Third Thursday Poetry Night, February 16

In January The Third Thursday Poetry Night here at the Social Justice Center was cancelled due to the weather, so this was the first event in the series for 2023. Gordon Davis who had been scheduled in January has been re-scheduled for July, 2023.

Paul Lamar

Tonight’s featured poet was Paul Lamar. The night’s Muse was the recently gone poet Bernadette Mayer (1945 - 2022), who was associated for many years with the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s in the Bouwerie in NYC, but since 2000 she had lived in East Nassau with her partner the poet Philip Good. She had been a featured poet here at the Third Thursday Poetry Night & in Poets in the Park, as well at most other poetry venues in the region. This night I read her poem “Helen Green” from Bernadette’s 2013 New Directions Poetry Pamphlet (#3) The Helens of Troy, N.Y.

The night’s sign-up sheet included not only some “regulars” here but a couple of writers new here, drawn in by Paul Lamar. First up was Francine Berg with a moving funeral oration to a gone veteran, “Hallowed Ground.” Robert Knightly read a short prose memoir about being a pro bono attorney representing people incarcerated at Rikers Island, NYC. 

Catherine Dickert has been here previously, &  has been a student in Paul Lamar’s writing classes/workshops; the piece she read tonight was a richly descriptive memoir of her early years in school.

Paul Lamar began his reading by talking about the creative importance of titles for poems & other pieces of writing, & what he read this night all had titles that were like doors opening to the poem that followed, for example “The Clarinet Teacher,” “For a Man to Whom I May Have Caused Some Embarrassment,” “Theatre de la Pergola” (in Milan, a classical music concert with a companion), the anaphoric “When Love Goes,” & “Phone Call for Neal.” Paul contributes the notes on the composers for the programs for the Albany Symphony Orchestra so it is no surprise that a number of poems contained references to classical music, “August 11” from a cool weather concert outdoors, “Opus 90 Early Morning” (Brahms’ Symphony No. 3 in F), & the aforementioned “Theatre de la Pergola.” A poem for his mother was titled “St. Peter’s Hospital Waiting Room,” & he ended with a poem for his partner, “English Sonnet for Mark.” It was apparent that he carefully orchestrated (pun intended) the selections & sequence of the works he read for his appreciative audience.

Catherine Dickert

We took a short break while I passed my hat through the audience that was as generous as they had been attentive. Then we continued with the open mic, & I read a poem I had written in one of Bernadette Mayer’s writing workshops, “Saturday Hawk,” based on listening to Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins & other jazz musicians of the be-bop era.

Alexander Perez has been reading his fine poems at many of the local open mics, many of them in the voice of other creatures, this night it was a whale looking for love “Humpback Love Song.” Joe Krausman regularly reads here but he had trouble reading, even with his trusty magnifying glass, his much-published poem (& one of my favorites), “The Passionate Accountant to His Love,” so I stepped up to read it for him & I saw that it was a page from a published version printed in about 11 point type.

Sylvia Barnard, another frequent-reader here, read a 2-part urban elegy starting with the image of the now vacant site of Ralph’s bar on the corner of Madison & New Scotland Avenues, then ending with a dream of her gone friend. Tom Bonville read a chilling & moving piece of poetic prose with images of the shooting at the supermarket in Buffalo, NY then crows visiting the scene.

The Third Thursday Poetry Night happens regularly on the, well, third Thursday of the month at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY, starting at 7:30PM, a featured reader with an open mic for community poets/writers — even William Kennedy has read in the open mic, why not you?