Poets Speak Loud!, April 29

Always a night to party, albeit early in the evening, this open mic had as its featured reader photographer & peace-activist Connie Frisbee Houde. But first our host, Mary Panza, got us into the open mic.

Sylvia Barnard can frequently be found here on the 1st Monday, & tonight began with a poem written today in rhyme looking back to her childhood school & to the Doane Stuart School where she currently volunteers, then her poem “The Broken Pot” on aging. Doug Holiday let us in a rare sing-a-long with classic American folk poems, “Down in the Valley” & “Rye Whiskey.” Joe Krausman read a brief biography of a surgeon “Suit Yourself” & a poem on aging “Power Failure. A.C. Everson began with a poem on breaths, then on to another adventure in aging.

Connie Frisbee Houde is a photographer who is best known for her work documenting the people of Afghanistan, & tonight presented beautiful portraits of Afghanis as she talked about the poetry of the women of that war-torn country. The poems she read were from The Sky is A Nest of Swallows:  From Behind the Burqa, The Voices of Afghan Women, A collection of Poems and Essays by Afghan Women Writers (2012 Belleville Books Press) & Songs of Love and War: Afghan Women’s Poetry, edited by Said Bahodine Majrouh, translated by Marjolijn De Jager (2003, Other Press). Also from I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014) translated by Eliza Griswold with photographs by Seamus Murphy. At one point Connie donned a burqa to add a living visual to the words she read.

Continuing on with the open mic Don Levy read a new poem he had written at work “Ode to CVS,” a place he knows well. I followed to read “What Really Happened” my alternative view to the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, then a new poem responding to the fire at Notre Dame “Tourism.” Christa De Marco read 2 untitled pieces, the first about putting down a dog, the second, written just last night, with flowers & women. Sally Rhoades began with a quote on love by Rumi (as Connie had begun with a reference to Rumi), then read “Planting Tomatoes” a poem of childhood memories, then one about her daughter’s birth, for her birthday, “Just After Midnight in Catalonia.”

Tim Verhaegen read an intricate piece, part memoir of his time as a roommate of Steve Clark, part history of the early poetry scene, part tribute to Mary Panza “I Was in Love with Mary Panza.”

Frank Houde, Connie’s husband, joined the open mic list to pay tender tribute to his wife, her work & her person. Nick Bisanz ended the night with the lyrics of British punk rocker John Cooper Clarke playing off the ubiquitous, pejorative British adjective “bloody.”

Quite a night of world poetry. Usually here at McGeary’s on Sheridan Square in Albany on the last Monday, you won’t find Poets Speak Loud! here in May because that is Memorial Day, but come back some other last Monday at 7:30PM for an open mic & a featured poet — check AlbanyPoets.com for details.