Live from the Living Room, October 14

Don Levy is the host of this cozy poetry series at the Pride Center in Albany, NY.

The featured poet tonight, Kenneth Salzmann, did a unique & wonderful thing: he created an attractive chapbook for tonight’s reading, ten-fourteen-fifteen: Love From The Living Room, which he gave out free to members of the audience. It was easy to keep track of what he was reading. He began with poem with a political slant “By Any Standard,” then on to 2 referencing poets, “In the Poet’s Garden (for Marge Piercy)” & “Walt Whitman’s Butterfly.” On to “On the Day of the Dead,” “Marginal Lives” (annotations in a used book), & the elegiaic “The Persistence of Ashes.” The poem “What But the Music” pondered the soundtracks of our lives. He ended with a poem from a workshop with Marge Piercy “Why Not Every Poem is a Sex Poem.” A pleasantly relaxed, good-natured reading & there were even a few poems leftover in his chapbook that he did not read for us to take home with us.

After a short break the open mic began with me & I read a poem from Gloucester Notes “Shaken, Stirred” then a poem from the Summer for my granddaughter “Girls & Boys at the Altamont Fair.” A.C. Everson sang us her lullaby “The Mute Mind.” Sylvia Barnard read a new poem about visiting a friend, “Schubert in Assisted Living.” Joe Krausman read about lost things: one a poem on lost languages, the other, “Ephemera.” Sally Rhoades began with an old poem “Broken Lives,” then a new poem written after seeing Joy Harjo read “So Many Maybes.” Don Levy finished the night with a political piece “Citizen Huckabee” & “My Guy Friend” about the dilemma of what words we use to describe our relationships.

Another fine night of poetry at the Pride Center of the Capital Region on the 2nd Wednesday of the month, starts at 7:30PM, for a modest donation.