Smack Dab in Greenfield: New open mic night celebrates queer voices

Seeking to amplify queer voices in the valley, two Greenfield poets have launched a new monthly open mic night at the LAVA Center on Main Street.

Smack Dab Queer Open Mic held its first event on Friday, Aug. 1, and welcomed local poets, storytellers, and musicians to share their work. Organizer and co-host Avery Cassell said the event was modeled after and inspired by the Smack Dab open mic that previously ran in San Francisco, California.

“Smack Dab started in San Francisco by Larry-Bob Roberts and Kirk Read. It was held in the Castro Theater, and it was all genders, all time, and all ages,” said Cassell. “It ran from around 2003 until just a few years ago, somewhere between the pandemic and the gentrification in San Francisco; it collapsed.”

Cassell, who previously lived in California and was a featured reader at the Smack Dab, wanted to bring the open mic to western Massachusetts after moving to Greenfield.

“It was great, amazing community building. You’d be around all these fabulous artists and puppeteers and musicians,” Cassell said. “It was just really, really wonderful and really instrumental in the feeling that maybe I was a writer and maybe I belong to this community.

“When I moved here, I wanted to have something like this, and we don’t really have a free queer open mic in the area, so here it is,” Cassell continued.

Attendees brought their poems and stories, many of which focused on their experiences going through life as a queer person. Greenfield resident Danny Lenois brought a collection of short poems, including one about a “terrible date” he went on earlier this summer, and another about a “homo-erotic friendship” he had in college.

“I forgot I love the taste of pickled plums — the immediate tartness that makes me pucker, and their unexpected texture, soft and pink, or your lips that I want to devour, and your face after the bottle of indigo gin we drank together last time,” Lenois read. “It’s not truly a plum, but an apricot instead. Perhaps that’s why I was confused when you pinned me against the wall in our college bar, flushed and sweating, a remedy for your fever was to take a bite of an enticing pickled plum.”

Co-host Jules Purnell read from a zine they published, exploring the interconnections between sex and spirituality.

“In the sexorama, things like gender and sexual orientation become somewhat moot. As a queer and trans person, I’ve always appreciated the equalizing force of sexual pleasure. Whatever our stated identities, I have found that when faced with the enticing gaze of subtle warmth of a would-be lovers skin, our sexual orientation tends to be a lot more malleable than we might guess,” Purnell read. “Sex becomes a kind of crucible, not only for our carnal desires, but for our psyche and spirituality as well.”

Other attendees read short stories they wrote, sections from novels, brought along instruments to play original compositions, as well as covers of popular tunes.

“We were told we could bring anything, so in true queer fashion, I brought my fanfic,” Greenfield resident Althea Keaton joked.

Smack Dab Queer Open Mic will be held on the first Friday evening of each month, with readings beginning at 7 p.m. and sign-ups opening at 6:30 p.m. (However, please note the September open mic will be held on Thursday, Sept. 18.)

Purnell added that in addition to the monthly open mics, they host a queer smut writing group that all are welcome to attend.

“We read the smut that we have written to one another and then we critique it, and treat it just as seriously as any other fiction or nonfiction, because our goal is better smut all the time,” Purnell said.

To learn more about the open mic, or the smut critique group, Purnell and Cassell can be contacted at smackdabqueeropenmic@gmail.com.

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com.