2nd Wednesday Open Mic, January 13, 2021

GPS said “traffic is light” to Schenectady, as it has been for months, but no reason to drive, just Zoom in. Host Jackie Craven welcomed each of us as we showed up, regulars with one new face/voice from Westchester Co. (what would her GPS say?). Jackie recorded us but some opted out -- not me, of course.

I ended up reading first & did selections from Inauguration Raga (A.P.D. 2017), poems I wrote watching the last inauguration in "fear & loathing."

Susan Jewell eventually was able to share the screen with an image from the November Rattle magazine ekphrastic challenge, a photo which looked like whooping cranes or perhaps sandhill cranes, her poem “The Body is Never at Rest” describing the picture.

Alan Catlin also had an ekphrastic piece describing a Cornell-like box a poem titled “Model Ship #19,” then “Florida Death Trip #46” which he described as “a super-spreader party, the wasteland” & “Memory 238” set in 1596 in which he refers to a “catlin”/“catling,” which was a very sharp surgical knife used for amputations at that time.

Scott Morehouse read a very short story, “Home Entertainment,” about brothers Jack & Ralph living in a Church, characteristically quirky & clever.

Sarah Chaviano was the visitor from Westchester Co., not only her 1st time here but also her 1st on Zoom, she read a couple of childhood memoirs, “5 & Dime” about walking to Woolworth’s with her sister, & “Snowball” throwing cat poop in a snowball fight. 

Jackie Craven described her piece “What Aliens Fear” as “silly science fiction poems that have nothing to do with our current political situation” — hmm…

If you are interested in joining this monthly open mic you can get the Zoom link on the Facebook page Writers Mic