They'd move the furniture. Roll back the carpets. And turn the comfy Cornell University lounge into a dance floor.

As bodies kneaded together, the air would grow thick with heat. The windows would melt with condensation. The floors would grow slick.

They called it the Sweatbox.

IF YOU GO

What: The Know-To-Go production (an abridged version) of Verbal Sweatbox: A Night of Steamy Spoken Word. When: 6 p.m. Thursday. Discussion will follow. Where: Mercantile Library, 414 Walnut St., downtown. Admission: Free. Information: 300-5669 or Web site.

Tamara Williams built on that idea from her college days to create something similar here. Only now she creates the environment with words.

The 28-year-old Over-the-Rhine resident is the wordsmith behind Verbal Sweatbox: A Night of Steamy Spoken Word.

"It's an intimate atmosphere," she said. "And hopefully you'll leave a little bit warmer than when you walked in."

Tamara produces the show for the Know Theatre Tribe with the help of two other performers - Taylore Mahogany Scott, an actor with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, and spoken word artist Abiyah, who specializes in floetry, a combination of poetry and music.

The act is for mature audiences only.

"I know there are things out there for family audiences," Tamara said. "I'm not it. I write for grown folks."

This isn't your traditional staid reading of everything iambic pentameter.

Verbal Sweatbox is a fusion of poetry and performance and music. Words tossed with a little bit of musical seasoning. Writing that is accessible to a wide audience because it feels good to the ear. Aural sex.

This kind of poetry has been a thriving part of Cincinnati culture since 2000, when spoken word shows first started peppering city nightlife. Since then, performance spaces have come and gone. The only constant are the people who remain dedicated to the craft.

Take Tamara, for example.

By day, she is a project manager for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. But by night, she's Embrya deShango, performance poet.

Only a couple clues in her office point to her double life: Notebooks for catching random bits of inspiration. A phone number to audition for Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam on Broadway.

"My writing is so different from the board meetings, the professional stuff, the 'Forty Under Forty.' It's this whole artistic, vulnerable part," she said. "I enjoy being Superman at night and Clark Kent during the day."

Cincinnati's evolving poetry scene has a number of outlets. There are the slams (competitions) at Club Elements on the last Friday of each month and weekly Wednesday poetry nights at the Greenwich. Artist support group Liberated Souls puts on a monthly event, where poets are encouraged to read. And two local radio shows focus on poetry.The poets who offer up this kind of writing are mostly young. They enjoy performing their work rather than allowing it to be silent on paper. The majority are African-American.

Their poetry resonates with the audience, because it's a part of themselves.

"A lot of the appeal of Verbal is that it highlights the sameness in us more than it talks about the differences," Tamara said. "We can all relate to some of the experiences explored in poetry.

"It's performance of the people."

E-mail mdowns@enquirer.com