June 26, 2012

Third Thursday Poetry Night, June 21

Sadly our featured poet, Anna Eyre, at the last minute could not make it tonight, but that only meant that the "one-poem rule" became a license for 2 poems for the open mic poets. But before that, the invoking of the Muse, tonight the painter & poet Dorothea Tanning (1910 -2012) -- I read her poem "Artist, Once" from Coming to That (Graywolf Press, 2011).

Alan Catlin was up first again, remembering "Walking Home in Winter, Utica NY 1969," then a more recent piece on the arrest of the last of the uptown gunners in Schenectady, "Mr. D. He's Dead." Bob Sharkey read "64 Shades of Meaning," a string of words & commentary, then a piece dedicated to the late Nadia Trinkala, "Meditation in Orange & Indigo While Listening to Abbey Lincoln & Stan Getz." Joe Krausman's first poem, "Suppose," was about writing, then he pondered mortality in "Things Passing."


The 2 poems Tess Lecuyer read can be found on her FaceBook site, "Haiku to My Sticky Summer Self" & "Pebble Blessing Sonnet." Emily read her wonderful poem, sprinkled with Spanish, for her mother, then from her cell-phone, "Potpourri," the dried up flowers of love.

Amy Nelson Hahn had been here last moth for the first time & she came back! She read a poem from her Blog about a beautiful Albany sunset, "How It Is," then a poem by her ancestor, the colonial poet, Anne Bradstreet (1612 - 1672) "To My Dear & Loving Husband" (which she plans to read to her soon-to-be husband at their upcoming wedding). Avery followed with verbal portrait of "The Beasts of L.A.," followed by an effusive poem about brewing tea. Anthony Bernini ("being well trained") had only 1 poem, "Where the World Turns," upsidedown it seems. I ended the night with a poem written at the beginning of June, "The Transit of Venus."

This reading is every Third Thursday, most usually with a featured poet, & always with an open mic, 7:30PM, at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY, a modest donation supports this & other poetry event & the work of the Social Justice Center.

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