Reviving the rhyme

A handful of high-school-aged students, seated in the smoking area above the U-District coffeehouse Cafe Allegro, waited in anticipation for their turn at the microphone.

Some sipped Cafe Allegro's espressos, while others gingerly held cigarettes, capitalizing on the cafe's reputation as one of the only indoor-smoking coffeehouses in the U-District. Others paged through the sheets of a notebook.

The event that brought them out to the two-story hole in the Ave. was an open-mic night put on by Youth Speaks Seattle, a group of teens and mentors bent on rehabilitating the tradition of the spoken word.

Youth Speaks has worked to make an impression among Seattle-area high schoolers by bringing its program -- and love of words -- to Franklin, Roosevelt and Garfield high schools.

Although the night was devoid of the finger snapping, bongo drums and other accouterments of beatnik poets who established coffee house poetry readings half a century ago, the walls of Cafe Allegro rang with the poetry of Youth Speaks members. The program's emphasis was poetry and performance.

According to program mentor Angela Dy, Seattle is the newest Youth Speaks city. Founded in San Francisco in 1996, the program was then established in New York in 1999 before crossing the nation again to Seattle.

Youth Speaks aims to encourage and support students who want to grow into their poetic craft, said Dy. It offers mentors and workshops, but the main events are the monthly open-mic nights such as the one held at Cafe Allegro in June.

Held on the second floor of the cafe, accessible only by an outdoor staircase, the program got underway a few minutes late. Despite the lack of a clock in the small room, Dy apologized to the crowd for the short delay in her opening remarks.

The performance featured a few new-fangled aspects not present in the time of the beatniks. The poetry reading was complemented by a disc jockey and sound system that provided music between poems.

The spoken word was delivered with varying levels of expression as student poets moved about the coffee-shop-turned-stage. While some students chose to simply stand and recite their work, others took reading to the next level of dramatization by injecting emotion or sweeping gestures to supplement their words.

The crowd was thin when the first performers took the microphone. Some of the poets' peers sat near the makeshift stage, while Allegro customers, who may not have been expecting a poem to go with their coffee, sat outside and listened from a distance as twilight fell on the Ave.

Nathaniel Jackson, co-owner of Cafe Allegro, supports Youth Speaks and its open-mic performances by offering the coffee shop's second floor for performances. By Jackson's count, the June poetry reading was the fourth or fifth time the group used the space.

According to Jackson, once upon a time the cafe's upper floor was frequently used as an impromptu stage by various groups, but over the years interest in the cafe as a performance stage had waned. These days, it may be best known as one of the U-District's only indoor smoking areas.

Before Youth Speaks debuted at Cafe Allegro last fall, Dy estimated that the space hadn't been used for an open-mic night in 10 years. While the group has performed at other venues in the Seattle area, Dy said, Cafe Allegro has been the best fit so far.

"All people need to know is that [the space is] available," Jackson said.

The performances ranged from energetic spoken-word poetry to an a-harmonic acoustic guitar duet. Much of the poetry, penned by the performers themselves, seemed to embellish the underlying message of the Youth Speaks program.

"It's all about the words and how you choose them," commented poet Chris Carroll, reflecting on his work. The event ended with a spoken-word duet between Carroll and poet Danny Sherrard, who helped to bring Youth Speaks to Cafe Allegro. The dual poem emerged, they explained, from a combination of one of Sherrard's and one of Carroll's poems.

By the time Carroll and Sherrard finished their duet, during which they alternated reciting lines of the poem each had memorized, the small second-story room was packed with students and cafe-goers who had drifted upstairs, attracted by the noise. As Carroll and Sherrard spoke, the crowd listened attentively. Some closed their eyes in order to better feel the words.

In one of her poems, Dy quoted Ho Chi Minh: "'A poet must learn to lead an attack,'" she said. For the students who read their poetry on the Ave., the night was the beginning of what they hoped would become a new tradition of poetry readings at Cafe Allegro.

"[Students] see that [they're] part of a movement -- it's beautiful," Dy said.

The next Youth Speaks open-mic night at Cafe Allegro will be held July 25 at 6 p.m.