Two in One Day, October 24

As I mentioned in a recent Blog, we are fortunate to have many of poetry events occurring each week in this area, & on this day there were 2 events on the same day, one at the University at Albany sponsored by New York State Writers Institute, another later that evening at Russell Sage College in Troy. Actually at the Writers Institute there were 2 appearances by poet Sharon Olds, one in the afternoon, another scheduled in the evening (Poet Ocean Vuong was originally scheduled to be with Sharon Olds but had to cancel at the last minute). I decided that if I went to the afternoon conversation with Ms. Olds, I could get to the Rev Reading later at Russell Sage with poets Amanda Deutch & Lori Anderson Moseman, a good plan as it turned out.

Sharon Olds
Billed as a Craft Talk, the afternoon event started as they often do in such settings with a series of introductions: NYS Writers Institute Director Paul Grondahl introduced Edward Schwazschild, Associate Professor of Fiction Writing, American Literature & Film Studies, who read an essay on the work of Sharon Olds by way of introducing the poet, who, in turn, introduced, with characteristic good humor, her intentional tremor. And then went on to bring Ocean Vuong into the conversation by talking about him as one of her former students & reading his poem “Threshold” from his award-winning book Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Copper Canyon Press, 2016).

To start the conversation, Edward Schwazschild asked Sharon Olds about her technique in her writing workshops at NYU. She replied that she likes to start the first couple of sessions with the writers reading their poems to the group, without providing copies & without soliciting comments from the other participants, she said she likes to hear the sounds of the poems, that sound is what drew her to poetry originally, perhaps from the sounds she heard before she was born, that she was “born to appreciate poetry.”

In response to audience questions she talked about the rhythm of walking, our musical nature & that “it is built into us to make art.” Asked if she has a place to go to feel inspired, she said that she pays attention to the odd thoughts in her head, that she usually writes a poem in one sitting, that the first draft is as finished as it can be, & that a poem is finished “if it lets me go.”

Although she has a new book out, Aria, about which she spoke briefly, she didn’t read any of her own poems. But she did talk about the value of memorizing poems — again, about hearing poetry — & in conclusion recited the Langston Hughes poem “Luck.” And it occurred to me that her workshop method of just hearing the poems, without comment or critique, is what happens every week of the month at the area open mics: we read our one or two or three poems, then sit down & listen to the next poet on the sign-up sheet.

The REV

& that’s pretty much what it was like later in the evening over at Russell Sage College in Troy. The REV is a reading series coordinated by Matthew Klane each semester, with readings by local & visiting writers, & open mics for students. Tonight’s reading included Amanda Deutch & Lori Anderson Moseman. Matthew also introduced book artist Karen Pava Randall of Propolis Press who introduced the readers.

Lori Anderson Moseman, Amanda Deutch, Karen Randall

Amanda Deutch began with excerpts from her chapbook Surf Avenue & 29th Street Coney Island (2018), a memoir of her family & other Coney Island characters, with the stunning letterpress cover printed by Karen Randall. Then from a work-in-progress titled “In the Shadow of the Half Moon Hotel” which centers on the defenestration of a mob informant, Abe Reles, in 1941. From her phone she read a new poem “Bodega Night Pigeon Riot,” written on the subway, & like the other pieces it was composed of strings of visually descriptive fragments. She ended up with a section from another new series “Live Human Target.”

I’ve been following the work of Lori Anderson Moseman since the early 1990s when she was a student at SUNY Albany, & her first chapbook Walking the Dead (Heaven Bone Press, 1991) (my copy still bears her fingerprint made with red wine). She began with a discussion & show-&-tell of her 2015 Propolis Press collaboration with Karen Randall, Full Quiver, a work that pairs poems with examples of Bronze Age Luwian hieroglyphics & modern QR codes. She read poems from her experience out West, then on to excerpts from the book-length poem Y (the operations system, 2019), in which Y is actually the name of a central character. She concluded with a piece titled “Wishbones as Grave Stones,” with a character named “Chipper” written in response to Matthew Klane’s comment on the grim nature of the characters in her poems.

The REV is co-sponsored with the department of Arts & Letters, and The Sage Colleges Libraries, and supported by the Carol Ann Donahue Poetry Fund, at Russell Sage College in Troy. You can find them on Facebook.

Third Thursday Poetry Night, October 17

As the Irish would say, it was fine night for poetry, with Kathleen McCoy the featured poet & the fine community poets listed on the sign-up sheet. The Muse tonight was Ursula LeGuin (1929 - 2018) who is best know for her prose, particularly her speculative fiction, but she also wrote poetry; I read a poem written in 1991, “When the Soviet Union Was Disintegrating” which can be found here, with a recording of the poet reading.

First up for the open mic was D. Alexander Holiday with a performance of the dialogue “Booker T. and W.E.B.” by the American poet Dudley Randall, a debate between Booker T. Washington & W.E.B. DuBois, which he dedicated to the memory of member of Congress the late Elijah Cummings. Tom Bonville’s poem was a grim description titled “Lost Faith,” the homeless & lost camped out now outside the church. Joe Krausman read about the limitations of this but not that, “Limits.”

Tonight’s featured poet Kathleen McCoy read mostly from her new book Ringing the Changes (Finishing Line Press), but started with a couple from her first book Green and Burning (WordTech Editions, 2016), “Two Spirit-Woman,” in memory of the poet Adrienne Rich, & “To Be.” Then from Ringing the Changes, one of my favorites, “In dreams’ liminal land” (a haunting by a gone friend). Many of her poems in the book are based on Bible stories, such as “Nicodemus,” then one for her cousin “Elegy for a St. Louis Lineman,” & the title poem, a poem of bells, & ended with “praying in the dark.”

After a short break we returned to the open mic & I read a poem from a writing workshop at the Kateri Peace Conference in Fonda in August “The Meadow.” Don Levy said he has been writing a lot lately & read about a recent outing, “At a Church Fair.” Anthony Bernini read a richly descriptive poem titled (& about) “Turtle Eggs.” The final poet for the night was Kristen Day, making a rare appearance to read a list poem “Everyday” (the common phrases we hear, & use).

As happened this night, there is an open mic with a featured poet at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY on the third Thursday of the month, starting at 7:30PM — your donation supports poetry events in the community & the work of the Social Justice Center. Please join us.

Anne Waldman, October 16

at Bennington College. Anne Waldman is an alumna of Bennington College & was here for a few days of classes, talks & this reading in the echoing space of Tishman Lecture Hall. She was introduced by Michael Dumanis, Director of Poetry @ Bennington & editor of the Bennington Review. Her reading was primarily from Trickster Feminism (Penguin Poets, 2018), with other work added for spice.

Anne Waldman’s readings/performances are always a mix of sounds (even without musical accompaniment) of words torn apart & put back together, chants, invocations, history, mythology & a righteous pissed-off attitude towards injustice, greed & violence. My way into her work is to let it wash over me, which Charlie Rossiter described as a poetry word-bath, & make the connections I can, but try not to “figure it out.” It is always a trip.

She began with the opening page of quotes from sources including an Okanagan creation story, & Hank Williams “Howlin’ at the Moon.” “denouement” is built on a series of prose poems celebrating women & resistance (which might be said of the entire book), & “clytemnestra’s body polis ticks” she described as a result from sitting in front of the news too long. Playing with other texts (“mash butler”) & the sounds of the names of poets in “entanglement” is what she does, as well as ranting against the age-old power structure with curses to take it down (“patriarchus”).

On to other texts, some in manuscript still, she read a poem for the late John Ashbery, another which was a series of questions like notebook entries for a string of projects for citizen poets was inspired by the archival work of Ammiel Alcalay, then a section from her book-length eco-poem Mantee/Humanity (Penguin Poets, 2009). She ended with a chant for the Tibetan Bohdisattva Chenresi “The Anthropocene Blues,” which can be found at the poets.org website.

Bennington College has a regular program of visiting poets but few are as engaged & dynamic/dramatic as Anne Waldman.

(Getting Down to) Brass Tacks, October 15

Back to The Low Beat for Brass Tacks open mic, tonight with a guest host, Albany rocker, Nick Bisanz, who must’ve given the Tour Bus the wrong directions because it never showed up, but 4 of us signed up & read. & we also had a guest bartender, Marisa in for the night for our usual Kim.

I started off with my rant “The Grim Reaper,” then a bit of fantasy inspired by a friend’s selfie on Facebook, in her blue bedroom, “Lily White.”

 
John was new here & recited from memory a new piece “Walking Outdoors 1: the Lobster Poem” apparently part of a series with evocative Surrealistic images, then a poem beginning “Wait, Panic …” speaking to a personified “Panic.”

Reed did his usual bit which is talking about movies he has seen & obsessed over, starting off by saying how much he liked the new Joker movie, then on to a rambling summary of Toy Story #1, #2, #3 & #4, actually reciting lines from his “favorite parts.”

Our guest host, Nick, brought it to an end with a piece about a film he saw last night, Spiral, a 1978 Polish thriller. The we spiraled on into the night.

Getting Down to Brass Tacks is an open mic, with a sometimes featured poet, held on the first & third Tuesday of each month at The Low Beat, 335 Central Ave., Albany, NY, 7:30PM, more details at albanypoets.com

Readings like a String of Beads, October 10 - 13

Among the 17 reasons I love living here is the number, variety, diversity of poetry events within a short distance of my house. Last weekend was great example.

Thursday, October 10

Actually, “the weekend” began Thursday evening with a Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Africana Studies Department at UAbany with a lecture/reading co-sponsored by the NYS Writers Institute by the poet, “activist, mother, professor, firebrand, healer & sage” Nikki Giovanni. She was presented to the standing-room-only audience in the huge Campus Center Ballroom by the eloquent Dr. Leonard Slade.

Nikki Giovanni’s remarks dealt with her life & relationships, with learning, with race, I expect drawn from her latest book, A Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and Laughter, a wide-ranging memoir about aging, about violence in her life & that of her parents, & people who have helped her & gave her life meaning, including her students. I got lost in the relaxed flow of her story-telling, & only wrote down one quote, about birth: “what goes in is a lot smaller than what comes out.”

She ended with some poems, “I Married My Mother,” “I Heard Maybelle,” & a poem beginning “Like a fading piece of cloth…” She had the audience of young & old, those scribbling notes for class, those listening & smiling, enraptured.

Friday, October 11

Jan Marin Tramontano had lived in Albany up to a few years ago when she & her husband moved to Florida. She attended open mics, was active with the Hudson Valley Writers Guild, & peer groups, while she worked as an editor, published 3 poetry chapbooks, & wrote novels. Her first novel was Standing on the Corner of Lost and Found (2011). Her latest novel is What Love Becomes (Adelaide Books, 2019) & this day she did a reading & book-signing at Albany’s independent bookstore, The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza.

I had heard Jan read from What Love Becomes back in May when the book first came out, & subsequently read it, but was glad to be at The Book House to see her again. She read the first chapter, as she had back in May, but I was glad to hear it again too as I hadn’t returned to it once I put the book down. One of the considerate things about the book is the short chapters — 90, spread out in 3 major sections over 400+ pages. It’s a love story, of sorts, about 2 couples, plus. Good writing, like good music, is always a pleasure to hear again, & again.

Saturday, October 12

 Some months ago folks from the Lansingburgh Historical Society asked Troy poet, artist & educator Nancy Klepsch for help in organizing an event to celebrate the 200th birthday of Herman Melville. She asked me to collaborate on the project & we came up with a call for entries & contest titled “Dear Herman.” We asked writers to submit short works on themes relating or responding to Melville’s writing & themes. We received a variety of work from a number of mostly local writers that were sent to me, then I passed them on to Nancy without the authors’ names for her to select the “winners.” We received a grant from the Hudson Valley Writers Guild & were able to award prize money to 4 writers. The winners were Tom Corrado, Susan Carroll Jewell, Mark W. O’Brien, & Dianne Sefcik.

On this date we gathered at the Melville House, now the home of the Lansingburgh Historical Society, for a reading by not only the winning 4 but also by other contestants who could make it. Each read their submitted work from the porch of the House to the audience seated on the lawn. The other readers were Thomas Bonville, Kathy Shongar, Ellen Rook, & the contest judge Nancy Klepsch.




 Sunday, October 13

 

The final bead on this string of readings was a reading & book-signing once again at The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza by Michele Battiste & Barbara Ungar. Michele’s new book is Waiting For The Wreck To Burn, winner of the 2018 Louise Bogan Award by Trio House Press. She grew up in this area & sharpened her nails at area open mics before moving on to elsewhere & publishing stunning poetry. She read exclusively from Waiting For The Wreck To Burn, explaining it is “a Book of Sorrows,” about loss of many kinds, centered around the fictional town of Ruination, a river & the town on the over side of the river.  A painful & moving book of poems, but not without touches of humor. (One caveat, the notes at the back of the book, which are helpful, have the incorrect page numbers.)

Barbara Ungar also has a new book Save Our Ships, but not quite out yet, from which she gave us a taste, but first read a few poems from Immortal Medusa (The Word Works, 2015). She described Save Our Ships (Ashland Poetry Press) as “an alphabet book” & the first piece she read was the letter V, based on a translation of a medieval Latin text, & had Sylvia Barnard read the Latin for her. The book will be out very soon, perhaps by the time some of you are reading this.

These events all happened in a radius of about 10 miles from my house, with most of them taking place about 3 miles away. What a rich & marvelous area to live in with so many poets so near.

Support your local poet.

Brass Tacks, October 1

which is short for “getting down to brass tacks,” & I was surprised to find a nearly full bar for what has been in recent months an intimate, shall I say, gathering of word-addicted regulars, some of us coming for the beer. There was a boudoir of (poetry) virgins, to coin a phrase, from a class at the College of St. Rose. Our host, as usual was el presidente of AlbanyPoets.com Thom Francis.

Avery, who word has it is not a (poetry) virgin, made a rare appearance here with “OM” one of his signature pressured-speech pieces, this on the nature of Reality (whatever the fuck that is). He was followed by another self-professed non (poetry) virgin, Jackie Kirkpatrick, who was responsible for bringing the students here; she described her informal writing group who had developed a genre of “Fuck You poems,” & read 2, “Fuck You 25” (on gaining weight), & “Fuck You Amber’s Fear” (on breathing).

Julie was the first of many (poetry) virgins with a poem about the refugees. Hannah’s poem “Aware” was about being aware of the people around you. Carly turned a letter from her father into a poem. Reed, a regular here did a free-flowing commentary on Disney movies he likes.

Erica read a breakup poem (the first of the many relationship poems) beginning “If words could speak…” Mariel’s poem was about his feelings. I didn’t know where to sign up so Thom put me in here, a happy place among (poetry) virgins, & I read a poem about long ago, “At McSorley’s” in which the poet Paul Blackburn makes an appearance, then “To the Consternation…” for the MFA grads in the room.

Olivia’s poem was about a relationship, continuing the theme by both young & old poets. Samson, who gets paid to deliver letters of another type than that of which poems are made, read a poem titled “National Forest” then a more urban piece about a man falling onto the subway tracks — & surviving. Laurel read another of the night’s relationship poems, this on the theme “I’m sick of you.”

Conner stayed on that relationship theme with a take on Bob Dylan “Positively Ontario Street.” Still another breakup poem was “Some Narcissistic Man” which was the name the poet signed up with. Vanessa’s poem “Ashley, McKenzie & Laura” was a complaint about, well, Ashley, McKenzie & Laura.

The final poet for the night was the aforementioned Amber (see above, Jackie’s poem), who read a couple of her “Fuck You” poems, including one of the Ur-poems of the series, “Fuck You Every Ex Including Kevin Peterson.”

Brass Tacks is an open mic — mostly — that takes place at The Low Beat, 335 Central Ave., Albany, NY, each 1st & 3rd Tuesday at 7:30PM — check out albanypoets.com for details.

Poets Speak Loud!, September 30

& they certainly do sometimes, especially our host, Mary Panza — & don’t walk in front of the stage!

Tom Bonville got us off to a good start with a tongue-in-cheek commentary, “In the City,” on the Albany chicken ordinance, & his proposal for one on foxes as well. Guy Reed came up from the mid-Hudson scene & read Wendell Berry’s poem “How to Be a Poet,” then one of his own, an eco-poem “In the Film they Called Drake’s Passage.” D. Alexander Holiday read other people’s poetry, Rudyard Kipling’s “If,” & Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving But Growing.”

Joe Krausman’s first was a NYC poem walking with his head down in canyons where you can’t see the Moon, then an ode to his neurologist. Sylvia Barnard read a cluster of Haiku, with 2 about Washington Park & others about Autumn. A new voice here, Shaina, read a tender, hopeful poem about spreading her father’s ashes.

I’ve been following the work of poet Rebecca Schumejda since since her 2008 collection Falling Forward (sunny outside), through a couple of chapbooks, her stunning Cadillac Men (NYQ Books, 2012), Waiting at the Dead End Diner (Bottom Dog Press, 2014), & Our One-Way Street (NYQ Books, 2017). She writes books of closely linked poems, creating a narrative that sneaks up on the reader. Tonight she read from her newest book Something Like Forgiveness (Stubborn Mule Press, 2019) which is a much more tightly weaved narrative. The story she tells, of her brother, & her own struggle to forgive, or to even to find out what is forgiveness, is built on the slow accumulation of details like a suspense novel. One is forced to read the book from cover to cover to its tender, heart-breaking end. Tonight, she read to us excerpts, snippets, making it irresistible to get the book. Enhancing the text are enigmatic, evocative illustrations by Hosho McCreesh. It was a moving, tender, & upsetting reading — & read.  (A program note: Rebecca Schumejda will be the featured poet at the Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center in Albany on December 19.)

On to the rest of the open mic, Cheryl A. Rice read from her collaboration Until the Words Came with Guy Reed from Post Traumatic Press the poem “Paul Newman at the Dodge,” then the title poem from her 2013 chapbook from A.P.D. (albany poems delight) Moses Parts the Tulips. Julie Lomoe put up her poster for her novels from the recent Albany Book Fair & talked about her favorite topics, her brain surgery & her Woodstock Music Festival paintings, before getting around to her apian-cide poem “Garden Yellow Jackets.”

Allie Doyle was another new voice here tonight & she read 2 related pieces about a person dying of cancer, filled with hallucinations & anguish. It being Rosh Hashanah I decided to read my poem “Taschlich” set in Gloucester, then another Gloucester-related poem “Spiritual Power” from my chapbook Gloucester Notes (FootHills Publishing, 2015).  The final poet & final new voice was Glenn Cassidy who read “Hip Hop Brothers in Love” (or, as he called it, an ode to the Guest Rapper), then from a series on teaching & teachers, a piece about his high school art teacher, “Mrs. VanStretter.”

It was another eclectic night in the back room of McGeary’s Irish Pub on Sheridan Square in Albany, NY where we gather most last Mondays of the month at 7:30 for Poets Speak Loud! — check AlbanyPoets.com for details.

Third Thursday Poetry Night, September 19

Still Summer weather for our Third Thursday Poetry Night & it, seems, the tour bus got lost. But our featured poet was here & a hard-core group of open mic poets. But first I invoked the Muse, tonight Nicanor Parra (1914 - 2018) & read excerpts from his poem “Letters from the Poet Who Sleeps in a Chair” that contains the memorable line “Fucking is a literary act.”

My black pen wrote green when Mark W. Ó Brien signed up second for the open mic (but since no one signed up for the #1 slot second became first); he read from his just-published chapbook of Haibun from FootHills Publishing My Childhood Appropriated “My #Dadfession” & the recently written “Old School” a conversation with his father about the math of ancestry.

D. Alexander Holiday read from the Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown (1901 - 1989) “Old Lem” & then Charles Bukowski’s raucous “Poetry Readings.” The lone woman poet on the list was Mary Ann Murray who started with the short “When things break…” then the un-characteristic long poem “Over the Line” about an open mic in Kingston.

Tom Bonville read about a former 6th grade student of his who wrote poetry on the back of bingo cards that were always something interesting about the people who played bingo. Joe Krausman took on a hip-hop style & turned his cap around then read his poem about “Apartment Hunting.” I put a cap on the open mic portion of the night with a recent poem “Prussian Blue.”

The featured poet, Brett Petersen, has read at various open mic venues in the area, & I have been intrigued by his rambling, intricate poems that harken back to the Surrealists’ automatic writing, his “500 Words from the Gospel of Brett Petersen” was a great, & outrageous, example. “Broken Glass Tastes to Me Like Ripples on a Pond” was a more of the same thing, but shorter. A little bit lighter, but in the same free-wheeling style, was “The Entity I Saw in the Woods at Sacandaga.” Others had titles such as “Shedding a Tear for Decoherence,” “Memories from a Lifetime Down the Beach” (childhood memories), & “Truth Boneless in Misery’s Corner Store,” all done in the same random word mix style like an adolescent John Ashbery mainlining espresso. Look for his new book coming out in January.

At some point in the night I realized that every reader in the open mic had been a feature at some point here for the Third Thursday Poetry Night.

Come join us each third Thursday at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY at 7:30PM — your generous donation helps pay the featured poet, supports other poetry events in the area, & the work of the Social Justice Center.

2nd Wednesday Open Mic, September 11

This Schenectady series has done well since relocating from Arthur’s Market to a store-front on State St. It has maintained its simple format (open mic & feature in an informal setting) & continues to draw the city’s community poets & others. Tonight’s featured poets were from 2 distant ends of our poetry geography, Judith Kerman from the mid-Hudson area, & Marilyn McCabe from the North Country. But first our host Jackie Craven got us started with a poem for the spirit of the day (note the date) by our current New York State Poet Alicia Ostriker “The Window at the Moment of Flame.”

Then on to the open mic list. Alan Catlin began by citing the work of poet Edward Dougherty & his book of 9/11 poems from Finishing Line Press 10048, then read read his own poems from that day, “Remembering Working in a Bar on 9/11,” “What’s Wrong” (a conversation with a waitress that day), then another from a month later. I followed — on theme — with my poem “Another Tuesday” linking the attack on the World Trade Center on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, with the murderous coup in Chile, orchestrated by the US Government, on Tuesday, September 11, 1973.

Susan Kress gave us a merciful break from that day with her childhood memoir of play-acting with a friend “Re-hearsing.” Susan Carroll Jewell returned to this date with another of her ekphrastic poems responding to the challenge in Rattle magazine “Flight 93,” then her 1st place poem in this year’s New York State Fair Competition “At Long Pond.” Scott Morehouse can be counted on to get us laughing, as he did this night, with 2 linked poems “Family Business Exhibit A” (playing off the local ad for a Kia dealer), then “Exhibit B” about his family of doctors.

Featured poet Marilyn McCabe said she had been thinking about democracy, about our country & about our fellow citizens & thus designed her reading around those themes. She began with “Polling Place” a nostalgic yearning for the old style ones, then on to “We the People,” both poems introducing her wry humor that alleviates the grim. “Pro Patria” was looking at the small things, the undersides, while “Deep River” was a quieter poem. “Lantern” injected some hope, an exercise in the great chain of being starting with an island being born, reminiscent of Native myths of the creation of the earth/Turtle Island. Her list of folks that annoy her was titled “Old Man Withered Chevrolet,” & she ended with another hopeful piece, “Fish Tank.”

Judith Kerman read from her books, beginning with 2 poems from Postcards from America (Post Traumatic Press, 2015) “Infrastructure” a 9/11 poem, & “Blight." From Aleph, broken: Poems from My Diaspora (Broadstone Books, 2016) her first attempt at a poem in Spanish “Canto Extraño,” “Cholent,” & “Star-nosed Mole” which she sang. In between she sang “Exile Song” using a bowl as chime. From a new manuscript of poems Gimp about disability she read “After a Failed Surgery,” “Call Button,” “Chair,” “Downfall” (an abecedarian), & Disabled. From a manuscript of definition poems she ended with “Elephant,” “Fix,” “Gimp,” “Handicap,” & “Legs,” & ended with another song, this about a deep-sea diver.

Back to the open mic, David Graham read 2 poems from his new book The Honey of Earth (Terrapin Books, 2019), “Homage to Sadie Bosheers” & “Most of the Time We Live Through the Night” which is a line from poet Robert Bly. Adel Fredenburg, who was new here, introduced herself by stating that she has been writing since her husband passed away 10 years ago, & read 3 poems, “Balancing Act,” “The Performer” & a romantic poem about sailing on the Sacandaga “Looking Back.”

Ginny Folger read a short & sweet work-in-progress “Perfect Recall.” Malcolm Willison has been writing about the house once owned by Elizabeth Bishop in Key West, read “Reprise” (which is number 19 in the series), & an old poem “The Presidential Palace at Eve.” Our host, Jackie Craven, ended the night with a poem her book Secret Formulas, one about past lives “The Psychic Says.”

Another pleasant night of poetry in Schenectady, where the poets gather each 2nd Wednesday of the month at 7:30PM at C.R.E.A.T.E. Community Studios, 137 State St., Schenectady — feature poets & an open mic — hosted by Jackie Craven.