Third Thursday Poetry Night, August 18

With only a summertime handful of open mic poets, the one-poem rule was suspended & 2 (!) poems were allowed, with our featured poet, Naton Leslie, reading at the end. Our Muse for the night was the Chinese poet Tu Fu (712-770) while my daughter was visiting his studio in Chengdu.

So to start the open mic Alan Catlin read a poem based on the Antonioni movie, "Blow-up," about photos used in the film, then from his self-portraits that are not self-portraits, "Self-Portrait with Vincent" (van Gogh). Bob Sharkey read a page from his work-in-progress, "Sustenance," page/week 25, then a piece about Monument Square in Portland, Maine. Joe Krausman sang the woes (metaphysical & otherwise) of "Apartment Hunting." Moses Kash III read "What is Love? II" (there is an earlier "What is Love?").

Avery traced the path of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" through literary & pop culture history. D. Alexander Holiday debuted his new book, Emails from Satan's Daughter (Xlibris), containing literal (if redacted) emails, a book about bullying in the workplace, & read from the book, "Satan's Daughter Likes Her Liquor" & "Satan's Daughter Gets Herself a Promotion." Congrats to Doug on his new book. I closed out the open mic with a new poem in what is becoming some kind of a series, "Coyote 3" then from Poeming the Prompt (A.P.D., 2011) the award-winning poem "The Lesson."

The night's featured poet was Naton Leslie, who teaches literature at Siena College, hoping to sell his new book of poems, Small Cathedrals (David Robert Books, 2011). The poems are blank verse sonnets about mothers & children. From the book he read "The Wrong Man" (about his mother & his father), "A Capella" (to his wife), "Mother: the Movie," & "Perambulators." He said he was eager (as many of us get) to read some new poems he was working on, a series about the many "rights" available to us, recognized or not. He began with "You Have the Right to a Full Set of Wrenches," then a political poem "You Have the Right to Hot Peppers;" "You Have the Right to a Birthplace" inspired by Walt Whitman's house on Long Island, on to "You Have the Right to Big Foot," "You Have the Right to Super Powers," "You Have the Right to Abstinence" a found poem based on an ad in Craig's List, & concluded with a poem to his step-daughter, "You Have the Right to Find Your Keys." We'll be buying that book, too, someday.

We are at the Social Justice Center on the Third Thursday of each month with a featured poet & an open mic, at 7:30PM -- donations go to pay the featured poet, & support the Social Justice Center & the Poetry Motel Foundation.