2nd Wednesday Open Mic, October 14

Schenectady was the former site of this open mic, but now, with online platforms such as Zoom, it can be anywhere they (or you) want it to be. Jackie Craven maintained order as the host, perhaps from Schenectady, or some other place with a strange name.

Alan Catlin read the title poem from a new chapbook manuscript "Roadside Attraction," but then was interrupted by a  big internet “hiccup;” he came back later to read a couple of high school related poems, one about getting a C+ in Chemistry “The Chemical Composition of Caffeine,” then from a school dream about missing the bus “The Symbol for Pi.”

David Graham read his “one & only pandemic poem,” he said, about a place he misses, the Whitmanesque “Ode to my Public Library,” then on to a tender one about his late mother with dementia “She Says Please.”

Daniel Sennis read recently written poems, “Catchers on the Fly” about a balloon stuck in a tree & his success as a Dad, then a fable, “Captain Democracy,” about organizing the vote.

The first piece Susan Kress read was an older published poem “Relapse” her hair like leaves, then read yesterday’s poem, “Yom Kippur,” a memory of her mother’s honey bread.

I read a couple poems from my growing collection of imitations of Chinese poems, “Peeing in the Yellow River,” one about the thousands of lost poems by Du Fu, another a commentary on poets writing bad imitations of Chinese poems.

Scott Morehouse entertained us with a charming school memory/fantasy as a 7 year old about counseling Marilyn Monroe titled “Stopping Talking to Marilyn.”   

Mary Ann (from the Saratoga Springs Public Library) read a descriptive ekphrastic poem “The Uncovering” & shared a photo of the photo of an Ellis Island quarantine facility about which the poem was written.

Bob Sharkey talked about Bernadette Mayer’s recently re-published work Memory written in July 1971 in which for one month she shot a roll of 35mm film each day & kept a journal, then read his own memory, “July 1971,”  describing his life, his friends, as he worked doing alternative service in Albany Medical Center.

Susan Carol Jewell read her latest rejection in the Rattle ekphrastic challenge for August, “Cracks,” & shows the picture, her poem modeled on a poem by Faith Sharon was not descriptive, it was more ruminative, playing on different kinds of cracks, as was her 2nd piece “My Grandmother’s Cleavage.”

This was the first time I recall seeing Harvey Havel in for one of these online readings since the shut-down, he too shared his screen of his next book of very short fiction The Odd and the Strange, & read one of the pieces, the story “Wife.”

Our host, Jackie Craven, read an older poem to a friend (from 1962) “Postcards I Wish I’d Sent to Elizabeth Before She Went Away…”

You can find about & sign up for the next 2nd Wednesday open mic from their Facebook site, WritersMic.