Live from the Living Room, September 12

but the living room of the Pride Center without the comfy couch & over-stuffed chairs, a bit more Spartan, one would say. But then our host, Don Levy, made it pleasant enough.

Kristen Day photographs her Mom, Marilyn Day

The featured poet(s) was the mother/daughter team of Marilyn & Kristen Day who did a tag-team style reading, often linking their poems to each others. One cluster was about children & growing up, including Marilyn's "Chiaroscuro," Kristen's funny account of dueling remotes, then back to a poem about the son/brother, "Offspring." Marilyn included poems to/for/about her husband, Bill, such as "Safari" & "Provincetown Honeymoon Florida Vacation." Another of my favorites of Marilyn's was an exercise on color, the roller coaster poem, "While Watching the Film on Black Holes…" (paired with Kristen's "Phobic").  Kristen included some of her more humorous pieces, such as the outrageous "Pick A Poem" & the work poem, "Summary of a Meeting." But the highlight of the night for me was her reading once again the dream-within-a-dream poem, "The 6:20 & the 2:45," one of the best "9/11 poems" I've heard. If the night had ended there I would've gone home on clouds.

But the night continued with a string of open mic poets, including me with a new, old-relationship poem "Adirondack Life" & a love poem "The Meaning of Roses."

A new face/voice Josh Handley began with an untitled piece about reading, then into wide-ranging random philosophical jottings. Joe Krausman read a bit of personal history as a "registered pauper" in Boston looking for a rich woman, "45," then a meditation on who aren't "Experts." Sally Rhoades read an old poem "A Trip Home," then the wonderfully domestic sexy "A Naked Swim." Julie Lomoe read an old poem from 2002, another 9/11 poem "In Memoriam Windows on the World." To bring us all home, our host, Don Levy read another in his series of high school poem, "Nerd Is The Word," & the gay-fantasy from the Food Network, "Poem for Cowboy Josh."

One of the more relaxed & informal reading/open mic series, held at the Price Center of the Capital Region on Hudson Ave. in Albany, NY, on the 2nd Wednesday of each month, 7:30PM, & always straight-friendly.