Poets Speak Loud!, April 28

With Mary Panza, our host.

Chris Brabham earned this night's featured slot, even though he has been featured here before, by winning the "best performance of bad song lyrics" contest -- he did a killer (if I may use that word) version of "Fishhead" (for the record). He justified his presence right off the bat with "The Poet" ("listen to the poet...") & "Why Poetry." He is also the master of the booming erotic -- "Man Shake," "Man Whore," & "That Ass of Hers." Among others he did one of his classics, the "Medicine Cabinet Junkie," & ended with what is perhaps his signature piece, "The Angel of Death Unplugged."

I began the open mic with "Springtime Maggie" & "The Breasts of Squeaky Fromme" (from the anthology Post Traumatic Press 2007, edited by Dayl Wise). Annine (A.C. Everson) followed me with a notebook entry about what makes her American.

Mary's classmate from Troy, Ed Rinaldi, was back with poems about kids in school, Ravel's madness, Spring, the secrets of poor people as well as one titled "Diogenes Pilots a River Boat," if I got it correct. The former Albanian, now Kingston Diva, Cheryl Rice read about long distance love in "Where the Waters Will Take Me" & the price of trout ($7.02).

Thom Francis was still recovering from WordFest 2008 & read a piece he said "has nothing to do with the last 6 months" -- it's personal. The version of "Crooked Change" that the Poet Essence did tonight was, I thought, more genuine, more moving than the studied version she did in her set at PsychoClusterFuck.

At Tess' Lark Tavern on Madison Ave., Albany, the last Monday of each month -- but not May.