2nd Sunday @ 2 — Poetry + Prose, April 11

Almost warm enough to bring the poetry outside, but then it is April, the month of showers. Our host Nancy Klepsch was in Troy but the rest of us were elsewhere, a good turnout of 10 listeners/readers.

I began the open mic with reading a poem by the recently gone Laura Boss titled “My Lover is Typing” tender & funny, from her book Reports from the Front (Cross-Cultural Communications, 1995).

Kendall Hoeft was here from far, far away & read 2 poems of her own, “The Star,” an ekphrastic piece after Edgar Degas’ painting of a dancer, “L’Etoile,” then one titled “Liberation Song,” both poems filled with the rich details of a poet’s eye.

Joel Best also read 2 poems, “Malconto” which he described as “just the thoughts clanging around in my head” which could also accurately describe his 2nd poem “The King Particles.”

Bob Sharkey read a poem written while digging a hole in his yard “Dig It Some No Place” (which is a quote from Bernadette Mayer) descriptive of his property, the birds there, what he finds in the dirt, etc., a rambling, poetic description.

I was so pleased to see Joe Krausman “here” today, I guess he finally figured out Zoom, he read 2 poems also, “Therapeutic Touch” about an old couple’s intimate moment, & “Gratitude” a funny rhyme about his being given life by his parents; I was glad to hear these "old chestnuts" again.

Julie Lomoe said she was reading prose “for a change” a piece titled “Spring Awakening” a long ramble about the details of her life, & crying over a sick cat.

Cheryl Rice read what she called “2 new ones,” “Salmon Run” imagining herself as the fish, & “Imagine Your House is On Fire” inspired by an anthology of poems using that prompt, about what she would you take with her.

Nancy Klepsch asked, “does this poem make sense” about her first, meditative piece, which I took as a love poem, then one she read last month, “Home is the Place that Flies” mushrooms, & her place, & good to hear this piece again.

Sydney Allen read poems written by her father, “Mid-Western Memories” about family members & details of the family, in Ohio in a neighborhood wiped out by I-71, then “Uncut Seasons” about hearing children play & recalling memories of Ohio.

Kathleen Gillespie read from what she wrote at a fiction writers workshop, a persona piece about heading out on the open road “’Tis the Season.”

& that was that for this month. You can find the Zoom link & other information about this monthly open mic on the Facebook group page 2nd Sunday @ 2 — please join us, from wherever you are.