"Live from the Living Room", March 14

It's not often (though it has happened before) that I get to be Don Levy, although a pale imitation of the Real Thing at that, but it happened this night. Don was ill & asked me to be the host at his "straight-friendly" reading at the Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Center on Hudson Ave., in Albany. This reading with an open mic is held on the second Wednesday of each month.

The featured poet was Bob Wright who has re-settled back in this area, in Athens, NY. He has started a new poetry series at the Athens Cultural Center (not the Parthenon) & the first reading there will be on March 24. After that, he plans on having readings on the third Saturday of each month (check out www.poetz.org/hudson for the calendar of this & other readings in the Hudson valley). Bob's poems are quietly stated, no rants, just wry observations on people, relationships, the world around him, with humor, & an occasional barbed point.

If you haven't been to the Living Room, you need to get there before "the crowd" to get a comfy seat on a couch. We were all comfy.

The open mic poets were A.C. Everson (look for her sculpture in the window of the Spectrum Theater on Delaware Ave. in April); me with a couple poems from my chapbook "Ireland", A.P.D., 1995; Carol Graser, welcomingly repeating "After Reading Journey to the Center of the Earth; Michael Saxton (a new poet, with narratives in loose, hip-hop rhyme); Cheryl A. Rice who will be one of the features at Bob's new series in Athens on March 24 (the other is Mike Jurkovic, and an open mic); & Marty Mulenex with a neat poem about jamming from an outsider's view.

Second Wednesday, relaxing, straight-friendly & half a block off Lark St. And I'm not Don Levy.