St. Rocco’s Reading Series, February 29

Not at the laundromat on Lark St., but at Urban Aftermath on the low end of Hamilton St., whose owner Hassan welcomed us, jammed into the tiny performance area (which is a good thing for a poetry reading, not rock concert). Then Douglas Rothschild gave an elliptical ramble about his style of doing introductions, of which there was little evidence (more on that later). He did introduce Alan Casline, a long-time host of poetry events himself.

Alan Casline began with a selection of poems from Grandfather Carp (bRAINdROP bOOKbENDERS, 2009) referencing the myth & folklore of carp & dragons. Then on to poems from Summergreen (FootHills Publishing, 2019), including “Dark Moon Corn” which is dated February 29, 2012, & others. A new poem “from this year” was “Record Your Thoughts While Digging a Hole,” while “Pile On” was from a Bernadette Mayer workshop (there is a whole genre of poems that are introduced as “this is from a Bernadette Mayer workshop”). Alan said he had worked for many years as a counselor in Hudson & read a couple poems from that experience, “3 Lines for Charlie” & “Ghost Dance on Warren St.” Then one titled “Poem as Confessional” & ended with “I Dreamed Last Night of the Circling of Stars.”

The next reader was Sarah Noor Steadman, but you wouldn’t have known that if you were there; I had to look up the event later on Facebook to find out her name.* It was fascinating to watch her turn through orange & white pages of her poems, beginning with a ramble titled “Burl,” then “Absolute Authority,” poems composed by piling up images, perhaps randomly selected, or not, as in “Wifey” which begins with a mention of a prom, then on to making communion hosts, dandelion wine, & mentioning peacocks & a penis. She also had a “pile poem” from Bernadette’s workshop, hers titled “Pile Mine.” The best use of her technique was in the poem titled "International Business Machine," about a trip to Endicott, NY to visit the site of the former IBM Headquarters.

Philip Good was the last of the 3 readers who brought a pile of books with him, who did get a proper introduction (I guess 2 out of 3 ain't bad). He began with a piece from Untitled Writings from a Member of the Blank Generation (Trembling Pillow Press, 2011). A more recent publication is Poets In A Box or Pluto in Motion (Reality Beach Press, 2018) which was inspired by a box of broadsides put together as a fundraiser for Bernadette Mayer after she had her stroke, each poem made up of 2 - 13 line stanzas, the first about Bernadette’s life & work, the second stanza about the individual broadside. Philip read the poems relating to the broadsides by Kenward Elmslie, Barbara Guest, Lyn Hejinian, Anne Waldman, & Rod Padgett. Then on to selections from a new, long poem “Slow Capture” thinking about how a camera captures an image, then a piece titled “The Speed of Sound.” On to “A New Way of Looking At Coffee” from his limited edition chapbook Coffee Poems. &, of course, Philip also had a poem from a Bernadette Mayer workshop, his was titled “Garbage.”

Notes on the reading by Misty Lemay

A fine evening of fine poetry. But, unlike other readings in town, here, as in academic settings, there is no clapping between poems, only when the poet is finished reading at the end; I had to keep checking myself to not let out an instinctual clap, like suppressing a fart.

St. Rocco’s Reading for the Dispossessed seems to have found a home here at Urban Aftermath, 295 Hamilton St., Albany, NY — find out when, what time next from their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/stroccoalbany/


* [Whether by her design, or the host’s ineptitude, after Alan read, Sarah got up to the stage without the host even mentioning her name. If by her design she didn’t then introduce herself either. As for the host, I find it incredibly rude & demeaning to not introduce the reader so that we, the audience, at least knows the featured reader’s name — their full name, not just “& here’s Sarah” as I’ve also experienced in the past.]