Poetic License - Albany Reading 3, October 18

The exhibit of poems & art work inspired by them, the project we call Poetic License - Albany had been moved from the Art Associates Gallery up on Railroad Ave. downtown to Lark Hall, & looked just fine in the downstairs space. The reading itself was in the yoga room which of course was peaceful & pleasant. It seems to have been a practice room for dancers since the wall behind where the readers stood was all mirrors, which meant you could see both the front & the back of the readers at the same time; that could be either a very nice thing, or a bit unsettling, depending upon the poet reading.

Rebecca Schoonmaker, from the Upstate Artists Guild, & her daughter, Lucia Mabel Smith, who actually has artwork in the show, did the general introductions & I took over as M/C. Lucia’s introduction of me was the greatest I’ve ever got — “Dan Wilcox is the bestest poet & the greatest looking old guy.” 

As often happens at the Social Justice Center on the Third Thursday I got to introduce Sylvia Barnard as the first reader, & she read her poem, “Pont du Gard,” about a trip to France with her daughter to this ancient Roman giant-bridge-aqueduct in the present city of Nîmes. I followed with a brand-new poem, “3 Guys from Albany,” which was commissioned by the NYS Writers Institute for an upcoming celebration of Chet & Karen Opalka & 20 years of the Opalka Gallery at Russell Sage College; I also read the quite short “Haiku Haiku.”

Aaron had to be convinced to sign up to read & he gave a performance of a piece about writing (or not) a suicide note (or not). Ellen (who had the greatest sneakers in the room) read a piece with the provocative title “Traveling with Four Straight Girls” & another titled “Home” about memories.

Rhonda Rosenheck had a lot to read & read it all, beginning with her new book The Five Books of Limericks a chapter-by-chapter retelling of the Torah, then a poem titled “Who Starts the Telling?” about a family, cancer & death, then one of her crime-story poems “Slightly Bitter,” written in the rhyming technique “tumbling verse.”

The poet who goes by the name Sincerely Donnie began by quoting Shakespeare then read his own work, a poem of anguish. Courtney Symone read a couple of untitled pieces, the first a pandemic poem of grieving, then one on the language of photography & racism, on the thought “the photographer is a soldier…” Austin Houston read a poem about aging & missed youth, then one on marriage titled “’Til Death Do Us Part.”

We ended as we began with the mother/daughter duo of Rebecca & Lucia, with Rebecca reading the poem “Like Lightening” by Shawna Norton upon which Lucia’s artwork was matched up, then read her own poem she had entered in the Poetic License - Albany project, untitled but beginning “I head into the woods…”

Poetic License - Albany brought together area poets & visual artists, which culminated in exhibits & readings at 2 different galleries in Albany, the Art Associates Gallery on Railroad Ave., & the walls of Lark Hall on the corner of Lark St. & Hudson Ave. It’s such a good idea that we very well may try it again next year. Stay tuned.

You can visit the exhibit at https://www.poeticlicensealbany.com