Caffè Lena, November 4

I’ve reported on the recent poetry events at the historic Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY for a few months but truth-to-be-told you can find the videos of their events, both poetry & music, on the Caffè Lena YouTube channel. So even if you miss it on the first Wednesday of the month, you can enjoy it any time, any where.

Once again this night the lineup included 3 stellar regional poets, well-known to the local poetry community, sure to be be a good night of poetry & it was. The host was “Carolyn” but no last name offered; the founding host of this long-run poetry reading series & open mic is Carol Graser. Since the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic the reading has been held at the Caffè Lena stage without an audience & no open mic.

The first reader was poet & retired professor at Skidmore College Jay Rogoff, reading from Loving in Truth: New and Selected Poems, published in April by Louisiana State University Press. He read  poems from the previously published sections, as well as “new poems,” including the tender & charming “Penny Poems” for his wife.

I have read with Suzanne Rancourt & she has read in the Poets in the Park series in Albany. She is a veteran of the US Army & the Marines, & runs poetry workshops for veterans & others. She read from her 2019 book Murmurs at the Gate (2019) & from a new manuscript, of intense, often angry, & always engaging poems.

Mike Jurkovic has read throughout the Hudson Valley, organized readings with Calling All Poets, & written extensively on contemporary jazz & rock’n’roll. He has a much more energetic performance style than the other 2 readers, what might be described as “wise-ass hipster snarkiness.” He did a variety of poems, some I’ve heard before (& enjoy hearing again) & he included some pieces from his latest collaboration with Albany guitar-stroker Nick Bisanz, American Mental, not sure where you can get it, but will let you know when I find out.

[Note: I started this Blog back in January 2007 as an archive of the many poetry events occurring in the upstate New York region. Back then it was rare to record the readers, let alone videotape them, & few people even brought cameras & took photos. I envisioned the Blog as a way to preserve at least a part of what is a most-ephemeral of the arts.  Since this event is available in its entirety at Caffe Lena Youtube I've kept my remarks short & encourage anyone who is interested in an hour or so of poetry by these fine poets to click on the link.]