Poets in the Park, 2023

There were 2 Poets in the Park readings this season, Saturdays July 15 & July 22, with a variety of poets representing some of the great diversity of the written & spoken word artists, young & old, in this poetry-rich region. 

July 15

The 2023 series began with great weather to be outdoors, with the student poets from Albany High School who were the Winners & Honorable Mentions in this year’s Tom Nattell Peace Poetry Prize. 

The first of the Honorable Mentions was Minieq Polk for the poem “To Shi” which I read in their absence, a poem of encouragement & support.

Ian Roach was the second Honorable Mention; his poem “Seasons” offered the hope of Spring, again, during the hot, urban summer.

There were 2 Winners in this year’s contest. Preeya Ahmed read “The Key Maker,” a tribute to her Grandfather.

The other Winner, Leslie Santos, read a poem titled “Locked Down” which she said was “based on the reality of many schools.”

Community poet Carol Durant filled out the program. Her style was enthusiastic, effusive, & engaged the audience, in what she calls interactive poetry, in “Poetry is Key.” She uses loose rhyme schemes often & humor, such as in the political piece “Karmic Justice” about “the Liar,” & the title poem from her chapbook of COVID poems, How Will I know It’s Santa? She did a number of pieces from her book Whole Phat and Gluten Free Poetry, by asking audience members to call out numbers that corresponded to pages in the book, the topics included the poet Maya Angelou, on drug use, being on a plane & others.

July 22

Once again great weather & the poets were back in the Park, with families, children, even grandchildren. I did my traditional “History of the World of Washington Park & Poets in the Park," attributing the great, balmy Summer weather we had both nights to the influence of the creator of this event, Tom Nattell.

First reader was James Duncan, editor the online poetry zine Hobo Camp Review. He talked about having 2 hometowns, San Antonio, TX & Albany, NY & read largely from his collection of poems Both Ways Home (Alpine Ghost Press, 2022) that explores & pays tribute to these 2 cities. He read from the Albany poems of the collection, about the new pedestrian skyway over I-787, about the thrills & sounds of local county fairs, & about 4th of July celebrations as a metaphor for love. He has a new book coming out soon, Tributaries (Maverick Duck Press, 2023), a series of poems about the Hudson River, & read selections about Lake Tear of the Clouds, Warrensberg, Schuylerville, & Poughkeepsie. He concluded with a tender memoir from his childhood of his grandfather from San Antonio, “The Daredevil.”

I had met our next reader, Natalya Sukhonos, at a reading in March titled In Translation at Collar City Mushrooms in Troy, NY & have enjoyed immensely her book of poems A Stranger Home (Moon Pie Press, 2020). She grew up in Odessa until she was 9 years old & her poems this evening were filled with memories & images of her family, her mother, father, grandfather & grandmother. Since James Duncan had read a poem about his grandfather, she read her poem about her grandfather, “Parachute,” that is included in A Stranger Home, as were 3 others, “Theater of Bones” (her daughter’s questions), “Lost in the Stars” (her father), & “Specter Garden” (her mother). She also included poems based on the testimonies of Ukrainians about the war, & ended with a poem filled with images of Odessa, stories of her mother’s mother, “Dreaming Odesa” [the Ukrainian spelling]. 

It was a night of poems celebrating memories of place & family, among an audience of families, a good way to bring the 2023 Poets in the Park series to an end, with a hope for future readings here in Albany’s Washington Park.

Poets in the Park was founded by the late poet & community activist Tom Nattell in 1988 & is supported by the Hudson Valley Writers Guild & donations throughout the year by community poets at other events such as The Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center.