Poets in the Park — 30th Anniversary Edition, July 27

The season finale of Poets in the Park 2019 was a reading by 2 more outstanding poets, Christian Ortega & Dianne Sefcik. The weather this evening was beautiful once again with an attentive audience of local poets & lovers of poetry.

Christian Ortega is the publisher of Recto y Verso Editions & recently opened his own store in downtown Albany. He shared excerpts from his new book (on his Tablet) Rants for Social Media, collecting all of his writings from social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even his emails, like a contemporary biography, from 7/31/2013 at 2:16PM, to 5/312019 9:55PM. The entries ranged from Lady Gaga specials, online shirts, fashion, wondering about his own connection to trends — like notebook jottings on a daily planner, as if he were still using a pen, short, cranky, social commentary, with the occasional snarky, sexy, gay comments. Of course he could not avoid political rants considering the time-frame he was dealing in. As expected the entries were short, even included #tags & the occasional (or serial) “LOL” even in the tone of his voice, cynical, clever, (as I already said) snarky. I can’t see this as a print publication, it needs to be read online.

I’ve enjoyed the poetry of Dianne Sefcik at open mics & from her self-produced chapbook Red Ochre, from which she read a selection of poems. But more so she included commentary on Native history & culture. She began by acknowledging the land on which we were gathered tonight, land that was of the Mohican people & where the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace was agreed upon. From that, the Europeans devised The Albany Plan of Union which in turn was incorporated into the US Constitution. She said she doesn’t know much about her own ancestry, but acknowledged “all my relations” as all living thing. The poems she read were the title poem of her book, “Red Ochre” the ancient pigment, then “Vision Quest” for Crazy Horse, a documentary, then a poem “The Treaty of Ruby Valley.” One of my favorite poems of Dianne’s is “Pipe,” an historical sweep taking us right up to the time of Trump. The poems “Hovenweep” (the national monument SE Utah) & “Tsagaglala” (Columbia Hills State Park in Washington State) were about Native sites she has visited. She concluded with a poem not in the book, “Anasazi Valley“ showing us she has plenty more material in the same vein.

It was a most successful season of Poets in the Park, 6 fabulous poets, beautiful weather that left us outside, & supportive & attentive audiences, continuing on for the next 30 years!