Poetic Vibe, November 11

This vibrant series happens every Monday, which just happened to fall on Veterans’ Day/Armistice Day, & I was pleased to be invited to be the featured poet on a day that has such meaning for me. But before that there was the open mic, & before that our host, D. Colin, started us off with an old poem she recently found in an old notebook, an anaphoric list (“His love is like …”) filled with rich images of missing her love. When we started there were only 3 readers signed up for the open mic, but the list was quickly added to for an eclectic night of poetry & song.

Harvey Havel read first, an excerpt from his independently published novella The Wild Gypsy of Arbor Hill, about the central character’s encounter with frat boys. L-Majesty used his empath powers to invoke his friends in “Friendsgiving,” then a poem about yearning “Instructions on Becoming Your Own Haunted House.” I had a hard time hearing the titles of Allie’s poems, but enjoyed them none-the-less, one about love & sex, the other mixing insomnia with angst & disillusion. Elizag memorialized the shooting at the AME church in Charlestown, explaining why she went to a family party instead of boycotting the 4th of July.

Jade began with a piece from the past from being at a Nitty Gritty Slam at The Low Beat, then a performance/re-enactment of being at a Citizens Action rally. John’s first poem was a description of a still life titled simply “The Painting Poem,” then one titled “An Inauspicious Day” about taking a sobriety test while on LSD. Jeannine read poems neatly written in a large notebook, 2 pieces about relationships gone bad, “It Wasn’t What I Wanted” about a trip to England gone bad, & “The Time Has Come” in which she looks forward.

Crystal read a post-coital poem titled “Unsigned Contract.” El said she had “new shit” written yesterday, about being in the basement at her job “A Fairy Tale for Those Who Believe in Monsters,” & one from a book of poems she had been reading. Hannah mumbled her way through the lyrics of a couple songs that she usually does with accompaniment, which may have helped.

D. Colin brought us back with a well-articulated reading of her poem “Soutien” (i.e., bra), a funny & tender memoir about breasts from her new book Said the Swing to the Hoop (Empress Bohemia Books, 2019) then on to the night’s “take-aways,” random words, phrases, lines from the readings by the open mic poets.

Then on to the night’s featured poet, me, Dan Wilcox. It being the holiday it was, I read a series of anti-war poems, beginning with the oldest of the pieces, “Richard Nixon Must Die,” then on to “A.J. Muste,” “John Lees,” “Buttons Not Bombs,” & “If Peace Broke Out Tomorrow.”

But the night wasn’t quite over. D. Colin brought up a last-minute addition to the list who free-styled with music background a piece he called “Human.” As she does at each Poetic Vibe open mic, our host had passed around a clipboard for the audience to compose a group poem, each participant writing one line based only on the previous writer’s line (cf. the Surrealist’s exercise, the exquisite corpse), & so at the end she read — what she could decipher — the collective voice of the audience, poets & audience alike. Someday a collection of these chance encounters on paper will make a fascinating anthology. I’m waiting anxiously.

So, if your Mondays are beret of poetry, find your way to The Troy Kitchen on Congress Street, Troy, NY, for Poetic Vibe — 7:00 PM sign-up, 7:30 start, always an open mic, often a featured poet. There is food & drinks available for purchase, & sometimes even books for sale by the poets.