Poets Speak Loud!, November 24

& we really had to this night in the back room of McGeary’s as the bar was filled with football fans for the snow-delayed Bills v. Jets game. Of course, Mary Panza has no problem with being loud, she was our host.

Sylvia Barnard was the first poet up with the new poem “North Dakota” about her father that she had tried out at the Third Thursday open mic, then a poem from her book Trees “To My Father on his 110th Birthday.” Joe Krausman read about a “Scene in a Subway Car” where a couple texts while making out, then a lesson on where babies come from “Gratitude.” I followed with 2 new poems, “Garrison Keilor” & the Halloween inspired “The Move.”

Lexee had been waiting patiently for the poets to gather & the open mic to begin, did a piece from memory “Like Tinted Diamonds” accompanied by cheers from the bar & encouragement from the audience. Tess Lecuyer has been spending too much time outside in the North Country, saw “Bears” in her kitchen, & a poem from February “Ice Bloom.”

The featured poet/poets was/were "the Pilot Light Collective," 4 poets from Western Massachusetts. First to the mic was Eliza Ryan, who had read here a few months ago in the open mic. Her first poem was about fighting dragons in divorce court, “The Unburnt,” then a poem addressed to “Instagram.”

Stan Spencer ranged from an intro about a tattered cape, to a funny, rhymed piece on farts, another on gender transition, & an angry piece about a triple murder in Pittsfield.

Melissa Quirk Cairns had also been here for the open mic (with Eliza). She began with “Finding Forgiveness at a Funeral Mass, an Open Letter to a Priest,” then a rhymed piece on science & what it means to be human “Even Seuss Was a Doctor.” Her last poem was “new shit” on belief & magic, taking off from a childhood Xmas memory.

Gabriel Squailia read a cluster of poems from a mss. titled 31 Sonnets For January, “Roller Skates,” the funny rant “Best Buy,” “Newborn,” “Snow” (a prophecy?), “Lists” & “The Moment I Decided to Marry My Wife.”

Back to the open mic, Pat Irish read a sonnet “written years ago” about a sunrise over Columbia County. Sally Rhoades proclaimed “I Want to be Swathed in Beauty” & also read an anti-war poem “Between Hope & Despair.” Adam Tedesco’s poem “Parallel Construction” began with an epigraph from Leonard Cohen, was like a letter, while “The Artist as a Paranormal Romantic Comedy” was based on a twisted childhood dream of women on a conveyor belt. Shannon Shoemaker read a poem about looking for happy endings “Phone Booth,” then another, untitled leaving love poem. Kevin Peterson’s “Vice” was a drive-by made up of 2 very short vignettes. & appropriately enough Julie Lomoe ended the night with “11 Ways of Looking at November.”

We took the cheers from the bar as a credit to the fine poetry we heard tonight, which also inspired the Bills to victory. Join us at McGeary’s on Clinton Square in Albany every last Monday of the month, about 7:30 — bring poems for the open mic, have dinner, a drink or 2 & speak loud!