Book Launch: Judith Prest & Jan Tramontano, December 10

Judith Prest & Jan Tramontano are 2 long-time Albany-area writers, well-known to the local writing community. They have frequented local open mics & featured at many of the popular venues, such as Arthur’s Market, the Third Thursday Poetry Night, Poets in the Park, the Book House & others. Professor Java’s, itself once a hotbed of poetry & guitar-slingers when it was at an another location further down Wolf Rd., was a good space for this joint book launch with a side room gallery with paintings by local artists.

During 2021 both poets had books published by Finishing Line Press out of Georgetown, Kentucky. Judith Prest’s book is titled Geography of Loss from which she read exclusively. She began with the first poem in the book, “Loss,” from which the book takes its title. To be expected there were poems about her mother & her father, but she also introduced her great Aunt Carrie Mae Arnold, who died in the Allentown Asylum. Interestingly enough in Judith’s introduction to the poems about her Aunt she mentioned an exhibit at the New York State Museum of suitcases from patients at a New York asylum, the suitcases containing the personal items of these people that were left behind. The exhibit had been put together by another area poet, Darby Penney, who sadly died earlier this year — another loss.

Jan Tramontano’s book The Me I Was With You shares more than a publisher with Judith, it is also a “book of loss,” & the cover art is by Judith Prest. Likewise, the losses include the poet’s parents, but also her first love, as well as herself, “the me I was with you.” But art is not reporting, it is also a work of the imagination, as in “At Paradise Nails” where she makes up stories about the people around her as she is getting a manicure. She managed to slip in another poem not included in the collection, one beginning “Picture an old-fashioned couple…” You can also find a discussion of other poems by Jan, including others in the book from my recent Blog about her reading at Caffè Lena earlier this month. 

You can find both of these books at www.finishinglinepress.com. Professor Java’s is located at 145 Wolf Rd. (in the Wolf Road Shoppers Park), Albany, NY