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

We had missed last month (your hosts, both Nancy Klepsch & I were out of town) but here we were back with a full list of readers at the black box theater of the Arts Center in Troy.

First on the list was Steve Rieger who began with a long rhyme on “the beast of war” then a memoir in free verse about his Grandma “Childhood.” I noted that today was the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice at the end of WWI & read 2 anti-war poems “What Really Happened” & “Chatham Peace Vigil.” Bob Sharkey read a piece describing an exhibit at the Whitney Museum of photos from the AIDS crises, then read this year’s Cento based on Best American Poetry 2018 “We Wept to be Reminded of Such Colors” the title taken from Tracy K. Smith’s poem in that anthology. Dave DeVries read “Loss” a richly descriptive, colorful poem, then the grim “Age of Innocent” the point being that it is not safe anymore to be “innocent.”

I was pleased to see Mimi Moriarty back here after an absence & she read poems on the theme of today’s anniversary, the first about the military funeral of her father with a contrapuntal funeral of a young soldier nearby, then a piece centered around her nephew regretting his enlistment in the military “2 Incidents Involving Skype Plus a Prayer.” Joel Best read 2 enigmatic pieces, the first titled “Epiphany on Page 237,” the 2nd, titled “Beneath Gender’s Gaze” he said it would be OK if it doesn’t make sense.

Then began a string of poets with the letter “K” in their names. Kendall Hoeft is becoming a regular here, & this afternoon read “Coyote Chorus” a poem about what she heard while reading, then what she called “a celebration of polarizing light” a poem titled “Father Kaleidoscope.” Karen Fabiane’s poem “When She Spoke of Love She Meant Theft” was about a former lover who even stole poems, her second poem was a mélange of past lovers both from her life as a man & as a woman. Kate Laity read from the introduction to a talk she will be giving this week in Japan on the work of the author Tove Jansson (1914 - 2001), what she read lamenting the current political conditions in the U.S.

This was Kate Gillespie’s 2nd time here (the first in September), said she is a professor of Biotechnology at SUNY Cobleskill & interested in the intersection of science & poetry thus read her poem “Misconceptions of Molecules,” then recited from memory the famous poem by John McCrae from WWI “In Flanders Fields.” My co-host here, Nancy Klepsch, was the last of the “Ks” & began with a poem about having the conflicted role of signing a student’s military enlistment papers, then a poem on a theft (again) the anaphoric “Somebody took my voice…”

Another regular reader here is Peggy LeGee who sang a humorously bragging piece “I’ve got something for everyone…” she said. Christa DeMarco began with a meditation by a human in a forest “Do you think a tree imagined being a chair …” then a description of watching a person dying. Christian Ortega read 2 love poems from his Red Poems, “My Name In Yours” & “Amor Fou.”

2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose takes place at the Arts Center of the Capital Region on River St. in Troy each, well, you get it — bring something to read.