A night of pure poetry

Since her days preparing prison inmates to take the GED test, Mifanwy Kaiser has used poetry as a tool to help students connect with difficult subjects. And it’s always worked. Kaiser found that students got better at memorizing facts if they wrote a poem about something they had trouble remembering.

“It’s a tremendous tool,” Kaiser said. “When you’re writing a poem, you are emotionally attached to whatever it is you are writing about. You can’t avoid it.”

But it’s not just an educational tool. Poetry also has the power to bring people together, something that’s important to the 58-year-old Huntington Beach resident.

On Friday, Kaiser’s poetry group, Tebot Bach, invites professional and amateur poets to Community Room 102 on the Golden West College campus for the club’s monthly poetry reading. Poets should sign up at 7:30 p.m., and the open mike will start at 8 p.m. The readings usually last until 10 p.m., Kaiser said.

“This is an eclectic mix,” Kaiser said. After the open mike readings, featured poets Michael C. Ford, Dian Sousa and David Hernandez will present their work.

Ford, known for his recorded poetry “Language Commando” and his book “Emergency Exits,” has earned both Grammy and Pulitzer Prize nominations. A one-time friend of Doors frontman Jim Morrison, Ford is known for his jazz-infused poetry, as he has been described by Sousa, a performance poet who will also present Friday.

Sousa, author of “Lullabies for the Spooked and Cool,” should feel quite welcome in Huntington with her background as a surf teacher at Camp Swell, which she co-founded. She also started Bottled Poetry, an event that features poetry readings at various wineries.

Hernandez a Long Beach resident, wrote “Always Danger,” which won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, and “A House Waiting for Music.” Next year, Hernandez’s first novel, “Suckerpunch,” is scheduled to be published.

The nonprofit Tebot Bach group formed in October 1999. Back then, the poets met in the small room of a bank at Adams Avenue and Beach Boulevard. Then, with a little charity from Wes Bryan, president of Golden West College, Tebot Bach, which means “little teapot” in Welsh, found a new home on campus. Kaiser, who was born in Wales, incorporates much of that country’s literary traditions in her poetry.

“Poetry is a huge part of the Welsh life, and I have been writing poetry since I was in the fourth grade. I always knew the power of poetry in my own life,” she said.

“The poems will enfold the audience into a two-hour experience,” Kaiser said. “They’re going to hear words by other people that they can relate to, and you can tell when this happens.”

On occasion, some Golden West students have been known to drop by and practice some of their verse at the open readings, which absolutely thrills Kaiser.

“Our age range is from late teens to we’ve had people come 70 and older — we’re all over the board,” Kaiser said, adding “that’s the sign of a happy reading, when you can get that range of audience.”

All poetry is welcomed — free verse, blank verse or rhyming, she said.

“Poetry is a very communal activity,” Kaiser said. “It’s how people were taught community values and lessons in history. We’re a part of everything that came before us and this grand conversation that will happen even after we are gone.”

The event is free, but donations are welcome, Kaiser said. Visit www.tebotbach.org for more information.