Caffè Lena Poetry Night, February 1

I’d missed the last couple month’s readings at Caffè Lena so I was glad to get back to Saratoga Springs in 2023. Our host, Carol Graser, got us started with a poem by May Swenson, “The Process,” then on to the featured poet, Hajar Hussaini, whose reading was live streamed & you can view it on YouTube 

Hajar Hussaini is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at nearby Skidmore College. I was not familiar with her work & was more than pleasantly surprised by what I heard. She read about a dozen poems from her debut poetry collection, Disbound (University of Iowa Press, 2022), in the order they appear in the book. There were poems about her native Kabul, such as the opening poem “notes from Kabul,” also “losing sight,” & “simple café;” a “classic American road trip poem” (“road trip”); &, wonderfully, a love poem (“peopleless”). Her last poem was a poem not in Disbound, “Look at the Moon” in multiple parts. Her work is a combination of word-play, informative spacing, & surrealistic leaps in the things/images, just the kind of poetry I like, but you can judge for yourself by watching the YouTube, &/or buying her book.

Then back, without a pause or a break, to the open mic list. Since I was able to snag a photo of the sign-up list I was able to see why Carol often just announces the first name of the reader, or even has trouble with that, the legibility of the names on the list for some, but not most, was mysterious. I will do my best to report the correct name here, but I offer no guarantees. If you are reading this & I mis-report your name, please email me at this Blog & I will correct it.

First up was R.J. as Carol announced it which was what it looked like to me, with a couple untitled pieces, the first like a letter, the other in rhyme.  Anne Brennan use her walker from her seat to get to the stage & eschewed the stairs to read from her walker; her first piece was, she said, “her father’s song” about gardening, her next was a meditation on violence &  the recent murder by police of Tyre Nichols. Robert Preuse was a flash-from-the-past, a poet from the early days of this long-running open mic, tonight he did a long intro to his clever poem titled “Word He Made Up,” then another short one that may have been untitled.

Alexander Perez has been making the rounds of the open mics in last few months, tonight his first poem was titled “On the Roads We Traveled,” then a piece about a butterfly in the garden, “The Crush of Mint.” 

Amanda Blodgett is a regular here & read 3 Haiku, as she said, “on my current situation.” Also a frequent reader here, Leslie Sittner read a piece titled “The Roach” about her dog who had to be taken to the vet for mysterious symptoms until it was determined it had eaten a joint.

Pauline Bame read an elegy to Bob Dylan’s former girlfriend, who died in 2011, “Suze Rotolo is Dead,” then a poem by Barbara Crooker “Praise Song.” Iffy Redman has been coming here to read since the early days, tonight read a poem titled “Beneath Bone” & mentioned she has a memoir coming out next year. Chuck Coperspire said this was his first time reading on the East Coast; he began with a self-parody titled “Mixed Bag,” then a piece titled “Check on Your Strong Friends,” & squeezed in a short 4 line “spell” “Serendipity.”

As far as I can tell, Todd Fabozzi has been coming to the Caffè Lena Poetry Night since 2008 when he published his first collection of poems Umbrageous Embers; he has gone on to publish other collections & tonight read from his latest, Poems & Anti-Poems, Book 4 the poems “The Muse on His Shoulder,” & one on rhyme like a greeting card, “Happy Valentines Day.” Jan Tramontano has been a featured poet here, & a long-time habitué of readings & open mics in the area; she noted that Holocaust Remembrance Day was on January 27, read her poem “What We Remember” from her chapbook Woman Sitting in a Café and Other Poems of Paris (The Troy Book Makers, 2008), inspired by a poem by Edward Hirsch. 

Our gracious host, Carol Graser, was the next reader with a seasonal poem titled “Icicles.” Sally Rhoades was yet another of the fine poets who have been at Caffé Lena often & way back, & way before that at Albany open mics; she began with a poem about the great, gone poet Stanley Kunitz, “Nonpareils, for My Father” then a poem from her 2022 chapbook Greeted by Wildflowers (A.P.D.) “I Have Danced with Druids.” & I had the pleasure of following all these other poets with a poem for another Albany poet, Tom Nattell, my elegy “Chasing Tom;” on this past Monday a number of us held our annual memorial Beret Toss in his memory at the Robert Burns statue in Albany’s Washington Park.

Tonya Wile began with a piece titled “A Lesson in Losing,” with a Buddhist-like line “all will be lost,” then a descriptive piece “Meditating.” Melissa Anderson’s first piece was the short “Dark Star,” then “New Years Countdown” which was a literal countdown. The pieces that Jenna Kitchen, who was new to me, read were titled “Gleaners” & “Oblivion.” Elaine Kenyon’s poems, written on loose pages, were both about teachers, the first about a teacher she worked with who died recently, “The Van Keeps Moving,” the other “Dear Niki” to a Kindergarten teacher. Rodney Parrott also read a death/tribute poem titled “I No Longer Have a Guru.” The final poet for the night, E.R. Vogel, read 2 poems with questions, but seemingly without titles, from a book he published last year titled Love Poems & Other Stuff (if memory serves me correctly, since he didn't announce the title of the book tonight).

The Caffè Lena Poetry Night is usually packed with open mic readers (tonight there were 18), & there is a featured reader, who is live-streamed at the start of the night, at 7:30PM — 47 Phila St., Saratoga Springs, NY, $5.00.