Poetic Vibe, September 9

Inspite of the fact that this poetry open mic series takes place each & every Monday, I don’t get here as often as you might expect. I am awed by D. Colin’s tenacity & energy to put this together week after week, creating a venue unique not only in this busy poetry region, but in most places I’ve come across. But here I was this night.

Host D. Colin got us started with a poem she wrote last week for Edson Thevenin (the Troy man shot & killed by police in 2016) with the phrase “the trees stand…” contrasted with the stark silhouettes of black bodies shot.

Taking us is a different direction Alysha Kennedy gave us a performance to recorded music of Praise Dancing. Which I had to follow & read from “What Makes America Great” #33, then the shorter, sillier “To the Consternation…” of the MFA student. Cierra Bailey brought us some humor with an upbeat anaphoric poem “Being a Poet…”  John Gilroy read a love poem oddly titled “Clown School,” then a piece like an argument “Ain’t Shit.” I shuddered with dread when Joshua RA Dundee took the stage — rightly so: he threw himself across the stage with a shouting rant, &, as expected, took off his shirt & put on sunglasses to proclaim from his book. The performer who signed up as “The Poetic Barber” did a couple of rap pieces, the first a come-on to make love, then from his phone a similar piece to “tighten up.”  

John’s 2 pieces were literary references, the first about “us” & “you” & Borges’ Tower of Babel, then “The Wall” referencing Friedrich Nietzsche.  Poetik began with a list of “my love is like…,” then the amusing “Lesson from Riding with My Parents,” & “Street Affirmations.” Khadafy said he was doing “old shit,” hip hop rhymes with plenty of drug references, & a love/breakup poem to a “Spanish chick.” Truth had been to D. Colin’s workshop & read a piece written to the prompt “what is your body telling you.” & D. Colin herself ended the open mic portion with she calls her “take-aways,” a cento of lines she picked up from tonight’s open mic poets.

Tonight’s featured poet, Laura Evelyn, had been part of the Cap City Slam Showcase back in August at the Savoy Taproom.  She began with a tender piece she did then about her Spanish-speaking immigrant grandmother, then a social justice piece from growing up in New Jersey, & a poem about visiting a family member dying of cancer. Some of her pieces had titles, such as “A Prayer” & “Abstract” (a richly imagined love poem about the chemicals in our body brought out by love), but many did not (or she did not say the title), such as her last piece, written today, about family gossip. Good poems without a lot of posing.

During the reading D. Colin passes around a clipboard & asks the audience members, performers or not, to write a line, using the “exquisite corpse” method of folding the sheet so that each person sees only the line written immediately before them. At the end she reads (when she can decipher the handwriting) the resulting group poem. By now she must have quite a collection of them.

Poetic Vibe is on each & every Monday at the Troy Kitchen, Congress St., Troy, NY, 7:30PM, an open mic & most times a featured poet, which your generous contributions help to support.