Poets of Earth, Water, Tree & Sky, October 10

Among the trees at the Pine Hollow Arboretum, our words like seeds. Alan Casline, celebrating a wedding anniversary with his wife Jennifer, was our host.

Joe Krausman was the first of the open mic poets, with a trio of poems on mortality, beginning with a trip to the doctor’s office “The World to Come,” then another poem on aging & then “Misfits” with the line “some day you’ll die forever.” Tim Verhaegen followed with a characteristically outrageous piece, “Timmy Trouble,” about gossiping & how he gets in trouble for it. Mike Connor read a poem on divorce by Tony Hoagland, then a piece from an early Blog years ago about this time of year, then “Inner Ink” a poem pondering the nature of tattoos. AC Everson began talking about being “over-exposed” on the pages of Metroland, then a piece about a trick-or-treat papier-maché family, then “Lisa Bitch the Reluctant Witch” & “Ode to a Smeared Spider.” John Abbuhl, the proprietor here at the Pine Hollow Arboretum, read some philosophical musing from his pocket notebook, ranging from the nature of “reality” to living forever through out work.

The night’s featured poet, Paul Doty, came here all the way from Canton, NY. Many of his poems reflected this rural environment, such as “Riding Mower,” the expansive, Kerouac-inspired “Driving in Northern NY” & the more diminutive poem about walking with his sons “Salamanders.” Other poems about his sons were “Box Kite” & “American Primitive” (together in a diner). He ended with a supermarket poem “Girls Need Pistachios” & another combining the Latin poet Horace & his father “Ars Poetica on a Barber Chair.”

After the break John Abbuhl showed us what the fruit of the Pawpaw tree looks like.

Howard Kogan read an intricate poem, “Petit Madeleine,” inspired by Proust, taking us through his new medication, memories of his mother, a Ferris wheel, death & how to spell “nauseous.” Mark W. O’Brien read about life among farmers “Good Shit When I See It,” the minuscule “Thru the Trees” & “Into a Small Dark Space” on the mystery of sardines. Alan Casline has been writing poems based on the I Ching for years, read from his forth-coming collection 64 Changes, “Duration” (on hexagram 32) & “On the Lake Following Thunder” (hexagram 17), & a poem from memory about hitchhiking in the Adirondacks. I read a recently unearthed piece written in 1997 responding to a prompt to write about the soundtrack of February 2, then my newest poem “A.J. Muste.” Bob Sharkey has been writing quirky pieces involving Mary Bean (& Earl) for some time, read about taking her to a wake, then a cento based on a 2-year project recording references & phrases about “race”, “I Don’t Know What Race Card She’s Talking About.”

The evening ended with 2 new voices trying out the open mic scene. Lauren Brown read a couple pieces in rhyme, the first written last night “Make It Real” (at a lake) then “I Am the Call.” Mickie began with “Anniversary” about a hike & remembering her father’s death, then she read a couple of what she calls her “parking lot poems,” written on the backs of grocery receipts, etc. (a quiet place to escape from her family), one a letter to her father after he died, then “Let It Go.”

The season is ending for this series, with one more meeting in November before the snow flies, sponsored by the Rootdrinker Institute.