2nd Sunday @ 2, October 12

Fighting my way through the crowds in Troy for the Chowder Festival I made it to The Arts Center to host the Poetry + Prose open mic, my other-half host, Nancy Klepsch, partying it up at a wedding somewhere. It was a day of return of poets who have read here previously, both recent & in the past.

First up was Peggy LeGee with the accurately titled “Asperger’s Rant,” on “the blame game” & on being labeled. Faye, who had been here last month, was back with a long, tender piece to a friend, “I remember…” Mike Connor followed with a seasonal walk on Peeble’s Island “Past Peak,” then performed a slam poem by Buddy Wakefield “Pretend.” Bob Sharkey read what he described as a combination of poetry & prose, “Winter,” in which his characters Mary Bean & Earl read the obituaries, then a cento on death & colors based on lines from the 2014 Best American Poetry “The Velvety Heart.” I was next with my new poem “A.J. Muste.”

Jessica Stephansen returned to read a richly detailed descriptive piece about a trip to Mexico. Howard Kogan read a poem “for the season,” the philosophical “Canada Geese.” We were pleased to see Kate Laity back after a long absence & she read an excerpt from prose thriller, “Smallbany,” that’s included in a new anthology she has edited, Drag Noir.

William Robert Foltin made an appearance as the “265 year-old CC Rider” doing a meandering monologue in the guise of Christopher Columbus with a bad imitation of Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci. Anything can happen here in the Black Box theater.

& it does, each 2nd Sunday @ 2 — 2 poems or prose no longer than 5 minutes — Free! — at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, NY.