Poetry + Prose Open Mic, December 12

The series continues, with Nancy Klepsch & me as the hosts, with an eclectic mix of area writers.

First up was Jason Crane with 2 poems, "Rom-Com," a sort of the grass is greener in someone else's relationship, & a consideration of the Japanese poet, "Ah, Bashō, Who Were You Really?" Kate Laity was back with an excerpt from a short story published in an anthology from the UK, looking at Rothko, but more.

This was David Wolcott's first reading, having only been writing since this summer, with a selection from a prose piece, "Addiction." Richard Morell has recently published a collection of poems called Doom Sonnets (Troy Book Makers), from which he read #1, then a long piece in progress, "Gifts I've Received from My Father" (who died earlier this year).


Carol Jewell loves to write pantoums & read one about her cat. Joe Krausman read 2 poems combining seeds & words, "Becoming Something Else" & "Word Seeds" (with words as genes, chromosomes, a gentler version of William S. Burroughs "word is virus"). Ron Drummond's dream-like prose piece (or was it 2 run together?) started off with a woman harvesting menstrual blood for her garden, then to a woman writing.

My co-host, Nancy Klepsch's first poem was "We Need an Army of Harveys," a work-in-progress, & then a poem on marriage, "A Handsome Woman." I stepped up next for just one holiday poem, "Christmas Eve, 1945."  Carolee Sherwood read 2 poems with titles ending in "-ge" (you can find them on her Blog), "Salvage" on remembering her past in a restaurant, & the ghost-filled "Vestige." Jill Crammond (whose hair was not-quite perfect) began with poem playing on "kind" & "prickly," "Santa's Secret Sale" & then "Marilyn Monroe & Jesus Meet on an Airplane" (how can you miss with a title like that?).

After Avery delivered his rant on the contradictions in out culture, "Drowning in Popular Culture," Nancy said members of Congress should be made to write it 100 times.

It's been a long time since I typed the name Jil Hanifan here in this Blog & it was good to see & hear her again; she read 2 poems on snow, "Blizzard," on the the kind of weather we hate (& dedicated to her sister, a mail-carrier in Syracuse), & on the beauty of new snow, "Snow Whales." Tim Verhaegen finished off the afternoon with a funny & poignant poem, "The Shirtless Guy on McHale's Navy."

This was the second time we gathered on the second Sunday at 2PM at the Arts Center of the Capital Region, 265 River St., in Troy, NY. And we plan to be back on the next second Sunday. Join us.