Part-time bookstore employee Kristina Krause has helped resurrect the store's monthly poetry readings. Willow Glen resident Jean Emerson had hosted an open reading at the bookstore for several years until about 2000, but Krause, a master of fine arts student at the University of San Francisco, decided it would be better to have featured readers for the first several months before allowing the general public to wax poetic.

"Open readings had been problematic for a family venue," said Krause, explaining that sometimes readers would read material that was inappropriate for children to hear.

Krause began working at the bookstore in July and began hosting the poetry readings in November.

"I got tired of having to drive to San Francisco or Berkeley to listen to good poetry," Krause said, "so I decided to try having a reading here."

And she had no trouble finding enough local talent. Instead, the challenge has been the scheduling.

"It's not so much finding good poets," she said, "as it is trying to see when they're available."

Former Willow Glen resident and Monteserrat Review editor Calder Lowe and poet Patricia Machmiller were the featured poets for the Feb. 17 reading.

Machmiller's 20-minute set consisted mostly of material from a yet-to-be published manuscript and haikus accompanied by fellow poet Fay Aoyagi, who recited Machmiller's material in Japanese.

"Haiku is a very deceptively simple form," Machmiller said after the show. "It requires the poet to observe the world and capture an element of it, like a snapshot."

She recalls that one of these "deceptively simple" poems took her years to write, after she drove by an orchard that had just been chopped down.

"Where once an orchard / stumps now, each brandishing its / thick shock of new leaves."

It was at the former Mr. C's Tattler on Lincoln Avenue that Lowe developed her local prominence as a poet. She had been a frequent reader at the eclectic gift shop and espresso bar at its open mic before it closed in the early 1990s.

"What I miss about Mr. C's," Lowe recalls, "is that it was like walking into a cozy living room. You felt immediately at home."

Lowe admitted that though Willow Glen Books' poetry reading isn't as cozy, it still attracts the right kind of audience.

"There's a lot of respect for the artists here," she said, referring to the poetry-savvy literati who sat patiently through each set, knowing better to wait until the end of the reading to applaud rather than between each poem.

"Also, there's no espresso machine to compete with," she chuckles, referring to the bane of all coffee shop open mics: the loud Bronx cheer of a gurgling, hissing espresso machine.

And although the bells hanging over the store's glass door bring attention to anyone arriving late, no one appears to mind, since interest and the size of the crowds have grown steadily since the fall readings began.

"I see a huge number of sales for the poetry," said Willow Glen Books owner Cathy Adkins. "The way Kristina has put this together, she's building it into a community event, which I think is really great."

For March 17, Krause has lined up poets Robert Pesich, a poetry consultant for The Montserrat Review, and San José State University instructor Nils Peterson.

The Willow Glen Books poetry readings are held the third Monday of the month. For more information, call the store at 408.298.8141 or contact Krause at redzandish@sbcglobal.net.