area, that's usually crowded enough on weekends that we'd have to sit outside. But due to cool weather from a storm that blew through last night, we decided to move to our favorite venue, La La Cafe, that's rarely crowded but affords a nice atmosphere for us to do a practice session of impromptu poetry typing, without the pressure of performing before a real crowd when we hadn't any actual prior experience.

I had brought an assortment of quality papers, cut down to smaller sizes, along with a fountain pen and stamp kit for my signature trefoil stamp. After all, with typewriter and accessories, that's all a person needs to be a poet, right? Well, not exactly. Poetry is a craft, like any other form of writing, it takes skill, study and some innate talent. Oh well, zero out of three ain't bad, right?!

We gave each other poetry prompts to exercise our on-the-spot creativity, and it was a great way to work out the gray matter in a no-pressure environment, giving us confidence when the day comes that we do this in public, "for reals," as the locals say.

Here are a sampling of our work done today, Matthew on his 1930s Underwood Universal and me on the 1929 Corona 3.

By Joe:

Matt had given me the prompt of pianos, because there happens to be one in La La Cafe, and another patron was playing it as we were typing

By Matt:

Matt came up with this on his own; I think he's a real talent!

By Joe:

We had been discussing how little we knew about poetry, and I decided my poem woulde be the best, regardless!

By Matt:

We gave each other the same prompt, write a poem about clouds

By Joe:

And my version of clouds

By Matt:

Next, we gave each the topic of coffee shops, this was Matt's version

By Joe:

And Joe's version of a coffee shop poem

Here are two more poems by Matt, this first one another take on coffee:


And this one also from Matthew:


I found it fascinating how two completely different poems can come from the same prompt, once again reminding me that each writer brings to the table the stuff from inside that's uniquely their's alone. We will definitely be doing this again, most likely in front of strangers next time. Wish us luck!

Here's a video I made of today's adventure; enjoy!