Next Year’s Words: A New Paltz Reading Forum, March 16

I’ve added this to my regular monthly poetry events to attend & am glad to be “there”. Susan Chute is the host with Tim Brennan handling the open mic logistics. Susan began with a quote from T.S. Eliot “Little Giddings,” then on to her characteristically enthusiastic introductions, like a breathless poem built with quotes from other poets, which also characterized her elaborate intros of each featured poet, informed by her extensive reading of their work — always impressive. Tonight’s event, like the others I have attended, was well attended on Zoom.

There were 3 featured poets interspersed with open mic readers. The 1st of the features was Saida Agostini who read mostly from her forthcoming Let the Dead In, but started with a new piece, a brief sermon on how to speak of love, on her grandmother’s death. There were poems for her great-grannie from Guyana, to her mother (“I Write of my Mother in the Book of Joy”), on tracing her history (“Notes on Archiving Erasures”), & on her interrogation of Guyanese myths & stories (“The Mermaid Speaks”). Then there were the wild & tender sex/love poems “2 Fat Black Women are Making Love” & “Let the World Be Like My Pussy.”

Ken Holland was the first of the open mic poets of the evening reading a poem titled “All I’ll Never Know.” 

Nathan McClain was the 2nd featured reader of the evening. He began with a poem from a new sequence “Because of History” about working in a community garden plot. He also read poems from his 2017 book Scale, including a meditation on history & race “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” in fact many of his poems sounded like meditations, such as the poem “The World is Full” from a forthcoming book The World is Filled.

On to the next round of open mic poets Betty McDonald read in honor of her father, a shop keeper, “Oysters.” Ken Chute who is Susan’s cousin read a descriptive piece, “For a Moment,” about seeing a man with a fish on a bus. Rafael Kosek read “The Fragile New House” on the war wondering are there new ways to suffer?

The final featured reader was Tina Barry, whose work I’ve heard before & have her books Mall Flower (Big Table Publishing, 2016), & Beautiful Raft (Big Table Publishing, 2019), & she was a featured poet in 2016 at the Third Thursday Poetry Night that I host in Albany, NY. Tonight she said that her “poems begin with stories,” & began with a sestina titled “Another Server Calls me Young Lady.” She read a cluster of poems about her 96 year-old mother, others, then read some of the prose poems from Beautiful Raft which tells a fictionalized story of Marc Chagall & his partner Virginia Haggard when in the mid-1940s they were living in High Falls, NY, very close to where Tina & her husband live now.

To end the evening there were a few more open mic poets. Roberta Gould read a piece titled “Dear Fish” in which, she said, “everything is fact, no metaphors.” It being the day before St. Patrick’s Day I read my poem “The Sheila-na-Gig.” Joanie HF Zosike read a poem about her mother, who died in January, “The Gloria.”  Susan Chute’s recent poem “The Invasion” was about Russia’s war on Ukraine, which included a line “of course the books will bury us” which reminded me of John Hersey’s Hiroshima, in which he includes the story of Miss Sasaki who “in the first moment of the atomic age … was crushed by books.”

This series now on Zoom has become one of my favorite poetry events. You can find out more information about it, the featured readers, & sign up for the mailing list to get links to the readings on Facebook.   

Writers Mic, March 9

There were about 9 of us tonight with our host Jackie Craven for this Zoom open mic, formerly out of Schenectady, which can now can be from anywhere or nowhere for that matter.

I led off the open mic, beginning with a new “eco-poem” instigated by my friend Mark Tremont of the I Fill Inkjets shop in Delmar, NY a poem titled “2 Dreams,” then my entry in the Moonstone Arts Center anthology for International Women’s Day “Waiting for Jacqueline Robinson” dedicated to my daughter Anna.

David Graham read 2 poems with an anti-war theme, the first by William Stafford, “Entering History” from a collection of his writing on peace & war, “Every War Has 2 Losers” (there’s an old Wobbly saying, “a bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end”), then David’s own poem from the 1st Iraq war (Oil War I) playing on a quote from the Book of Isaiah that all flesh is grass, “Air Supremacy.“

Kate McNairy, fresh off the Caffe Lena open mic read 2 short Winter poems, the first that “loss is never easy,” then one about stars “Lit Up.”

Susan Jewell read 2 poems written in January, exploring how language articulates, “2 Men Talking” (on a beach in FL), & “The Starling Mission,” about the Elon Musk project putting “more junk into Space.”

Kathleen Herold’s poem was titled “Brain Spacing,” about calming her brain to get more words out -- good idea.

Alan Catlin read from his Anxiety Dreams series, “#2 St. Patrick’s Day as Hell” grim images from his bartender days, & the more dream-like “St. Patricks Day 10 Years After.”

Scott Morehouse regaled us with an excerpt from the autobiography of Clarese, a psychic cow, with jokes & references about Earl Butts from the Nixon administration, &, as he said, “I’m very fond of cows.”

Naomi Bindman read “Lake of the Shining Waters,” a chapter from a memoir, this section about paddling as a child in a canoe on Lake George, then returning as an adult with her daughter as a recurring generational experience. 

Our host Jackie Craven brought the evening to a close with an old one, “Many Happy Returns,” a memory piece set up like a tax-form complete with line numbers.

You can find the link to this monthly Zoom open mic at Writers Mic on Facebook, held on the 2nd Wednesday, starts at 7:30 — join us & add to the variety of the mix of writers with your voice. 

2nd Tuesday All Genre Open Mic Out of Bennington, March 8

Another great gathering, 11 poets! —  folks dialing in from the Northeast & the Mid-West, why with good reason this open mic remains on Zoom.

I was up first, yet again, with a couple of seasonal poems, 1 in each round; for the 1st round a poem for the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jack Kerouac, a poem about Northport, NY “Kerouac.” For the 2nd round a poem for St. Patrick’s Day “Sheila-Na-Gig” (find out what it is here).

Julie Lomoe read only in the 1st round her entry in the International Women’s Day Anthology from Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, “My Womb Dome,” life in NYC in the 1970s.

In his 1st round Kenn Ash read a horror story, “The Virtuoso” about a giant spider & its web; in the 2nd round he read the middle poem of a trilogy of poems, “I Ain’t Got Time to be Dead.”

Sally Rhoades read a poem in the 1st round written last Summer to a prompt, but still timely, “Wars I Have Seen;” for the 2nd round she read one written in 2019, “Even Dancing We Keep Talking,” about a picture of her dancing with poet Ken Hada at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in Ada, OK.

Jim Madigan, in Oak Park, IL read in the 1st round “My Grandfather’s Wake” a working class poem about his grandfather & his relationship with black workers; similarly, his 2nd round piece, “Child’s Hand Bend,” was about the poetic names of places & their stories.

Our host Charlie Rossiter gave a nod, in his 1st round poem, to Oak Park where he used to live (& met Jim there) with a portrait of a black woman there, “a bright flower in a patch of weeds…”, the poem titled “Rare & Precious;” he too had a Kerouac-related piece for the 2nd round, “The Ceremony at the 42nd St. Library,” details about getting access to the Kerouac manuscripts there.

Naomi Bindman probably could have driven to this event if it was still being held at the brew pub in Bennington, she read a piece on the beginning of Spring written on March 8 almost 4 decades ago “March Symphony,” then for her round 2 a very new poem, “Touchstones,” about her dog.

Elaina Barrett was “here” last month for the first time & I guess we didn’t scare her away because she came back, she only read in the 1st round, said she was feeling content that she had gotten this poem written, a colorful portrait & memory “Halloween Costume.”

In her 1st round Sheryll Bedingfield read a page from a memoir about their family's fainting goats, & her bother showing their mother a drawing of a lynching; then for the 2nd round read another family poem, this after Marc Chagall’s painting “The Yellow Room.” 

Barbara Sarvis, who is a painter, knew the Chagall painting, she read a poem by Cynthia Good, “I Never Worried About the Police Killing My Son,” from an anthology of women’s poems; the 2nd time around read a children’s book she wrote, “The Traveling Hat,” about a child undergoing chemo who lost her hair.

Tom Nicotera had some internet issues, started, stopped, then came back for the 1st round with a new poem “But I Chose to Write This Poem Instead, or What I Didn’t Do on My Day Off” with the recurring line “but I chose to write this poem instead…;” then in the second round he read “The Road to Enlightenment Takes a Detour”  — I guess the Zoom road has it’s own detours, switchbacks, U-turns, etc.

But you can attend this monthly open mic in the safety & quiet & warmth of your own home each 2nd Tuesday at 7:00PM. If you’re not on Charlies’s short-list (which keeps getting longer), you can send him an email & he will send you the Zoom link, charliemrossiter@gmail.com — shoes (& pants) optional.

 

International Women’s Day Reading, March 6

I had responded to a call for entries from the Moonstone Arts Center in Philadelphia for poems for an anthology to be published for International Women’s Day & my poem “Waiting for Jacqueline Robinson” was published in the 2-volume anthology. There was also a Zoom reading by the contributors, hosted by Larry Robin, director of the Moonstone Arts Center that I attended & read. Others from our local scene also reading were Naomi Bindman & Nancy Klepsch, & Julie Lomoe also has work in the anthology but was not on the Zoom reading. The Moonstone Arts Center sponsors in-person poetry readings in Philadelphia, online readings, & publishes individual chapbooks & anthologies. Visit their website for more information & their bookstore.

The readers mostly read their work that was published in the anthology, proceeding, mostly in alphabetical order, while a few of us "guys" read, most were women. The readers were Madeline Artenberg (“At the Butterfly Conservatory” in the persona of a butterfly”); Naomi Bindman (“Tea Ceremony”); Sylvia Beverly (“Our Best is High-Ranking”); Zechariah Butler-Stevenson (“I Could Never Be a Woman,” said it was his 1st time); Oksana N. Mauricio.

Lynda Crawford (dialing in from California, “Women talking, and then she said”); David Eberhardt (“To a Woman” for Anne Frank, not in the anthology); Bryan Franco (“My Mother the Picture Frame Model”); Phillip Giambri (“Queen Beebe” (his mother in a nursing home); Linda Goss “(Women of Mother Earth” with singing & bells); Joanne Grumet (“The Dinner Party” about the Judy Chicago exhibit); Maurice Henderson (“a  multi-language, tribute poem, not in book); Beejay Grob (“Palmyra Station, 1971”). 

Nikole Hood [2.41.16] (“never tell a goddess”); Jacqueline Jewell (“Suhaila” “…a little palestinian girl…”); Irving Jones aka, Karamo Sulieman (“for The Liberation of Women”); Chris Kaiser (“Menstruating Women are Unclean & other lies intending to subjugate them”); Rachel Kiskaddon (“I, Woman”); Linda Kleinbub (“The World is on Lockdown/ We are Sheltering in Place”); Nancy Klepsch (“Shopping for a Goddess”); Josephine LoRe (“Mother’s Hands”); Deirdre Maher (“Sisters”).

Sara McAulay (“*glorious* *glo*" descriptive tribute of a friend with wild typography & the best teeshirt of the afternoon;)  [2.58.30] Aniqua McHardy (“I Love that We Are Different”); L. Anne Molin (“Mayfly” with seqoia); Hermond Palmer “Organs of Obligation”); Faith Paulsen (“She/Her”); Kay Peters (“Miscarriage”); Linda Romanowski (“New Beginnings”); Renée Szostek (“Fighting for my right to learn, achieve, and succeed”, a tanka). Diane Murray Ward (“The Pieta Beheld Her Twice”); Me (“Waiting for Jacqueline Robinson (“Women & the Liberation of Humanity”). Samantha Wright ("In Praise of Women"); Steven Halpern ("Women and the Liberation of Humanity").

Last year I was also included in an anthology put out by the Moonstone Arts Center Protest 2021: Celebrating 100 Thousand Poets for Change. Look for more poetry & social justice action from this group out of Philadelphia.

Caffè Lena Poetry Night, March 2

This long on-going series managed to continue during the pandemic with just featured readers, & is now back to its past format of a featured reader & an open mic, with the featured reader being live-streamed. The host who holds this event together is poet Carol Graser. She began the night by reading Ilya Kaminsky’s oft-posted poem “We Lived Happily During the War” from his 2019 book from Graywolf Press, Deaf Republic.

Tonight’s feature poet was Lance Le Grys, who recently made the trip from Vermont to the Albany Social Justice Center to read in the open mic, & was in the open mic here at  Caffè Lena back in January. He read mostly from his book Views from an Outbuilding (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2019). It is a series of loosely connected poems, short meditations about the outer (& inner) landscape of his writing-shed in the woods. As such it is hard to tell at a reading where one poem ends & another begins — & perhaps they don’t. He also read a poem about the squirrels in a park in Warsaw, Poland, & a tongue is cheek piece, “Living Among Cannibals.” He concluded with a song he wrote in college “The Lemon Fair” which can be found on Bandcamp. 

Then on to the open mic with Rachel Baum the first poet up, a “new” poet who has become a regular here, she read a poem inspired by the image of a car seat left at the Ukraine border “What We Do With Our Days,” & the sad portrait of a young boy “Clean Laundry.” Before she read she gave a shout out to her Librarian friends, which became a minor theme of the night as other readers referenced Librarians in their remarks. She was followed by Aiden Teevan (?), who announced it was his first time here, which became yet another theme; he read a poem inspired by Anglo-Saxon poetry & monsters & which he said was written in class “Winter Breath.” This was perhaps the 1st time in 2 years that I saw Kate McNairy here, who read from her book My Wolf (Finishing Line Press, 2021) “Pink Flamingos” & “The Pageant” about a dog all dressed up.

Marcella Hammer began with a poem inspired by kids talking “Can We Go?” then one from a poetry workshop she runs, “You Have No Business Being Here” on the invasion of Ukraine. Alyvia read a poem, like a letter addressed to a “you,” titled “Doors,” then one about feeling like she is not enough then proving everyone wrong. Debbie Colera (?) was also here for the 1st time & I think was one of Rachel’s Librarian friends, read about grief & missing her parents. I read my poem titled “Kerouac” for the 100th anniversary of his birth this month, then one about the music repair shop downstairs on Phila St., “Cole’s Woodwind & Brass Repair Shop.” Lucyna Prostko has been a featured poet here, at the Third Thursday Poetry Night in Albany, & elsewhere; here, in the open mic, tonight she read about memories of those who endured World War II, a grandmother she never met, & the infant children who died, with the recurring word “maybe …”

Victoria Twomey was here for the 1st time (having moved here recently from Northport, NY where Jack Kerouac lived briefly), read a descriptive piece full of wonder “White Dress on a Clothesline,” then a poem about the death of her father “Candy Hearts.” Becca Haberman was also here for the 1st time, she read poems about a love that she said may not be healthy. Carol Graser read a moving poem I’ve heard her read previously, one she wrote for her son’s wedding “Dissolving the Distance Between You.” Michael Carroll read a couple poems from his recently published book of poems Storms of Summer and Other Poems, one about a muse or lover “Earworm,” the other titled “The Animals are Behaving Badly” about squirrels; you can find his book on Amazon.com. 

Alex Bell read his poems of angst from small sheets of paper, one about dating a writer “One Long Struggle in the Dark,” the other about love/sex in an art gallery “The Mask is Torn Away.” Kersten (?) read a piece that was tour of her mind with a title from a character in the cartoon Sponge Bob Square Pants “The Itterations of my Mind are an Enigma.”

Crystal Horn’s 1st poem was titled with a line that got repeated throughout the poem, “Words to Keep the Meek as Such,” while her 2nd poem, “Fuck You Fortune,” stood in opposition to a sentiment in a prediction on her computer. Melissa Anderson said she was last here when she was 15, which couldn’t have been that long ago, read “A Heart is the Size of a Small Fat Bird,” then a poem titled “March 2020” which looked ahead to a better future. Rodney Parrott read a funny, philosophical pondering of his avatar, also named “Rodney,” titled “Metaverse.” He is habitually the last poet to read, but Ishan Summer slipped in behind him with a poem about people watching in the laundry room, then one about seeing his own breath & that of others, “Cold Mornings Re: COVID.

This event takes place each month on the 1st Wednesday with a featured poet who goes on at 7:00 PM (& is live-streamed on the Caffè Lena website), followed by an open mic, which as you can see from this night’s program is wonderfully varied. Get there (it’s at 47 Phila St., Saratoga Springs, NY) about 6:30, climb the long stairs or take the elevator, $5.00. Bring a couple poems to read.

[I apologize to those mentioned in this Blog whose name is not accurately reported. It is difficult sometimes to get a person’s name correct when it is announced from the stage. At the end of the event I try to take a picture of the open mic list in order to see how the poet signed up, what is the spelling of their name. However, this night when I asked Carol if I could see the list she said the list was “up front;” when I asked the man at the counter up front to see the list he said “Carol has it.” If I did not include your name accurately you may email me at dwlcx46@gmail.com & I will correct it.]

Third Thursday Poetry Night, February 17

So good to be back here again, tonight’s featured poet was the steadfast Therese Broderick, & of course we had the open mic with, you guessed it, One Poem! I have a long list of poets who have left us since we were last here in early 2020, but each night there can only be 1 Muse — tonight it was the great American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919 - 2021), who visited Albany in September 1994, a hero-poet & inspiration to many of us, tonight I read his poem “Baseball Canto.”

Speaking of steadfast, Sylvia Barnard made it over from Willett Street (wisely via Uber) to read a descripitive piece about the tall black trees in Washington Park, a memory of a gone friend. Equally steadfast in the poetry scene Joe Krausman read “Feedback” about how we judge ourselves, & how others do it too. 

Tim Verhaegen read an intense tribute to an emotional friendship with a woman “Saturdays With Angie, 1984 - 1993” contrasting it with his relationships with men. Frank Robinson’s new poem was specially written for this night, “The Subway Couple,” a memory from years ago of a couple quietly, gently holding hands, that still affects him to this day, a true Valentine poem to my thinking.

Therese Broderick was this night’s featured poet. She said that she has been doing poetry for 22 years & talked about how her poetry has changed over the years. She read from her new self-published, hand-sewn chapbook Crosswinds, beginning with “Backyard Crows” written last year, imitating the conversations of the birds, then on to poems about pencils, tropical storm Henri, trees, working in her yard, a trucker exercising at a Thruway rest stop, dropping off a student at college during the pandemic, & one, Buddhist-inspired, about a cat. For the poem “Ghazal” she invited her husband Frank Robinson to join in, then finished with “Sapphics after the Winds of Mars” inspired by the recorded sounds of the wind on the planet Mars. You can arrange to obtain a copy of Crosswinds by emailing Therese at brdrck@gmail.com

After a short break, during which many copies of Therese's book were scarfed up, we continued with the rest of the open mic poets. I read this year’s poem written on my birthday, “The Gifts.” Tom Bonville was back out to read a tender poem, “Welcome Old Age,” an aged couple showering each other. Edie Abrams was also back out, talked about reading several newspapers online, getting ads from Wirecutter, that inspired her hilarious poem “Get a Good Ice-cube Tray it Will Change Your Life” juxtaposed with headlines from the New York Times & thoughts of her mother.

Melissa Anderson was here for the 1st time looking for poetry, & it turns out her grandmother was the poet Catherine Anderson, who many of us in the room knew, then read a tender tribute “In Memory of Catherine Anderson with Thanks to Billy Collins,” written 3 years after her grandmother died. Joan Geitz decided at the last minute to read a poem on death by Anne Alexander Bingham titled “It is Enough.” 

We are back, in-person, on the third Thursday of the month, 7:00PM sign-up/7:30PM start, at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY, with a featured poet & an open mic before & after the feature — $5 donation supports poetry events in Albany & the work of the Social Justice Center. Join us!