2nd Tuesday All Genre Open Mic Out Of Bennington, October 11

It’s a pleasant hour-long drive from my house to Bennington, VT, but now this open mic is on Zoom, it’s even nicer & I have been able to attend much more often than when it was a pre-pandemic in-person event. It is now in its 5th year emanating out of Bennington.

Charlie Rossiter hosts an open mic in Oak Park, Il,
February, 2014

Before he was in Bennington, Charlie Rossiter, the host of this open mic, ran open mics in Chicago where he developed a rap-like piece he uses as the intro to the reading. Charlie also likes to 2 rounds, nominally 1 poem each round, but who knows what will happen when a poet has the mic.

I was up first & in my 1st round read a poem for the end of the Baseball season, “Dusty Baker;” later, in my 2nd round read a new Haiku, the “Haiku Haiku.”

Mark W. O’Brien reprised the excerpt he read the last time I heard him on Friday, in which the protagonist in this novel-in-progress, “Escape” set in 1917, kills his friend at the friend's request. In his 2nd round he read a dream piece “My Equine Mythology.”

Jim Madigan, who Zooms in from Illinois, just read in the 1st round, a piece titled “The Calves of Adam Heart Mother,” inspired by Pink Floyd & the cow that jumped to the dark side of the Moon.

Sheryll Beddingfield also read only in the 1st round, a piece from a 2016 collection about people in a town in Scotland, the poem read as a curse for the children in her neighborhood on Halloween, a performance poem "A Spell Against the Tax Collector Who Harassed Women."

Tom Nicotera’s 1st round was a halloween poem, “Spiders Get A Bad Rap;” then in his 2nd round he read a new poem, “Fog,” a descriptive piece, sitting in his rocking chair writing poems, wondering.

Charlie’s 1st round piece was an ekphrastic poem & he shared the Zoom screen with a shot of the painting; in the 2nd round, a road-trip poem that Charlie is so good at, “Driving Red State Ohio.”

Bill Thwing piled all his poems in the 1st round reading short Japanese poem from Japanese Death Poems then his own poems responding, then a few more; had to leave before the 2nd round.

Julie Lomoe breezed in late in the first round while Tom was reading, then, muted but on-camera, spent her time looking through her poems, reading them to herself; when her turn came around she read a long piece of prose about attending the recent IWWG Conference, “Saga of the Viking Crone,” all about herself; the continuation that she read in the 2nd round was, as she said, “less long than the first part.”

A relaxed Zoom of poetry, prose, sometimes a guitar every 2nd Tuesday, you can be in Bennington from anywhere in the world. If you are not on Charlie’s list, email him at charliemrossiter@gmail.com so he can send you the Zoom link — you’ll be glad you did.