Poets Speak Loud!, July 28

It was one of those multi-event Mondays for me & I got to McGeary’s back room after the open mic had started, missed Sylvia Barnard’s poems & only caught part of Joe Krausman’s poems. Of course our host Mary Panza gave me a hard time about being late (was she a grade school nun in a past life?) & I signed up at the end.

A new reader Dennin Ellis read a rhyming piece “The Veteran.” Pamela Twining came up from Woodstock & read “Jazz Baby Blues,” a piece of post-World War II history & sociology.

Andy Clausen was the featured poet & he read from his 2013 collection Home of the Blues: More Selected Poems (Museum of American Poetics Publication) beginning with the incantatory list “I Hear You.” Then a couple of travelogue pieces, “It’s Shivaratri Time In Old Hardwar” & “O” (in Thailand). “Found Art” was a poem inspired by reading the newspaper, “A Doctor’s in the House” was a joyous sexual romp, & “He Was A Man” was a tribute to the Beat hero Neal Cassady. He finished with some selections from his long rant “Insurgency.” It was a treat to listen to Andy again proclaiming his poems in Albany.

Continuing with the open mic was Adam Tedesco who read 2 poems, the poetic recipe (of sorts) “Omelette” & the dream-like “Sassy.”

Another new reader, Colleen Lyons, also read 2 poems, “Nubs” with its images of tattoos & “Funny.” Pat Irish had 2 very short jottings, one on World War I (on this the 100th anniversary of its start), & “A Fall Day.” Speaking of war, I read my 2011 poem “Chatham Peace Vigil” then Tom Nattell’s historical-prophetic “Hiroshima.” Brian Dorn who had gotten there even later than me read 2 poems that he has never read out before, the love poem “Arousing Reflection” & “Pain & Poetry” (thinking of death on the edge of Niagara Falls).

& that was it for this month here at McGeary’s on Clinton Square in Albany, NY, but Poets Speak Loud will be back here each month on the last Monday. Check AlbanyPoets.com for details.