Invocation of the Muse, April 3

Surprised — & pleased — to find this event downstairs from the grand Hall, tonight in the smaller practice room. If you want to have a poetry reading, do it in a small room that way if it gets crowded everyone will think it was really popular. This practice room with its wall of mirrors made for some interesting, & challenging, angles of reflection, not to mention the creaky floors adding a sort of obligato when folks enter the room as a poet is reading.

Out host, R.M. Engelhardt, noting that it was the start of “National Poetry Month” [In Albany, Everyday is National Poetry Month], invoked the Muse of the gone Jim Harrison by reading 2 of his poems, “Word Drunk” & “Complaint,” from his Collected Poems. Also of note was that there was no featured reader.

The first of the open mic poets was Billy Stanley whose first poem was titled “Indestruction” full of rhyme & word play, then a circus poem strangely titled “Zombie Airways.”

Ian Macks announced that he has a new book coming out very soon & read for us a couple sample poems, “The Good in People,” & a portrait of a street character “Lyrical Genius, Common Sense Failure." I followed with a couple older poems from my poems-on-poets folder “The Poet’s Coat” & “Poets Talk."

Our host, R.M. Engelhardt, read from his latest book RAW (Dead Man’s Press Ink, 2023) “Rumi’s Secret & Soulful Advice on Writing,” & the deeply serious “The Day that Poetry Died” (but then it returns through the spoken words of children).

Samuel Maurice announced that he was a new editor of Dead Man’s Press Ink, then read a couple of his own untitled poems, one about a vision of the Moon thru the windows of a bus, the other about seeing Dopplegangers. 

Alexander Perez read a few of his surreal fantasy poems, “Ritual of the Equinox” (like a ritual of death), “Dance with the Devil” (more death, with Alejandro the master), & “Ritual of the Blue Bird” (again with Alejandro).

I haven’t seen John Thomas Allen out at a poetry open mic since well before the pandemic; his work is characteristically dream-like, surreal. He mentioned having spoken to the gone poet Franz Wright (1953 - 2015), then read a poem titled “Dilator” mixing random, perhaps dream, images, & another of that ilk titled “Visiting Hours.”

The last poet of the night was a last-minute add-on, arriving late, Briel Mastriani, who read a political rant/threat titled “Reckoning” on the repressive anti-transgender laws being passed elsewhere in the country, thankfully not here.

This series has been held on the first Monday of most months at Lark Hall, but at the time I am writing this I have been informed that due to renovations being done at the Hall the series will be on hiatus. Check out the Facebook & Instagram pages for Dead Man’s Press Ink for updates.