Gloucester Writers Center - Open Mic, June 3

I hadn’t been back to Cape Ann since my residency at the Gloucester Writers Center in February so I took a break from my schedule in Albany to come over for a few days & timed it so I could go to the monthly open mic at the GWC. As always, it was a varied mix of genres & styles from the mostly aging writers in this active writers community. The host/MC was Amanda Cook, with a timer (!) & her ukulele as the alarm — it’s subtle & it works.

I read a couple poems from my Scissortail chapbook Baseball Poems (A.P.D., 2019), here in the room where I spent a week in February. Virginia McKinnin writes about the World War II generation in the veterans’ writers project, tonight read a piece about her husband & the invasion of Saipan “One Sailor’s Story.”

A wonderful surprise was author Stacie Madin from Ohio who said she was writing a young adult novel about a young woman & her mother set in Rocky Neck — except the author had never been here to Rocky Neck, had only researched it online & decided to visit; when she found out about tonight’s open mic she extended her visit; she read from the beginning of the novel & made lots of friends in the audience.

Joe Mezio began with a quote from the writer Edward Hoagland then read a personal essay weaving together the politics of the 1960s & the current “disharmony.” Shep Abbon read from a chapbook a piece on 9/11, then a blues song read as a poem, & “a little ditty” titled “A Gloucester Legend” his take on the story of James Merry. Lise Breen said that this was her 2nd time at an open mic, read an historical account about illegal slave trade on Cape Ann 1841. Our host & time-keeper Amanda Cook read “A Pastoral Letter” which was her reactions to Charles Olson’s Maximus letters, containing her personal recollections & family history.

Don Kipp read a cluster of little pieces, mostly by him but a few by others: the metaphorical “A Worm,” a piece on Annisquam, “Fears,” “Water Song,” including Langston Hughes. Mary Ellen LaBianca began with a poem about a daughter leaving home “Women at the Bus,” then “At Giza the Sphinx,” & “Conversation Overheard in the Next Yard over a Very Tall Fence.” Bob Guttman concluded the night with “Memorial Weekend Salute…” referencing veteran writers, & suicides.

The Gloucester Writers Center sponsors this monthly open mic on the 1st Monday of the month at 126 East Main St., Gloucester, MA at 7:30PM. For information about the GWC, its program, & to donate visit their website.