Poetry Lounge

Some of our friends from Mosaic Inland were recently featured in an article in the Inland Empire Weekly written by Lee Ballinger.  Some highlights:

“A poetry venue can be about more than just poetry. Just ask LionLike MindState emcee David M. Oliver (aka Judah 1), a nationally known poet who says, ‘I wanted an open mic but I wanted it different. I wanted a literacy program. I wanted to get into the prisons, to do writing workshops there to get the violence out, the anger out. People come to LionLike more for the community than for the poetry.’”

“Underneath everything is a philosophy…. As Nathan says, it’s ‘about living a life completely wide awake and striving to make the world around you better in the process.’”

According to Judah 1, “We’re not just a hip-hop venue,” he says. “We’re not a Black venue, we’re not a Caucasian venue, we’re not a Christian or a Muslim venue. Anybody can come, everybody’s respected. Our faces are all different, our thoughts are all different, our beliefs are all different, but yet we have this common bond called poetry. We use that and we just build it. I think that’s pretty revolutionary.”