2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose, February 11

Even with the icy streets outside we had 12 writers signed up for the open mic this month, but, as has been true for years, no one likes to sign up 1st (or even 2nd).  So, as I often do, I signed up in one of those open spots, this time #2.  

Even so, I was the 1st reader as the bottom list filled up.  Even though I had read it here last month, I repeated myself reading “Walking Rome,” for Dan Curley who was in attendance, then I read this year’s “Birthday Poem.”  Joe Krausman & I have been teasing each other about Jung’s theory of synchronicity for years (I’ll tell you the story sometime) & today he read 2 poems about synchronicity, with his usual wry humor of course.  Mike Conner read a poem about writing, “Word Painting” then a grim seasonal poem written today “Snow Birds.”  Dave DeVries read 2 long rhyming poems, on “Boxing Day” & a Valentines Day piece for the mail carrier “Postal Placebo.”

Kate Laity’s essay on being the only Medievalist on campus struck a personal note with me since at one point in my college career I thought that that might be path I would take (one not taken).  Bob Sharkey is coordinating the Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest & asks poets submitting work to cite a poet who has influenced them; one of the poets cited was Kofi Awoonor (1935 - 2013) from Ghana so Bob read selections from Awoonor’s “Songs of Sorrow,” then his own poem on temptation “Taken.”  Dan Curley read 2 poems about family members, the first set in his mother’s nursing home “At the Lighthouse Halloween Contest,” then “My Wife Jay-Walking.”  My co-host, Nancy Klepsch, read “One” from her recently published collection God Must Be a Boogie Man (Recto y Verso Editions), then a new Haibun “Driving While Black.”

Michael Lopez stepped up with a poem titled “The Intimacies of Fruit,” his first confessional poem he said.  Karen Fabiane read 2 older “sort of love poems” “If at Dawn,” then the raucous “I Fucked St. Joan.”  Don Yorty returned with 2 rhyming sonnets, the 2nd about a butterfly titled “A Fragile Thing.”  

First time reader here Steve Rieger was our last reader with a poem in 3 parts, “Whisper,” about reading cemetery tombstones of his in-laws.

Each 2nd Sunday at 2PM Nancy Klepsch & I are the co-hosts of this open mic for poetry & prose at the Arts Center of the Capital Region on River St. in Troy, NY — bring 2 poems or 5 minutes of prose & join us.  It’s free.