The night at Dandelion Communitea Cafe outside reminds me of why Florida's weather gets a bad rep, most months. I remember sitting under their strung lights while Shawn Welcome spit the most impactful poem I have heard live to this day, thinking I was in on the best part of Orlando there could ever be. Shawn is one the coolest people I have the grace to be friends with, I mean he did the poem for the Orlando Magic games a few years back. A poem. On tv. That is amazing, reader. He was on television for his poetry! That is some Robert Frost crap right there, if I have ever heard anything. He gives back to the community of Orlando in more ways than I can say through an intro, but let me focus back on the night at hand. Tuesday nights at Dandelion, there is an all arts open mic called Diverse Word.
Orlando has quite a few smaller subsets. The milk district, with its cash only bars and tuesdays of food trucks, the UCF area which is ironically to me more defined by Lazy Moon, and Mills 50. Mills 50 is like if musical pirates got tattoos they won't admit they regret but also need to sell their old vinyls and like fusion tacos. I love it. That's about where Dandelion rests, right off of 50 and Thorton.
Diverse Word is the oldest all arts mic in Orlando, capping at 11 years now. Poets, comics, singers, writers, and rappers all come to perform their works, to workshop and confer with like minded artists. I have been to many different mics, from stand up comedy open mics to all arts mics, I have even snuck myself onto musical jam mics a time or two, but this mic has something I have seldom found; returning audience members. People come back to see the show, even though it's not really a show. It's an open mic, there is no real level of talent prerequisite. It's a mixed bag. The reason people come back after years, weeks, whatever time it is rests in the fact that the mixed bag is a fantastic representation of Orlando.
The twilight of central Florida most months is a somber one, that brings out the imagination with strung lights and a mismatched painted building like Dandelion's. Right around 7 or 8 O'Clock the mic starts with Shawn showing up and lugging out his equipment, two speakers and some mics. He often needs a hand, but there always seems to be an eager artist who shows up early to lend him one. The outside seating is changed, chairs are added. A crummy notebook in Shawn's hand gets placed on the table in the front to the right, and numbers indicate when a performer get's there time, but it often is a bit inaccurate. The night changes, and the list does too.
I was there after the Parkland shooting, and heard a poet named Simba go up and share her work. The air was tense just like after Pulse, where we all knew someone was going to talk about it, but not sure when. The dryness in the atmosphere felt like we needed some rain. Some water had to come from somewhere, and no one really had the build to cry just yet. Simba was a poet who was also a teacher, a youth leader for at risk kids to learn about writing and poetry. Her mom taught down south too, not far. She went to the school. All of this was so fast, it feels like. Her retelling.
She entered her poem with a raised voice, filled with a scratching raw emotion that shut the whole world up, for a moment. She cried, and the air warmed up. Other's cried too but she was the one on stage, so I feel okay sharing her tears. I remember feeling raw but better after her poem. Someone needed to say something, and Orlando produced the perfect poet, the perfect person for us to hear that night. Diverse Word gave some help to the pain the shooting caused, a pain we knew very well also.
I go to Diverse Word often enough, perhaps twice a month if I am lucky. I don't want to crowd the stage, it feels selfish. I want to share it with everyone, with you, reader. I want you to experience something that is completely integral to what I think Orlando is, and what makes it great. I want people to see that Orlando is strong, and has a place for creators to be heard. I want people to see that Orlando is a place for artists, and a place to be diverse. Tuesdays, right off 50. Off Thorton.
