

Bill. E. Basquitte Ball. Alice McGill Photos.
Bill. E. K, alternatively known as Bill. E. Basquitte Ball, flipped through a colorful display of papers piled into a manila folder, on the backs of which he had scribbled his poems. He introduced his piece “Secret Saccharine” and began to read.
“Unknown, unknowable, some things can never be told, in the soul / Mysteries only unfold,” he started. “The unsayable, unrelayable, unreliable, not salable, but asailable, in other words untaggable / Bledden feckin hell like, this is the way I am like, amen, a man.”
On a recent Tuesday evening, Basquitte Ball was a reader at Open Mic Surgery, a weekly poetry night at Volume Two: A Never Ending Books Collective at 810 State St. in New Haven. Held every Tuesday, the event is meant to welcome poets and writers of all ages into the space—and Tuesday’s community of regulars didn’t hesitate to extend open arms.
“The best phenomenon is when somebody has just walked in off of State Street because they have seen a poetry reading was happening, and they happen to have a poem they wrote two years ago on their phone and it's amazing,” said Open Mic Surgery Founder Brian Samuel Robinson.
But the rush of newbies like Basquitte Ball also thrills him over a year into the series.
Open Mic Surgery, which came out with its first book last year, was born in 2022, after Robinson started digitizing VHS tapes of the open mic nights he ran in the Lower East Side of New York City. Those were in the late 90s and early 2000s, before his move to New Haven and the birth of his sons. Decades later, he remembered how much he missed the sense of community—particularly in an age where seeing live performances like music, poetry, and comedy always seemed to have some kind of cover fee.

Brian Samuel Robinson, who founded Open Mic Surgery in 2022 and published a book last year to commemorate the first anniversary of the series.
Robinson sought to create an event where people could share their writing and observe art without the pressure to spend money. Volume Two was a perfect fit: the storefront is run by a collective of volunteers and is a free book store and DIY art and event space funded solely by donations and grants. Both the space and the event have fostered a community of passionate and talented local writers.
That was on full display Tuesday, from newbies like Basquitte Ball to open mic regulars like Paula and Frank Panzarella.
As Basquitte Ball came to the mic, he gesticulated passionately as he created fast rhythms, emphasizing certain words. He never failed to surprise the audience, breaking the cycle of his staccato rhymes to make guitar sounds. His style was well suited to his elaborate language and the room filled with applause.
It got the night rolling. Contributor Amari Rogers, who has been coming to the open mic since 2022, kept the evening going with a poem inspired by a past journal entry. “Let me in today, so I can talk with tomorrow,” he began.

Amari Rogers.
At first, the writer’s future seemed bleak: Rogers asked aloud for an escape or change from his current reality. At the front of the room, the words landed quickly and with precision. Then things looked up, line by line, and Rogers slowed down as the words became less bleak. He ended the poem with metaphor of growth—“This paper mache avalanche out of a sandcastle”—leaving the stage on a more hopeful note.
“Here it feels so open and free, and it makes me motivated to try new things,” Rogers said in an interview after reading. “Especially with Brian reading so many different things every week it pushes me to get out of my formula and comfort zone.”
Rogers also brought his friend, Jaylin, to the event with no expectation that he would be sharing. He watched with a shocked expression as, in the night's final moments, he volunteered to read.
“I’m not a poet even in the slightest '' Jaylin said before immediately contradicting the statement by launching into a description of a night shared with a loved one. Speaking to the poem’s unnamed muse, he promised “to keep you smile as shining, and beholden / as yesterday, and today, and tomorrow.”


Open Mic Surgery is also full of pleasant surprises and fond returns. Tuesday, Robinson announced that John. S. Hall, a member of the art rock band King Missile, enjoyed his time at the open mic so much he reached out to Robinson about coming back. Hall will be returning to perform on July 23.
He hopes to continue bringing in guest readers from beyond New Haven, he added. His goal is “not just to expose New Haven people to out of towners, but to expose out of towners to New Haven.''
Some of the night's more institutional knowledge was evident in performances from the Panzarellas, who have seen Never Ending Books from its creation in March 1990 through the changing of ownership in 2021. Towards the end of the evening, Paula Panzarella read a poem written 20 years prior, lamenting the presence of excess smoke at Cafe Nine.
Back in the early 2000s, it was a constant and unwelcome presence when she performed at the Beatnik 2000 open mic.Located only a few blocks down State Street, Cafe Nine is now both smoke free and no longer hosts the Beatnik 2000.
“I get up to the mic and can hardly speak / the cigarette smoke turns my voice to a squeak,” she said.
After Panzarella had finished, Robinson pointed to how the poem showed how much things have changed in New Haven in recent decades. As he spoke, audience members chimed in, some calling out places that used to allow smoking.
“It's really interesting,” Robinson commented. “You reading that poem now in 2024 it really is such a phenomenon where people under the age of 20 have no context."
This article comes from the 2024 Cohort of the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative. Alice McGill is a rising senior at James Hillhouse High School and ACES Educational Center for the Arts.