Gloucester Writers Center Open Mic, July 6

Gloucester, as many of you know, is my 2nd favorite place in the world to be, & I haven’t been back there since the beginning of February. The Gloucester Writers Center has a regular open mic on the first Monday of each month, which I have attended a few times over the years. Like many venues, they have gone to an online meeting on Zoom so I decided to tune in this month. It turned out to be a guys’ night out. Roger Davis served as the GWC host, & the other attendee was Robert Guttman, & they wondered what this guy from Albany was doing there. We had great fun.

We began just gabbing, getting to know each other, me explaining my long-time connection to Gloucester. Roger is a former middle-school teacher of math & science (but he had been an English major in college) & returned to poetry after retiring from teaching. Bob is a polo/horse enthusiast & boat-builder. Both have are involved in the Gloucester writing community centered around the Gloucester Writers Center.

I shared my poems from my late January visit/writing retreat on Wonson Cove in East Gloucester, “Hanging Over the Edge,” Helicopters of Peace,” & the magical experience of “6 of Cups.”

I was in a writing workshop with Roger Davis at the Dogtown Writers Festival in September, & have heard him read at a GWC open mic in the past. He is partial to rhyme, said his poems happen that way. The poems he read had the common theme of water, a deep metaphor, he said. When he read “Beyond the Tide” he was able to put the text on the screen, which I found more distracting than just hearing it, the poem “Hints” was a meditation on water in the sea & in the sky inspired by a walk with his wife, while his last piece, “Scintillations”, was a free verse meditation on the light on the water & the presence of God.

I’ve also seen Bob Guttman at past GWC open mics. He is a raconteur with plenty of stories that Roger encouraged him to write down to preserve the history. The piece that he read had strong elements of storytelling, what he said was his “signature piece,” titled “Ode to Mom” written for the dedication of his mother’s tombstone, she had been a code-breaker in World War II, the piece incorporating her phrases of advice from her long life.

I was about to say “if you are in Gloucester on the first Monday of the month…” but for the foreseeable future you can find this open mic through the Gloucester Writers Center website — if if you like what they do — I do — send them a donation.