2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose, October 9

Troy’s Chowder Fest was only a bait-&-switch to this monthly open mic for all writers, but we had to move upstairs, not in our usual spot in the Black Box Theater — didn’t matter, we had 14 readers signed up.

Brian Dorn was first, reading from his collection of poems, From My Poems to Yours (The Live Version), “Changing Ways” (rhymes on love) & “Lessons.” I followed with 2 poems of the season, “Baseball in Palestine” & the political rant “When Donald Trump Farts.”

Dan Curly, who brought us a bottle of wine to share, read a romantic piece about making the bed “6 over 1” then “Be Prepared.” Kate Laity, the “prose interloper,” read the introduction from How to be Dull: Standing Out Next to Genius (by “Mr. Basil Morley, Esq.”) in which she cites Geoffrey Chaucer (& inspired a suggestion for an epigraph for my poem about Donald Trump’s farts). Mike Conner likes to stick to the seasons & read 2 Autumn poems, “That One Perfect Day” from the past, & “This Fall I Regret Nothing” written yesterday. Don Levy’s poem “Hate Crime” was about a gay-bashing incident in Brooklyn & was written as if a letter to one of the attackers, while “Adventures at Port Authority,” was bizarre, & all true.

Peggy Legee mashed together the tasks of picking political leaders & football players in her piece “Game” — & prompted discussion on a variation on football where the players were also cheer-leaders. Dave DeVries also read a piece about games “The Draw” then one about a dream of a day in which there was nothing to report in the news. Joe Krausman talked about the myriad topics he has used in poems, then read 2 poems on fences & walls, including notes left at the Temple Wall in Jerusalem.

Karen Fabiane has been busy, read 2 new poems (but said the 2nd one she is “not sure of…”), “Good Boy” on religion in the modern world, & “Sometimes People” a complicated piece of recollection. Howard Kogan read a poem in rhyme “The Warden” a theological piece about Adam & Eve. Sally Rhoades read about her reaction to the Republican National Convention, then an excerpt from her ongoing memoir, this about moving out in high school & going to Albany to study journalism.

Jil Hanifan read an old poem, a funny & exquisite pastiche of Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” her piece titled “A Botanica on Lark St.” R.M. Englehardt made a rare appearance here being the “serious poet” read “A Poem for Ben Lerner” responding to the article, “Why Do People Hate Poetry?” then in uncertain rhyme read about a Troy ghost, “The Legend of Johnny the Pumpkin Fucker” (& Jil suggested a title change to “Donald the …”). An uproarious note to end on.

2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose takes place on, well, you get it, at the Arts Center in Troy, usually in the black box theater, but not always.