Anything Goes All-Genre Open Mic, September 10

This is a re-branding of the former Poetry/Spoken Word open mic held on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at the Tap House in Bennington, VT (yes, Vermont — it’s only an hour away from my house in Albany, about as much time as it takes me to get to Kingston). The host is poet Charlie Rossiter. But tonight I was the guest host while Charlie was doing a reading out in the wilds of Western New York.

The event is held in the backroom of the Tap House, with round tables & metal chairs dragged in from outside, but this night the room was nearly filled with pallets of boxes of promotional material, and the loud sound of an exhaust fan in an attempt to vent the strong smell of solvent. Fortunately the mythical “Tour Bus” never arrived so there was only a bare handful of folks on the sign up list in the little space left to us. One fellow with a guitar case had arrived earlier but apparently the accommodations were not to his liking & he left.

First up was a poet, Bridget Elder, who read a piece inspired by a New York Times obit, but richly imagined in a series of vignettes “Adios to the Professor.”

As the event is titled “All genre” our next person on the list was a stand-up comic (makes me wonder: if the comedian is in a wheelchair are they still a “stand-up comic”?) who was here for the first time, Walt Klinger, whose routine took us from standing in line at the bank, to the doctor’s office, to the ER. I went next with a poem “The Day God Invented Wine.”

Laura Ellzey, who is a regular here & has a fine singing voice, said she had recently found the sheet music for a song she had sung in high school & so sang for us Randall Thompson’s setting of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” Kenn, another regular, brought his pocket trumpet to play, & sing, a blues piece that drew in a couple of folks from the bar.

Laura had also brought a poem & suggested we could go around again, but she was the only taker, reading an engaging piece titled “Transparent Girl Displaced,” inspired by Jacqueline Woodson’s novel Brown Girl Dreaming.

The Tap House is at 309 County St., Bennington, VT (across from Bennington Pottery); the signup for the open mic on the 2nd Tuesday of the month is at 7:00PM, with a 7:15 start, 2 songs or 5 minute time limit, all acoustic, no amplification, “Anything Goes” -- & so it did!