Albany Poets Present!, July 5

Surprise, surprise, there were already poets gathered at the bar at Valentines when I got there, & more arrived as the night wore on. As el presidente of AlbanyPoets.com, Thom Francis, expressed it, he was "shocked & amazed" at the turnout. There was even a poetry-virgin in the crowd.

Still, I ended up first on the list again, the perennially open slot, & read poems of love & lust as I am wont to do: "The L-Word," "Nocturne" & "Since Monday." Illiptical (The Wizard of Mars, to give his full name) did a piece dedicated to substitute teachers, "The Grinch Who Stole Your Class." Mojavi took us from sex ("Harder than a Diamond"), to "Separation," to the long hit "The First & Last Time I Smoked a Joint." Thom Francis read us a Carl Sandburg poem, over a dead child, in response to a current trial in the news.  Dain Brammage read about "Growing Up" & about death & dying.  Ben Golden stumbled through a piece "mistaken for a suicide note" titled "The Night Life."

The night's virgin was Jessica Fisher-Smith who began with "If I Had Taken the Ad," a personal rant that sounded like that old song, "You're So Vain," then read "Shadow Games," a series of tips for covering up physical abuse (as she did). Nadi Morsch began with a couple of the poems she had read at McGeary's, aphoristic & sarcastic, then a couple more in the same vein, "Never Mind I'll Bring My Own Flowers" & "This Constellation is Neither Permanent Nor Complete."

This open mic happens (or not) the first Tuesday of the month at Valentines on New Scotland Ave. in Albany, NY, 8PM.