2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose, January 9

After 5 months back at in-person-readings at Collar City Mushrooms we returned to a Zoom reading due to a recent surge in COVID cases. Nancy Klepsch handled the Zoom sign-ins, I took over the sign-up sheet/intros.

First up was Joel Best with 2 poems, he said he often titles his poems with dates as this one “April 1967” images of doors & windows & trees, then one about the varieties of journeys we take, physical, spiritual, etc. titled “Walking West.” 

Julie Lomoe premiered her new teeth, then talked about the death of her cat & read a piece in the persona of her dog, Sirius, celebrating the cat being gone — I think I can sympathize.

Sally Rhoades read a prose memoir about beginning the study of her body in a performance class, what she learned, responding to abuse, learning her beauty.

Bob Sharkey read “The 4th Wise Man,” a piece using the familiar images of the myth, this about one left behind, missed the rendezvous with the other Wise Men. 

Nancy Klepsch read a piece she described as “really new,” a love poem to her muse beginning in the dark of night, then a Haibun of sorts with 3 haiku & some prose. 

Kate Crofton read a pleasantly charming piece titled “Canned Sunshine” with images from a children’s book, a memory of a kitchen in August, canning peaches as balls of sunshine bringing joy later when opened.

Daniel Sennis also had a brand new piece, a re-telling of the story of Noah & the Arc in repeated rhymes, “Rickety Ass Jewish Yacht,” then a piece about looking for found poetry in receipts, etc., “Finding Poetry in the Trash” & the realization that “this poem is garbage.”

Naomi Bindman began with a playful poem titled “Out of Time” inspired by a Nova episode, a meditation on the concept “the effect of mass is to slow time,” then the tender, hopeful “Love’ s Imprint” holding her daughter when born, then in the ER, & holding her own mother. 

I read an older piece I read recently at Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs about an exchange of tee shirts with a fellow poet, “Tee Shirt Poem.”

Tara Kistler read “a little haiku” playing on rhymes of “sand,” “hands,” & “rubber bands.”

Laura Ellzey read about her obsession with yarn, “Fiber Arts,” a brief lesson on the different fibers.

Cheryl Rice read Anne Sexton’s poem “Letter Written on a Ferry Crossing Long Island Sound,” then her poem based on it about her own experience taking the ferry, “Life Preservers.”  

Tina Mazula had originally said she wasn’t reading today, but then was inspired by Julie Lomoe’s dead cat poem & read her own about her cockatiel that she had for 20+ years before it died, then a Rumi poem that had been posted online & her response to it.

So if we have learned anything in the last 2 years or so, it is the necessity of being flexible. Perhaps we’ll be back for an in-person-reading at Collar City Mushrooms, or on Zoom again, but two things we do know it will be on the 2nd Sunday @ 2. Check the Facebook page with that title for details.