Getting Down to Brass Tacks — 1 Year Anniversary, July 16

What a fabulous way to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of this open mic & reading series at The Low Beat with a packed house. Thom Francis el presidente was exhilarated with the poets from near & far who came here tonight. There were 3 featured poets on tour from the mid-west, & 18 signed up on the (wide) open mic list.

Alan Catlin read a couple pieces from his 2003 book from Staplegun Press The Schenectady Chainsaw Massacre, one was titled “Son of a Hack.” Shawn Hopkins must’ve thought this was comedy night but his routine was more manic than funny. BK, on the other hand, read a moving piece just written this morning on being an immigrant & on Trump’s raids titled “Love It or Leave It.” Cheryl A. Rice’s poem was a memoir of the Moon landing, the anniversary barely a week away.

Zakim also thought it was comedy night & did a ramble through the movie Remember the Titans (can’t say that I do). Algorhythm, rather than read his own work, read William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper.” Reed’s manic performance was about something called “The Amanda Show” that I have never saw. D. Alexander Holiday brought us back to the texts & politics with a poem by Assata Shakur about the power of the grass growing in the prison yard, then one of his own poems based on a passage from Toni Morrison “Oh My People.”

Poet Rebecca Schumejda served as the MC for the 3 featured poets, the first being Margaret Crocker. She read a bunch of poems (9 by my count) from her recent book When I Was A Girl Like Me (Margaret Bazzell-Crocker) ( Stubborn Mule Press, 2019), many filled with precision anger as a woman, like “Wrench,” often with long titles, such as “Age (or) What The Hell Do I Write About Now - As Told Through The Weekend Binge,” about growing up poor. She also writes about working in the mental heath system (“A Barren Tree with a Dried Sparrow’s Nest Near a Desolate Soup of Strange Biology”), & in a prison.  Each of the poets, of course, had books to sell; I had to make a choice & bought When I Was A Girl Like Me.

She was followed by her husband, Dan Crocker, who read from his latest book Leadwood: New and Selected Poems, 1998 - 2018 (Stubborn Mule Press, 2018), & from Shit House Rat (Spartan Press, 2017), including “Elton & George” & a Ginsberg pastiche “All Hell Wallmart.” His poems depend heavily on storytelling, making them accessible, such as “My Mother Calls,” “Dreams of My Siblings,” “Hulkster” (from the point of view of Hulk Hogan), & “The Barryman Hood.” A major theme was mental disorders, such as one to his wife Margaret “I Married a Sling Blade” a reference to the psycho movie, not the tool, & an exploration of Sesame Street characters as images of different mental disorders.

The final, & longest, feature reader was John Dorsey of the famous “Beards,” a loose fraternity of poets some of whom their greatest achievement is their beard (obviously no “girls” allowed). He began with a piece titled “Christmas Cookies” about his great-grandmother, then quickly on to poems that all sounded like true stories, “Getting Lucky,” “The Ballad of PegLeg & Double Stump,” even a poem about his local pool hall that named a sandwich after him. He read a couple poems from a series about women in Missouri named Tammy, & others about other women, “Where the Prom Queen Ends Up” (at a truck stop), & “Rosalia Ain’t Dead Yet” based on a bumper sticker. His ending piece was a eulogy to the owner of a noodle shop “Sam Ryan is in Noodle Heaven.” Unfortunately he rarely varied his reading style, so it was like the same tune with different words, the tune was shouting with his voice falling at the end of lines, like a parody of the oft-noted style of academic poets.

Thom Francis brought us back to the open mic with a poem to his mother “I Want to Go Home,” then another about growing up working class “Tar Walls.” Shane’s quiet reading was a relief after Dorsey’s shouts, read a piece titled “Waiting & Wasting” (or was it the first line?), some automatic writing on the nature of his feelings, & some observations about being in Holland. James Duncan read what he called “2 road poems” one for the next poet on the open mic list “A Man of Himself,” then the meditative “The Grass & Dandelions & Me.”

P. Lester Allen was the poet Duncan was referring to, read his poem to poets, “I’d Follow James Wright into Battle.” Unbelievable as it may seem, this was the first time Don Levy has come to this open mic since it began a year ago; he read a characteristic piece combining pop culture & social commentary titled “I Heard the Black Mermaid Singing.” I had given Don a ride to The Low Beat tonight & began by reading my day’s Love Horoscope which said “… your date this evening defies all your expectations, & is decidedly unique, original, & completely different from anything you had expected,” which sounds like Don, then for the poets here tonight I read my poem “Trailer Park.”

Tanya is only in town briefly but found her way here & read 2 touching poems about her daughter’s struggle with mental disorders, “The Cost of Pride” & “Being a Hero is Genetic I Inherited It from My Daughter.” Brett Petersen read an intricate piece of automatic writing perhaps titled “Truth Boneless in Misery’s Corner Store.” I missed the title of Matt Galletta’s first poem, but his second was titled “Must be Nice” & was about a man on a plane seeing a cross in the sky. Michael Lawrence read from his phone “a quick monologue” about nasty relations with a woman. & that was that.

Quite a cap to the year & a great way to start the next. Getting Down to Brass Tacks happens each 1st & 3rd Tuesday of the month, at 7:30PM at The Low Beat, 335 Central Ave., Albany, NY, always an open mic, sometimes features, always poetry (& whatever else happens).