2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose, February 13

We (your hosts Nancy Klepsch, me, & the poets who showed “up” - wherever that might be) - were back on Zoom (temporarily) again. Nancy handled the Zoom gateway & I took control of the signup sheet.

The first poet up was Bridgit Milman with an old poem I think she said was titled “Onus Americana” then one titled “Seaweed Tinsel” which played on words, “mer” (as in mermaid) & nipples.

Bob Sharkey read a descriptive piece about taking a train in Ireland, “The Iron Road to Dublin.”

Naomi Bindman read 2 new poems, “In the Sky with Diamonds” about a recent snow event, then one about an attack on fawns in her yard “Lament” (a prelude to which she read last Tuesday at the Zoom Open Mic out of Bennington hosted by Charlie Rossiter).

My first poem was this year’s “Birthday Poem” written at the end of January, then a very old poem for tomorrow’s “holiday,” a sexually explicit “Valentine.”

Laura Ellzey read an autobiographical poem from when she was 17 about drinking in a car & responding to a song by “Carlito” an Argentinian singer, then, to my delight, read her Spanish version.

Elaina Coe Barrett has been popping up at Zoom open mics & today read an older piece about a bracelet with repeating lines &, to my ears, a sexual sub-text, “Everybody Wants to Touch It,” then an all-too-familiar problem, “Where are the Pens?” (perhaps they have gone to Sockland?).

Nancy Klepsch said she has read her poem “A Dozen Blue Eggs for Bernadette” previously but has recently tweeked it, then an “experimental” piece in many parts that she was proud of being accepted by Fence magazine “Step to I Go All Rhythm.” 

Rhonda Rosenheck read a poem about being  at a retreat, “Whoever Heard of a Thunder Storm on Thursday Morning,” then a string of 3 related Haiku titled “Oasis.”

Joel Best’s 1st poem was titled, I think, “Divots” with the image of the Moon, then for  his 2nd poem he wondered why he titled it “Shutter House,” no one else had an answer either.

Julie Lomoe, the last reader, got in late, read the memoir she had read at the Bennington Zoom, “Bela & the Rats,” about living in Soho in NYC in the 1960s, the rats both 4-legged & 2-legged varieties.

After this brief hiatus back to Zoom the 2nd Sunday @ 2 Open Mic will return to an in-person reading at Collar City Mushrooms, 333 2nd Ave. Troy in March — no need for a link, just show up.