There are even some regulars. Phoenix resident Marilyn (last name withheld) has been coming for the past four months along with her boyfriend and his young cousins.

“It’s very positive for the community,” she said. “It’s something that can show the kids how to express themselves constructively.”

Jazmin Andrade, one of the cousins who has been coming along with Marilyn and a sophomore at Xavier College Preparatory, said the event intensified her interest in her honors English course and even inspired her to participate in the national Poetry Out Loud recitation competition at her school.

Dombrowski’s dalliance with First Fridays began during the early 2000s, which she recalls fondly as its “heyday.” As she progressed at ASU from an undergrad to a doctoral student to a lecturer, she and her coterie of literary aficionados would head downtown every month and plant a folding table in one of the empty lots along Roosevelt to hawk issues of student lit magazines.

Over the years, she has organized a host of events, including the Phoenix Poetry Series, which highlights the work of two local writers per month, and founded a variety of publications — including Rinky Dink Press, which publishes in poetry in “microzine” format — that bring academic and self-taught writers together in the name of literature.

“It’s home for me,” Dombrowski said of the local writing community. “I’m a street poet. I was reared by street poets in downtown Phoenix.”\

Keeping connected through poetry

The September meeting of First Friday Poetry begins around 7:30 p.m. when Dombrowksi steps up to the microphone to welcome attendees and announce the theme for the evening: the launch of Rinky Dink Press’ fifth poetry series, four-and-a-half-by-three-inch issues of which are on sale throughout the evening for a dollar apiece.

“If you don’t know what a microzine is, go to the merch table and find out,” she teases the crowd with a smile. “That’s why you’re here at First Friday: to get educated!”

The first poem to be read is titled “From the Late Bluebird,” by ASU alum Ian Bodkin. In poems that evolved from text messages, Bodkin describes Arizona’s “red clay roads gone river” and “dry earth turned mud.”

Between each reading, Dombrowski announces First Friday Poetry again to the latest flock of onlookers to form at the edges of the patio before introducing the next poet and reminding everyone to support local poets and buy it if they like it.

Rinky Dink Press, she explains, is her heart. It evolved out of an English course she taught at the Downtown Phoenix campus, and her students, some of whom are now graduated, still contribute artwork and poetry or serve as editors.

One of them, Sophia McGovern, has been with Rinky Dink Press since it grew from a late night “kitchen-table conversation” in Dombrowski’s home. She edits but has also written for the publication and will represent it next March at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference — an enviable position considering AWP’s prestige in the literary world.

Another of Dombrowski’s former students, Tonissa Saul, also an editor for Rinky Dink Press, said, “It’s good to have a local press to help you get to know local writers. It lets you continue your craft and build relationships, even after you’ve left school.”

As the evening winds down, Dombrowski’s energy level does not.

“There are so many people here who are hungry for art,” she said, and it’s clear she’s keen to feed them.

Judging from the number of people who stop in their tracks just outside the patio, looking on in apparent wonder, she may well get her wish.

Top photo: ASU English lecturer and Phoenix's inaugural poet laureate Rosemarie Dombrowski at the Sept. 7, 2018, First Friday Poetry on Roosevelt Row event. Photo by Deanna Dent/ASU Now