Calling All Poets!, May 7

I tried to join this event on Zoom a number of months ago & it was such a cluster fuck of Zoom idiots -- leaving their mic open, asking questions of the open mic host, talking to others in their home or apartment -- that I just left without waiting for the featured poets & the open mic. In the ensuing months things have gotten (marginally) better, but still some folks, no matter how old they are, or no matter what professional positions they have held in their lives just never learn. One of those characters was here again this night leaving his mic on, & walking around with his tablet without turning off the video.

But I was here to see & hear the 3 featured poets whose work I enjoy, Lucia Cherciu, Roberta Gould, & Cheryl Rice. The host for the featured poets was Mike Jurkovic; the open mic host was Jim Eve.

Lucia Cherciu is the 2021 Poet Laureate of Dutchess County. She began with a poem in Romanian dedicated to her Mother, then on to a couple poems in English from her book Edible Flowers (Main St. Rag, 2015), “Savings” (for her father), & “In This World Maybe for Your Soul.” Then poems from Train Ride to Bucharest (Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), “Linden Tree,” “Love Song to Masks,” & “Blue Wrapping Paper.” I think I need to get one, or both of those books.

I have 4 or 5 of Roberta Gould’s books but have no idea which ones she read from. She sometimes mentioned that she was reading a poem from one of her books, such as a poem she said was “#10 of a series on Kandinsky,” but never mentioned the titles of the books they came from. Other poems seemed to be more recent but I can’t be sure, she tends to ramble. But I did like one about flies fucking (“Double”), & a persona poem titled “The Tyrant Dreams.” I think they record these readings & post the video on the CAPS website, so you don’t have to rely on me to create this memory.

Cheryl A. Rice was a lot easier to follow. After a couple of openers she read from her series of poems inspired by the Ziegfield Follies, poems that I’ve been enjoying hearing for years, poetic bits of history inspired by her own obsession, which is always the best kind. Then on to a couple poems from from a chapbook-in-progress titled “Tiger Butter” (based on the adolescent soft-porn trick with the Land o’ Lakes butter carton). But I think I like best her rebuttal to the ongoing mythical Beats “On the Road with Kuan-yin” & her new piece “Remember the Gold Fish Will Be Dead by Morning.” 

I’ve run a monthly poetry series for over 20 years, with an open mic with one rule: one poem. That’s not difficult to understand — one poem, & if it’s too long I cut them off. It can be one poem with a couple short parts, but no epics, no special dispensation for Haiku, keep it a page or 2 I tell them at the beginning. That’s my role has the host, the moderator, the MC, to set the rules & enforce them. I haven’t resorted to a timer with a loud alarm or a air-horn —not yet, anyway — as some have, but I’ve been sorely tempted.

Not so this bunch. There were 13 on the open mic list, according to the host, who said the limit was 1 poem, no more than 3 minutes. Somehow the first reader thought that meant 3 poems; “they are short” she said, somehow confusing “1 poem” with “3 poems.” The next reader, following suit, read 2 poems. The host blithely ignored this arrogance & did not respond by reminding the rest of the readers that the limit was 1 poem. Is that so hard? One Poem! ONE FUCKING POEM!

I left. If it had been an in-person reading I would have slammed the door — twice!