Poetic Vibe, April 2

You would think that with this fabulous poetry event taking place every Monday that I would get there more often, but Monday’s are a busy afternoon for me, & there is the monthly Poets Speak Loud! on the last Monday. So it has been a few months since I’ve gotten over here to the Troy Kitchen. But I made it, again. What keeps this going month after month is the host D. Colin (see my recent Blog about her reading at the NYS Writers Institute).  Tonight she started us off with her exuberant manifesto “For Every Black Woman Who Has Been Called Angry.”

Then on to the sign-up sheet with Lil Snow, who had set up some sound behind his first piece, a personal anthem playing on his handle, then another piece which I thought was just copying the gangsta/violence clichés, his first piece stronger because it was more his own.

Ahmad (whom I’d seen recently at The Low Beat doing beat-box backup for Elizag) began with just a short snip of a new rap, then another performed way too fast for me to understand. I was next & I am no longer fast, just sort of half-fast, & I read an old piece for this day’s sad anniversary (the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), the political rant “Richard Nixon Must Die.” Ema Rose read a love poem, like a love letter, then sang. Kaylyn Sampletort’s poem “Adolescence” was a tribute to a little brother who died last year from an over-dose.

Shane was up & out with a short piece & I almost missed a photo, “Smoke Session.” In contrast, the next reader, “Sincere Presence,” went on & on, a rambling, self-indulgent intro to a project of, ironically, short 6-word “stories,” more like silly/profound aphorisms that went on & on, (until I came up with my own 6-word reaction: Less is more, more is less). Joshua read from his book from his 8 1/2 years incarcerated, writing from the dark side, then on to the lighter side of love. Hamlin’s “Daydream” was a break-up poem with something called the 80/20 rule as the conceit.
 

Delaney Williams was a “virgin” reader with a piece on gender, imagining the girl she likes, then on to the self-assertive “Pessimist Prerogative.” Another new reader, Justine Murphy, read a couple of intense pieces, “Going Vinyl” & “Low Tide…”. Lady D, who referenced the old venue in Albany at Clayton’s Restaurant “Soul Kitchen” read a love poem titled “True Love.”

Maya did a short piece in rhyme about herself. Poetyc Visonz did a new piece on his high after seeing the block-buster movie Black Panther, recycling some of his images/thoughts from his more familiar pieces, like the number 7, chakras, etc. Callahan, who had been hanging out at the bar when I got here, did a rambling bar-talk true-life story, of course. Poetik, who often hangs out quietly in the dark until her time to impress, did today a piece from a 30/30 exercise she is doing, this on her teenage years, then a poem titled “Fuck the Shit” from her new book. Charles O’More sang a piece by, I think, B’Yonce. & then it was time for D. Colin to read the group poem, actually what the Surrealists called an “exquisite corpse,” that had been making the rounds all night — what an interesting anthology a collection of these poems would make.

It’s amazing that Poetic Vibe happens every Monday at the Troy Kitchen on Congress St. in Troy, about 7:30PM, sometimes a featured poet but always an energetic & eclectic open mic. Don’t tell me you haven’t been here yet?