Pub Has Poetry On Tap Small Downtown Tavern Brings Fine Arts To ‘A Rough Area’ Of Spokane On Sunday Afternoons

On late Sunday afternoons at Mootsy’s Tavern, nobody touches the pool table. The jukebox is sleeping, and the patrons are silent, except for the occasional jangle of a quarter on the bar or the creak of the opening door.

The bar seems dead, and that’s the way owner Rick Turner likes it. After all, he’s got about 25 people in his tavern at 4 p.m. nearly every Sunday, listening to poetry.

The readings at Mootsy’s, 406 W. Sprague, are a weekly event. Turner started the series with the help of Spokane poet Tom Davis.

“I’ve tried this at other places,” Davis said. “Nothing’s ever worked before. It hasn’t jelled. With Rick, it has.”

On Sunday, poets Victor Charlo of Dixon, Mont., and Zan Agzigian of Spokane tag-teamed about a dozen original poems. The two, who have read together for years as “Holy Kokanee,” stood in the middle of the narrow room in front of a pool table and a neon Bud sign.

The customers sipped beer, cranberry juice and soda pop, carefully setting their glasses down so as not to interrupt the poets. Some stared off, others closed their eyes and several rocked on their stools to the rhythm of the words.

One man sat at the back of the bar with a thin grin. He shook his head to the poetry and mumbled “yeah” when the words hit him. “Everyday, I come here,” the man said.

Some were rushing to get there. The phone rang, and Davis jumped on it. Plugging one ear, he whispered: “It’s right now. Hurry.”

But not everyone was in the mood.

One man walked through the front door and walked back out before the door even shut.

Barbara Reed walked through the door about five minutes later and took a seat at the bar. It was her first poetry reading at Mootsy’s.

“This is great,” Reed said during a break. “It’d be a perfect jazz place.”

Mootsy’s used to be the P.M. Tap and Gambling Room, when it was bookended by trouble and dives.

“This place had a real bad reputation,” Turner said. “And this is kind of a rough area, anyway. I don’t know why. But it’s like I’m always in this brush fire, holding my own.”

Turner has turned the place into a renaissance tavern, blending kitschy movie posters from Elvis Presley, The Beatles and James Bond with classy art. A black cruiser bike with chunky white-walled tires and red racing stripes hangs from the ceiling.

“I love it,” Charlo said during a poetry break. “It’s a good place to read.”

Agzigian looked like a Victorian hipster, with a tuxedo shirt, striped vest, silk 1920s tie and baggy thrift jacket. Her hat, made by a friend with feathers and curtain material, bounced like a hyperactive shadow as she read.

The two also read together at Auntie’s Bookstore on Friday.

“This place is more intimate,” Agzigian said. “The lighting, the atmosphere, it’s softer in here. It’s receptive.”

The flashing red sign above the bar doesn’t just list today’s specials. It also quotes Socrates and Thoreau. There are record album covers from The Monkees, The Grateful Dead and Cheap Thrills, and a poster listing excuses to party.

Poetry wasn’t on the list. That didn’t stop some.

“I hope we come back and get drunker many times,” Davis joked with the crowd during a break.

The poetry readings will skip the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, but poets are slotted for Dec. 3 and 10.

“I don’t really read poetry, but it’s making a fan out of me,” Turner said. “It’s language at its most powerful.”

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