Blending Cafe Families : * The new Cobalt Cafe, bigger and acoustically superior to the old Cobalt, draws poets from its former location, plus loyalists from the old Storyteller.

It’s a fact of coffeehouse life that poets are among the most loyal of patrons, choosing a java bar and settling there, much as Cliff and Norm chose Cheers. As a result, open poetry nights at the new Cobalt Cafe are full of writers from the old Cobalt, which lost its Woodland Hills lease last fall.

“I like supportive places that have supported me,” said Darcy Whittemore, a 16-year-old Woodland Hills poet for whom the club’s reopening in January was a blessing. “It’s therapeutic for me to get up and read,” she explained. “And there’s no other place where I can do it.”

Rick Lupert, 25, of Encino, described poets who were “lost” during the months when Cobalt was closed and who have come back to it with even greater loyalty. Said Lupert, “There’s an enhanced familial sense here now.”

At the same time, Cobalt’s “family” of writers has grown, partly because it has exchanged its former shoe-box locale for one three times as big. Another reason: Its new spot was previously home to the Storyteller Bookstore & Cafe, which had its own crowd of loyalists.

“I loved that place!” said Kerri Kirchheimer, 16, of West Hills. “I had my Sweet 16 party there. I didn’t want to see it change.” Like other Storyteller regulars, however, Kirchheimer has made the switch to Cobalt, which she called “a great place. I like the entertainment a lot.”

She also likes the fact that though the Storyteller’s great creaking bookcases are gone, its flowered carpet remains, a reminder of its homey spirit. Otherwise, Cobalt’s owner David Politi has minimized the decor, removing some tables and adding the armchairs, sofas and colored lamps from his previous spot. He has also kept his simple cafe menu, which offers sandwiches, soups, muffins and, of course, various versions of caffeine.

The old Cobalt crowd will be glad to know how much the club’s program has stayed the same too. There are still open mike nights Mondays for acoustic music and comedy, Sunday jazz sessions and more musical performances on weekends, though these are now rock-oriented rather than acoustic.

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Tuesday poetry nights continue to be hosted by Steve Kinkaid, who favors his larger audience (which sometimes reaches 100 listeners) with his trademark blend of caustic wit and good-natured ribbing. Readers too will be familiar: Randy (Chief Eagle Eye) Watsek, Jane Laurel Sobo and the boisterous crowd-pleaser known only as “Boogerman” regularly climb the stage to air their verse.

Thankfully, when they do, they needn’t contend with the level of background noise that characterized the first Cobalt. Larger digs make the constant parade of people going outside to smoke less distracting and put a comfortable distance between the stage and the espresso maker. The relative quiet, Kinkaid said, encourages more new poets to read, since they know people will pay attention.

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Among the new readers are several deaf students from CSUN and Pierce College who arrive with a crowd of friends and an interpreter to translate spoken poetry into sign language. “We come as a group because we want to show that deaf people can be poets too,” said Jamie Gould, 19, a CSUN student who lives in Canoga Park. “We have an interpreter so hearing people can understand deaf people, and we can understand hearing people.”

The diversity of Cobalt’s devotees was clear on a recent Tuesday night when Gould and her friends were joined by 10 seniors from an English class at Chaminade College Preparatory in West Hills. They came to cheer on their teacher, Andrea Burman, as she read poetry about insomnia, insanity and the political turmoil in Northern Ireland.

Other readers included Darcy Whittemore’s father, Don, who followed his daughter’s call-to-arms verse (“Be loud! Love yourself! Revolutionize!”) with a nostalgic rhymed narrative about a gang of vanished friends from childhood. Several poets--including “Chief Eagle Eye” and Jane Laurel Sobo--read poetry critical of contemporary greed and material excesses, while William McLain dealt with love and loss, and “Boogerman” focused on grossing out his audience with bathroom humor.

All of which made for the kind of evening that packs them in at Cobalt: freewheeling, interactive, emotional, fun.

WHERE AND WHEN

What: Readings at Cobalt Cafe.

Location: 22047 Sherman Way, Canoga Park.

Hours: 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. nightly.

Open readings: 9 p.m. Tuesdays; sign-ups at 8:30 p.m.

Price: $3 cover Friday and Saturday; $2 food and drink minimum Monday and Tuesday; one-drink minimum Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.

Call: (818) 348-3789.