Invocation of the Muse, May 2

This reading/open mic series started out in November at the re-opened Fuze Box on Central Ave., but it was a bumpy start. Last month it moved to this new performance venue, Lark Hall, in an historic Albany building. Long-time Albany residents remember it as the home of Maud Baum’s eba dance studio. It was built in 1916 as a meeting place for the Order of the Eastern Star, a lady’s auxiliary of sorts of the Masons. 

The host is R.M. Engelhardt, long-time impresario of poetry open mics in Albany & Troy. This space seems to be a great choice, but tonight there were issues with the lights. The stage has  apparently been set up with a lighting system for music performance & theater production (which I haven’t seen here), with moving, rotating lights, but didn’t seem to have a spot for a center stage performer (or at least the staff, a bar-tender, didn’t seem to know how to turn it on). I read early on the sign-up sheet & had to keep shifting my position to catch enough light to read from the pages I brought. This problem with the lighting was eventually settled by turning up the house lights (poetry open mics are not rock shows) & stopping the stage lights from constant movement. Thankfully, Rob has been around long enough to be able to give management a clear idea of what is needed for a smooth-running poetry open mic.

Rob invoked the Muse by reading the lyrics of (still-living) Nick Cave’s lyrics “The Moon is in the Gutter” & “Hamlet (Pow, Pow, Pow).” The I read, a Winter tale of skiing "Whistler 2001." I was followed by Maurice, who has been a consistent follower of Invocation of the Muse, who read pieces titled “The Weather Reports is the Same Distance from Me as the Therapies” & “A Poem Left from Last Nigh,” edgy poems perfect for this venue.

This was the first time reading for Joshua Wald (aka, Josh the Poet), with energetic hip-hop infused readings of  “Lend Me Your Soul” & “Missed Calls.” This was also Vincent’s 1st time (although it was also my first time here), he read from from his phone (which had distinct advantages with the uncertain light situation), booze infused poems “Whiskey Redemption” & “Secret in Liquor.” Patrick Williams had read back in the Fuze Box recently, tonight began with a working class poem, “Drip” the details of fixing a pipe, then a rhyming piece playing on the names & details of trees.

The night’s featured reader was an itinerant poet, K.R. Morrison from the Left Coast on a tour promoting her chapbook cauldrons (paper press, 2021). She is also a drummer in a rock band, a high school teacher, & the only person I know who could use (in her bio) the word “curations” twice in the same sentence. But the poems were intriguing forays into the world of mothers/daughters in the world, as people as artists. From cauldrons she read “Her Burden” (“In one week a woman can …”), “Charlotte Anne” a tribute to her mother who died in 2015, “One Nature Under Murder” for the COVID years, “Silver Lining” (“Silver lining is us, skylines of poets …”). She read 2 other poems not in the book, one written recently while on tour about her family, & one about the line of women ancestors in her “War Woman.” Don’t get me wrong, these aren’t sentimental memoirs, but edgy pieces playing on language, with chant-like repetitions.

Back to the open mic, R.M. Engelhardt read from his new book, the independently published Of Spirit, Ash & Bone — Poems Parables, which he said was “something entirely different & new,” but I didn’t hear that in the 2 pieces he read, in fact the piece “Scriptures” was reminiscent of his earlier work where he speaks directly to the reader in a preachy tone. Austin Houston read “A Prayer for Ukraine” (with a curse on Putin), then the philosophical conversation “The Talk with Father Time.” Joan Geitz also read a piece about Ukraine, a long political rant “Let Us Be Honest.”

Stepping into a long tradition of open mics in bars, tonight’s bartender, Leila, read 2 poems, a list of dreams beginning “I wish…,” then a love poem someone wrote for her. Rebecca Schoonmaker, one of the founders of the Upstate Artists Guild, trotted out her literary talents with 3 Haiku for Spring. Thom Francis read an untitled love poem written recently, then his poem about stirring up memories from the things in his pocket, glad to hear it again.

& that was it for this month. Invocation of the Muse now takes place in Lark Hall, on the corner of Lark St. & Hudson Ave., entrance on Hudson Ave., on the 1st Monday of the month, 7:30PM sign up, 8:00PM start, $5.00 (or more) payable at the door -- featured poet & an open mic for the rest of us.