WordFest 2019 — Third Thursday Poetry Night, April 18

Since the Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center happens during the third week of the month it has from the earliest days of WordFest been folded into the festivities, even when it was the “official un-official start of WordFest” when WordFest was just a weekend long. Tonight’s feature was Caroline Bardwell, & we had 9 people on the open mic list. But first I invoked the Muse, tonight’s gone poet Ken Denberg, former publisher, with his wife Darby Penney, of Snail’s Pace Review; I read his poem “Blueberry Pie.”

Then on to the first half of the open mic, with Alan Catlin up first with a poem from his ongoing collection of poems on film noir “Hollyweird,” this poem titled “Murder by the Numbers.” Doug Holiday came to recite a Biblical/Easter poem by Countee Cullen, then read from The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry “Don’t Read That Poem” by Louis Rodriquez about a reading by poet Patricia Smith. Joe Krausman’s poem was based a newspaper story of a woman who gets a job as an embalmer. Bob Sharkey read a poem based on over heard conversations & on the news “They Say…”

The featured poet, Caroline Bardwell, has only been on the poetry scene here for a few years, but has made her mark with her excursions into formal poetry, recently won 2nd Place in the 2019 Stephan A. DiBiase Poetry Contest, has started the 1st Friday readings in Schenectady at the Electric City Barn, & recently published a collection of poems illustrated with her photographs On and Off the Trail. She began with poems not in the book, one from a series each beginning “Poems Are So Much More…” Then on to the sonnet “Insomnia” with a touch of humor. "Liar" was a different sort of poem, a list poem in rhyme about her ex. The poem titled “Paul” was a pantoum about her psychotherapist, then on to a poem about death “Valley of Bones.”. “My Father’s Legacy” was a long story in rhyme & vivid details recited from memory about her father’s troubles, his death & the lessons she learned. At this point she turned to On and Off the Trail, a collection of nature poems & local photography, beginning with “By the Roots,” then a haiku, & a longer poem about Autumn, & finished up with one of her alliterative tour-de-force poems about the seasons, this one “Spring”.

After the break we finished off the open mic list, with me starting if off with a new poem from my recent trip to Ada, Oklahoma “Red Bud.” This was the first time here for Shamyla Bhatti who read a dream-like poem “Dilated Spheres.” Tom Bonville came back from his feature here last month to read a baseball poem about learning baseball from his father & the model of Mickie Mantle & Willie Mays. Sally Rhoades also read a memoir of Oklahoma & the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival “Even Dancing We Keep Talking.” Joan Geitz signed up at the last minute & read a poem written a few years ago, memories of past pets “Companionship.”

Even when it is not National Poetry Month we come to the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY on the third Thursday of each month at 7:30PM for an open mic with a reading by a featured poet in the middle. Bring a poem & read.