Poets Speak Loud!, March 31

More Poetry! now back in Albany, back at McGeary’s for the open mic. It was supposed to be a “roast” of Mary Panza, but that was postponed until the Fall. But Mary was there to be the host & Ring Master of the open mic. It was a club-house reading with some long-time supporters & poets of the open mic scene, even A.C. Everson in her new role as videographer.

I was first on the sign-up sheet & read 2 new poems, “The Fence” (a product of a poetry workshop with Bernadette Mayer), then my entry to the Poetry Unites project, “Believe, Believe,” a tribute to the poem by Bob Kaufman. Julie Lomoe read an eco-poem written a few years ago, “Bi-Polar Gaia.” Joe Krausman pushed the format with a tour-de-force villanelle composed only of one-syllable words, then a cautionary tale of “The True Story of Jack & Jill.” Don Levy read a poem written many years ago, inspired by Edie Sedgwick & Gerard Malanga, “Mod Fashions,” then a more recent piece is his on-going commentary on homophobia, “No Gay Eating Here.” Tess Lecuyer began with a couple of old March haikus, then ended with a new March sonnet.

We’ve missed Kristen Day on the scene (she is reputed to have the world’s 2nd largest collection of photos of unknown poets); tonight she read the hysterical account of an conversation with her grandmother, “Four Fucking Dollars,” then “Everyday,” a list poem of the common phrases she says everyday. Anthony Bernini also made a rare appearance, all the way from Brunswick, with a poem based on a cartoon from The New Yorker magazine, “Sensible Pumps,” then a very new one, he said, “Desert Rivers.” Also with a new poem, written today, Adam Tedesco read “Molt” on the death of his mother’s friend, followed by the brutally ironic “Where I Lived & What I Lived For.” A late-arriving Algorhythm started by reciting one piece running off rhymes, on poetry & being down, then looses it, & does another piece in the same vein. It was all the same to us.

& that was it for this month, but if we all survive WordFest & our pens don’t run out of ink we’ll be back in McGeary’s back room on the next last Monday, about 7:30 — order dinner too. Check AlbanyPoets.com for a calendar of events.