Peace comes when it is called–honestly. It can’t be man­u­fac­tured, it can’t be faked or coerced. It comes and in its pres­ence is lumi­nous, and all that is not peace­ful is sent pack­ing. But peace is not sta­tic, it is active prin­ci­ple; it is law.

Open­ing night 2013 at the Acoustic Spo­ken­Word Cafe was a sojourn inside the cre­ative heart a jour­ney into the law of two artists. Multi-instrumentalist Michael Pat­ter­son and poet/journaler Jor­dan Chaney brought the sonic res­o­nance and inter­pre­tive intel­li­gence of their life expe­ri­ence to the packed house. There were both serene moments of med­i­ta­tive clar­ity, and other moments filled with an emo­tional elec­tric­ity that lit the room with feel­ings of “been there, done that.”

Patterson’s full 60-minute set began with a stand-up bass invo­ca­tion that moved into a family-narrative Blues played on Dobro, and closed with an impro­vi­sa­tional work that was a tour de force through a rhyth­mic land­scape of tex­tured sound played on an 8-string guitar.

Chaney’s work was a per­sis­tent nar­ra­tive com­ing of age drama steeped in the learn­ing lig­a­ture of pain and self-awakening. It was an homage to fam­ily, and the strength that she has drawn from being encir­cled in a bi-cultural real­ity that has pro­duced a world­view that she has grown to real­ize that she can accept.

The evening was capped by the gifted Karla Doty, who ren­dered inter­pre­ta­tions from the Sam Cook and Etta James play­books that were awe inspir­ing, dur­ing the Open Mic seg­ment of the Cafe. She closed with a ren­di­tion of Amaz­ing Grace not like any I have ever heard that should pre­cede all I’ve ever heard.

The next Acoustic Spo­ken­Word Cafe is Jan­u­ary 26, fea­tur­ing poet Adrian Curry and singer-songwriter Grey Gor­don, at TRIAAC, 501 E. Brack­en­ridge Street, Fort Wayne.