By Lauren Woods

In one of the last readings of the evening, in the shade of the Capitol Hill Books patio, Monica Prince picked up her book, and read from her poem,

“Flexible.” I promise not to love you. Instead, I arch, bend, gasp against the ridges of your fingertips, kiss you back.

The event put on by Barrelhouse Magazine and MoonLit, featured nine writers in and around Washington, DC and the mid-Atlantic region, including Pennsylvania, for three consecutive panels in Eastern Market in September.

The first DC Lit Crawl took place in 2016 after Kristen Zory King, who was working at The Writer’s Center at the time, pitched the idea and began a collaboration with Barrelhouse Magazine’s poetry editor, Dan Brady. King later went on to found MoonLit, which works to bring words and people together through low-cost, accessible literary events in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. “We want to take literature off the page and into the community,” King said.  Barrelhouse is a small magazine and press, and like King, a champion of local writers. King added, “There’s talent everywhere, and it doesn’t have to be the big publishing houses.”

Prince, after finishing her first poem, said she likes to tell her students to start high and then hit them with something. “Now I’ve got something sad,” she said, and launched into “Body Demands Contrition from Mind,” a dialogue from the body to the mind that touches on rape and recovery, that goes as dark as the last one was sensual. My memory is longer than yours, the body tells the mind, in one of many true and wrenching moments of the panel.

The whole afternoon ricocheted that way, from high to low, from laugh-out-loud funny, to deeply dark. These local writers are the counter-argument to anyone who thinks literature is boring or removed, that fiction and poetry doesn’t relate to people’s lives. This was an afternoon of the literature of embarrassing and cringeworthy moments, funny childhood friends, sex, family tensions, regret, and a sprinkling of DC references.

Tyrese Coleman launched the readings at the first venue, District Soul Food, on a baking hot patio, with her essay, “Why I Let Him Touch My Hair.” It was at this point I noticed the passers-by outside slowing their walk, leaning against the fence to linger for a while and listen. 

Coleman’s piece and the ones that followed touched on many of the themes present throughout the afternoon—race, gender, power structures, the things we pass off as normal because they’re so ingrained in our society.

Next, KaNikki Jakarta’s first poem started so conversationally that it was only after the first few lines that I realized she wasn’t making small talk—she was launching into a poem, and I was transfixed. 

I expected to listen to some readings and return with recommendations. I didn’t expect to tear up during Jakarta’s poem about the way we cheer for toddlers when they learn how to walk, contrasted with the way we treat adults who try to stand up. 

After Jakarta’s often uplifting poetry, Dave Ring followed with lovely, lyrical and at times, cynical writing, my favorite of which was “Lost and Found,” which begins, “Then: I had a problem losing my whole life the way that other people have bad luck losing bikes. “

On another panel, Tyler Barton, who said his transition from fiction to poetry was recent, waxed on in self-assured prose about the intricacies of waving from a motorcycle, and the many sounds of a clap. 

I felt haunted by Tatiana Figueroa Ramirez’ poem inspired by Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. As I listened to the gut-punching power of another poem, she declared, "If you go missing, we will look for you” describing girls strutting through structures meant to break you.

Tara Campbell, another DC literary fixture, whose speculative fiction I have long enjoyed, took a brave path by sharing a reading still out on submission about a room of dolls who are faced with a terrible dilemma.

I was delighted and surprised by Zach Powers’ reading from First Cosmic Velocity, about the Soviet space program. I forgot entirely that I was even at a reading during the last piece of the night when Jaime Fountaine read from a hilarious and dark short story that touched on girlhood conflict and the foibles of parents. When we weren’t laughing, I noticed audience members nodding along at the painful moments, like a mother with too many successive boyfriends. 

I didn’t expect to laugh so much, tear up, spend three hours without wanting to leave, and to be left thinking about some of these characters hours later, or rushing to buy the authors’ books—most of which were available from smaller publishers, rather than on Amazon. What many generally appreciate about indie music—that it can be a high-quality alternative to mainstream music that has to appeal to the market—hasn’t yet trickled to the wider culture for literature. These readings were a reminder that the best literary work is not always on Amazon, just as some of the best music is not available on mainstream radio. 

If I had one complaint, it would be that the audience was mostly composed of writers and other literary types, many of whom knew each other. There was a reason for that, of course. Tickets sold out, and crawls can’t get too large to accommodate the spaces available. And yet it had me wishing more people, non-writers especially, or those who think they don’t like fiction and poetry, could listen to these funny, sad, compelling pieces and feel the way I did when I heard KaNikki Jakarta launch into her first poem, and though she was just talking to us. 

For a full list of writers, see  https://www.barrelhousemag.com/shopone/dc-literary-pub-crawl-2018-ticket-a3lbc. Details on book purchases are available on the authors’ individual websites. Some upcoming MoonLit events include Finding Time to Write with a Full Time Life, and Spell-Casting Your Way to Great Writing (full list here). In addition, Barrelhouse organizes a twice-yearly conference for writers in DC and PA. Their next one is in October in Pittsburgh.  

NOTE: KaNikki Jakarta was named Poet Laureate of Alexandria this year https://alextimes.com/2019/04/poet-laureate-kanikki-jakarta-brings-real-life-fiction-to-alexandria/.

Lauren Woods is a DC-area based writer. Her fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in journals including The Antioch Review, Wasafiri, The Offing, The Washington Post, and others.