Buffalo Literature: Brigid Hannon, Ashley M. Hardy taking over long-running spoken work spotlight

By Lee Ames

Ben Brindise and Justin Karcher have been running Caffe Aroma’s open mic nights on and off since 2017, but now they’re heading on to new ventures and fresh faces are taking over.

Caffe Aroma open mics will now be held by Brigid Hannon and Ashley M. Hardy. Both published authors, political organizers and previous poets of the month at Caffe Aroma.

For Brindise, it’s another step for the Buffalonian, teaching artist and poet who has been an active member of the local literary world since 2013. 

After studying Creative Writing in college, he spent a lot of time trying to find a community to share his work within. Many times, as creatives, writers are shoehorned into a corner of their own work. He said it wasn’t until he witnessed his first poetry slam that he saw a community of shared interest. 

In 2017, he and Karcher picked up where others left off, starting their run as the hosts of Caffe Aroma’s open mic nights. This created an environment for people to share their work, feel safe and be seen. 

“I think we kind of get wrapped up in an idea of a creative being, only what they create, right?” Brindise said, “And so it’s like, well, if I want to write for a living, there’s a lot more to it than just the writing part of it?” 

After COVID, and a brief move across the country, Brindise and Karched missed the open mic environment. So, they took it upon themselves to revive the long-standing biweekly Wednesday night open mics. 

Since 2023, they have held open mics for poets, artists, musicians, and all sorts of creatives to perform for allotted time slots. Eventually, they added Wednesday Night Live to the lineup, where once a month they would bring in a feature reader to do a set, and pair that with workshops for those interested.

After three years of hosting the events, the two reigning hosts have decided to pass on their microphones last month to two new individuals.

Hannon was born and raised in Buffalo and has been writing since she was a child. She discovered the open mics through knowledge of Karcher’s work, and the encouragement of her late husband Mark. After attending her first Aroma mic, she fell in love with the environment the poets brought to the space. 

Now as one of the reigning hosts of Caffe Aroma, she is excited to see what is to come next. So far, she and Hardy have implemented the “Poet of the Season,” which highlights an Aroma poet once every three months. Currently Umar Azam is the spring poet, a longtime attender and supporter of the poetry nights. 

Along with these new hosts, Umar Azam and Tyler Collins will be hosting events once every two months to highlight musicians, similar to the Wednesday Night Live series created by Brindise and Karcher. 

The throughline that the literary community should be aware of is that this change won’t fundamentally change the events as a whole. The purpose of the change is to give new community members the chance to find their way in the literary world and find new ways to highlight people’s talents. 

As Hannon put it, “Creatives do not live in their own little bubble, they have a large bubble that encompasses everything they create and every feeling that comes with it. If you come to the open mic, and you tell us you are a newbie, you will be welcomed with cheers and applause.  When we do open mics, especially as professionals, we strip down to our fully creative selves, and we are sharing that self with other creatives. It is a beautiful thing, and our support for each other and the community is what keeps it going. That is definitely what the open mic is about.”

Now, what’s next for Brindise and Karcher? 

With this newfound time, they have decided to take on a new project. 

With the help of Hannon, the first segment of Buffalo Speaks, Volume One, at Buffalo Ironworks will be held on July 16 and will continue as a twice-yearly event. 

The event will showcase seven of Buffalo’s veteran poets. People can see the established writers perform a full, polished set. It’s an attempt to show the literary community that if the open mics are where you find your start, then this is where you can go. 

“So there’s a clear path from this is where you start. This is how you get better. This is how you reach a level where we can put you on this bigger stage,” Brindise said. “And so that’s what we’re trying to build overall for the community, so that people have an actual path that makes sense, where it’s like, ‘hey, this is where I enter, this is what I do next.’ Because I know for us, it wasn’t like that; it was like the wild,wild west, and there was no infrastructure. You just kind of figured it out.”

The point of this next step isn’t just about trying something new. It’s about creating a space where people can participate in a larger literary scene.

“But this is going to be me as an event organizer, kind of operating at the height of my powers, to bring the coolest poetry show Buffalo seen in the last decade,” he said.

Brindise hopes to see a larger community form around the Buffalo area. 

“This is something that we’re building, we’ve been building for a number of years, and that we’re just taking the next step, and that there will be another step after this as well,”Brindise said. “And we’re just continuing to kind of build this infrastructure because this kind of sprung out of a larger conversation across the country with spoken word artists,” Brindise explained. 

“It’s not just about one show or one open mic. It’s about building this apparatus so that people who might not have access to it in other ways, have a way to participate in the literary arts.”

By starting at the open mics and creating next steps for those interested in continuing, creatives can build an infrastructure to set up Buffalo as the next literary destination. It may take time, but it can be done. It’s not about one show, one open mic, but creating a whole apparatus around poetic performing. 

For more, go to WWW.BenjaminBrindise.com and follow Aroma Poetry Night on Instagram. 

You can find Brigid Hannon’s chapbook, A Lovely Wreckage, on Amazon and her blog at BrigidHannon.com