Poets of Earth, Water, Tree & Sky, September 11

The poets packed the house for Tom Corrado & for the open mic. For over 25 years, since the open mic at the QE2 I have arrived to sign up after 5, or 6, or more poets have signed up & the #1 slot is still blank, so I have appropriated that slot for myself, & once again, tonight.

The sub theme for the night was, informally, today’s date & its moment(s) in history, so I read my poem written in 2012 “Another Tuesday,” conflating the September 11 Tuesdays of 1973 & 2001 (& 2012). Tim Verhaegen followed with a ironic/humorous short essay on the workplace “Lying Herds.” Mark W. O’Brien read a philosophical piece on death & love, “It’s A Long Road that Has No Turning.” Our host, Alan Casline, read next 3 short poems, “Paddle Song,” “Bell’s Butterflies” & a consideration of the great spirit, “They Are the Salt of the Earth.” Always philosophical John Abbhul read poems in rhyme, beginning with “Biophilia” (wondering what flowers might feel), “Contentment” (about a field of hummingbirds), & “The Meaning of Truth.” Joan Gran’s poem was about a family in conflict, “Trouble in the Kitchen” done in images of food & cooking. Paul Amidon looked to the past for an image of his parents holding hands “Parking Lot Image” & “Poseur.” This was Sue Oringel’s first time here & she read about “Dirt” & golf (“Links”). Jessica Rae read parts of her poem “Magical Great Blue Heron”, then a poem on things overheard in the park & a meditation on love & healing.

The featured performer was Tom Corrado, who began by playing the flugelhorn, riffling on 2 jazz standards, “Autumn Leaves” & “My Funny Valentine,” sounding like a white Miles Davis, with the ever-limber Sally Rhoades dancing. Then on to a reading from a new chapbook, Excavations (mining my and others’ words), including Samuel Beckett, Philip Roth, the Beach Boys, Mark Twain, Bela Lugosi, Guy Davenport, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, & others, including an open mic, reading nearly the entire chapbook, except for section #12. The sections ranged from the profound to the whimsical, always with his characteristic non sequitur & word play.

After a break we continued with the open mic, with Howard Kogan returning to a theme of the night, “September 11, 2001: 3 Memories.” Philomena Moriarty’s poem remembering Autumns in the past, “One Falls Over Laughing,” was inspired by a display of Teddy Bears in Starbucks, then a poem on the fallibility of memory “The Unmeeting of Minds.”

Katrinka Moore read from her book, Thief (BlazeVOX [books], 2009), the poem "Light Moth" about the smoke of 9/11. Joe Krausman gave an enthusiastically negative review of Woody Allen’s new movie & read an old piece on Allen “Does the Big Apple Have a New Worm,” then “Waiting For My Ship to Come In.” Sally Rhoades changed back into her street clothes to end the night with “On a Night with a Poet” (for Maurice Kenny), then a poem from the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in Ada, OK, “I Can’t Hear You…” & ended with a poem for the Equinox.

This series continues on a monthly basis on Fridays at the Pine Hollow Arboretum, 29 Maple Ave., Slingerlands, NY, 6:30PM (earlier for food), logistics by the Rootdrinker Institute.