2nd Wednesday, September 9

Jackie Craven has kept this open mic alive since the closing of Arthur’s Market & now since the closing of everything. & since we all are creatures of habit, many of the poets showing up “here” on Zoom are the same ones who used to show up at C.R.E.A.T.E. space on State St. in Schenectady, only now we don’t have to drive, or take the bus, or even wear pants.

First on the sign-up list was Alan Catlin with 3 short poems from the recently published The Blue Hotel (Cyberwit.net), the first from the book’s section "Mahler in New York," a grim Summer night, then from the section "Crane Dreams" the noir-ish title poem “The Blue Hotel,” & the last poem in book “Wallace Stevens in Albany” — I think you can find the book on Amazon.

David Graham said he had 2 poems to read, one old, one new, the old one “Self Portrait as Lucky Man” liking the way he looked, then a “Swirl” of images of good signs.

I also had an old poem, “Support the Bottom,” a social justice theme, then a new piece “Words in the Time of COVID-19: Saxophone” which had started out as a comment on a Blog post by Carolee Bennett.

One can expect some laughter when Scott Morehouse reads & tonight it took the form of hysterical free association & word play in a memoir piece titled “Disassembling September.”  

Bob Sharkey’s first poem, “Our Neighbors Return,” was a fable of a herd of elephants walking around his neighborhood leaving piles of dung, then, staying in the silly mood, a piece he read last night “Fortunes for Tim’s Zoom Reading” in his continuing series of poems built on re-writes of fortunes from Chinese cookies.

Susan Jewell read her latest rejection in the ongoing Rattle ekphrastic contest & was able to put up images of the paintings the was writing about, the first of 2 circles, her poem descriptive of the holes staying together; her 2nd poem received an honorable mention from Iron Horse Literary Magazine, the image of a woman looking into a clothes washer seeing a boat on the water, the poem titled  “Odysseus Arrives from the Land of the Phoenicians.”

Susan Kress said her 2-part poem, “Groundhog & Groundhog Redux,” was about watching the “wild beasts,” the first part pondering what it is doing, then the 2nd part on the act of writing about it.

Our host Jackie Craven didn’t read tonight, said her poems are so dark & she was having too much fun so she decided to skip reading, but we hope to hear some of her fine poetry at future 2nd Tuesdays.

This reading continues on the 2nd Wednesday of each month, currently on Zoom. You can find out more by checking in to the Facebook page Writer’s Mic