Behind the Egg at Point 5, April 14

So after eating my fill of donuts, quiche & poetry at the VPL, I rolled down the hills back into Albany to this funky storefront on Madison Ave. between Lark & Dove for a reading by The Poet Essence, Joe Krausman & R.M. Engelhardt, part of the series co-hosted by Daniel Nester & Erik Sweet.

Joe & Tammi (The Poet Essence) really bonded, their poems finding reverberence across Time, cultures, ethnicity, showing that good poetry is blind to the kind of distinctions that tabloids like to make into conflicts, while real human beings meet in common words, common experiences. All three readers had poems about poets, poems, poetry reading. Joe's imagining Stanley Kunitz reading A.E. Houseman, & "The Passionate Accountant to His Love", were reflected, then culturally refracted, in Tammi's "Recycle this Poem" & "The Spoken Word". But in between we had Rob's sententious:

The lost poem which contained

Everything.

And nothing.

Touched everyone. And no one.

Rob performed, as has been his wont, with W.Das Gift on guitar & Kim 13 on keyboards, in their signature-style, Goth Profundity.

After breakfast in Voorheesville, I would have to characterize this late lunch as a sandwich where the thick bread on either side was more tasty & nutritious than the thin bologna in the middle.

The series will continue; check out www.federationofideas.org/