Arthur’s Market Open Mic, October 12

Back in Schenectady’s Stockade Section with our host, Catherine Norr, for another open mic & a reading by featured poet Stuart Bartow.

First up on the open mic list was Richard Jaren who read a couple poems, “Song Bird” & “Ode to James" from his 1979(!) collection of poems Chronicles & Ice Cream. Alan Catlin read from his new collection of poems in-progress the poems “Home of the Brave” about misfit anarchist patriots, & “Finding Mr. Goodbar” (in all the wrong bars). I read seasonal piece, my baseball version of Eliot’s “The Waste Land” “Octoberland” & the Schenectady based-&-inspired “Zombie Gourd.”

Ginny Folger read “90” a poem that had just been accepted for publication & is in the voice of a woman in a nursing home. Similarly, Jackie Craven read a poem that is in the latest issue of Nimrod, “The Temperature Reaches 102.” This was the first time here for Sarah Provost who read an old poem, “Obie,” in the voice of a country singer, & “No Accident” about bad things done on purpose.

Tonight’s featured poet, Stuart Bartow, read from his recent books. He began with a poem titled “Bill’s Houses,” an elegy for a friend who made blue-bird houses, then one about a finicky radio “Aeolian Harp,” about sparrow’s in the Home Depot “To Ghost a Human Shape,” the wonderfully playful “Fishing with Cows,” & another about the magic colors in an attic window. From his latest book, Einstein’s Lawn (Dos Madres Press, 2015), he read “St. Francis in the Suburbs,” another fishing tale “Satyr,” “Moon Lust” (William Blake & Li Po), “Einstein’s Homework,” “Einstein’s Desk,” & “Ode to Buster Keaton.” A fascinating book that I just had to bring home with me.

Catherine Norr returned us to the open mic with a couple of her poems, a piece about a place in the Adirondacks “New World,” & a story of a confrontation with a spider in her garden, “Territories.” Susan Kress ended the night with a memoir of her family dying off “Using Things Up.”

This friendly, warm open mic takes place each 2nd Wednesday of the month at Arthur’s Market, 35 North Ferry St., Schenectady, NY, 7:30PM with a featured poet & an open mic for the rest of us.