W*O*M*P*S, November 9

I was one of the featured poets, along with Sharon Israel & her husband Robert Cucinotta (on sound-scape) at the Word Of Mouth Poetry Series at the Art Bar Gallery in Kingston, NY. Teresa Costa is the host of this series & she started off the night with a poem by 1960s poet Lynne Savitt (whose work became a running theme throughout the night).

Sharon Israel’s publisher, Dayl Wise of Post Traumatic Press of Woodstock, arrived just before the reading started with a box of her new book of poems, Voice Lessons, & that’s what she read (mostly) from. She began with the opening poem from the book “Type Triple A,” the on to the title poem, & a poem of family lore “Red Coat.” Others from the book were “Melodrama at the Biograph,” & a tender piece about her father, a butcher on the Lower East Side & a painter, “Butcher Shop.” Her husband, Robert Cucinotta, joined her with his “sound scapes,” mixes of music samples, sounds from nature & chain saws, etc., for “Tango Triolet,” “Souvenir Shop at Manitou Springs,” “Rare Sightings” (Northern Hawk Owl), & “Pie Bird.” In between she included some new poems, “Brachial Plexus” (another poem about her painter father), & the eco-poem “Zoom Floom Water Park.” A new favorite poet to follow.

My reading was more straight forward, less sound more images.  I planned my reading around being

in an art gallery, which I think is perhaps the best place, next to Washington Park, for poetry. Most of what I read could be described as “ekphrastic poetry,” poems based on works of art, either visual art or poems. It included “The Hopper Painting,” “Arts Festival Del Ray Beach,” “My Matisse” (on a painting by Thomasa Nielsen), “Last Train to Clarksville,” “After Cavafy,” & “Reading Memoir in the Laundromat” (Patricia Hampl). I ended with “At the Silarian Cafe,” “When Donald Trump Farts” (the obligatory political poem) & “The Day God Invented Wine.” I had fun.

After a break we dove into the open mic, a great anthology of mid-Hudson poets, beginning with the venerable Roberta Gould, who read about “Stink Bugs 2017,” “Intervention,” & the funny ironic “Longevity, A Scientific Perspective.” Gary Siegel read introspective poems, including an eco-poem of surrender “In the Night of Winds & Sand.” Richard read more poems of Lynne Savitt.

The venerable poet Elder Donald Lev read from his 2012 (NYQ Books) A Very Funny Fellow, then some new ones, wry, humorous as always, thinking of his roots. Elizabeth Gordon’s poem “Grilled Salmon” was about a blind cat, & “In Detour Sheer Joe” was an erasure Haibun. Ron Whiteurs is always a trip, read 2 “topical poems” Nickel-Plate Revolver” (this a harmless cap-gun, with a version of Blake’s “Sunflower”) & “Turkey Shuffle & Shotgun Dance.”

Fred Poole’s poems are generally short, philosophical, about looking at the sky, a descriptive “The Morning,” a foray into art, sex, book & hopelessness, & one titled “Politics,” another mid-Hudson poetic Elder. Suze Bottigliero reminded us to turn our clocks back, read from her notebooks, thoughts, fragments, dreams. David Anderson was topical, too, rhymes & questions on Puerto Rico & Harvey Weinstein. Our host, Teresa returned us to the ’60s poetry of Lynne Savitt, raunchy & sexy. Alison Koffler is always one of my favorite poets & tonight wowed me with a new work in progress, a nostalgic memoir “On the Road with Thomas Cole.”

Dayl Wise is a poet, activist (with Veterans For Peace) & publisher of regional poets of note under the imprint Post Traumatic Press; his poems tonight were memoirs of his service in Viet Nam, the first his longest title (which I didn’t get all of), “What Ken Burns … Missed,” then the boy soldier dream-fantasy “Backwash.”

I was not only pleased to read here among poetry friends (both those who read & those who listened) but to hear the rich variety of the voices of the Hudson Valley. W*O*M*P*S is at the bohemian Art Bar Gallery on Broadway in Kingston, NY, each 2nd Thursday of the month, sign-up at 6:30PM, the poets read at 7:00.