It was a rare Third Thursday without a featured poet; it has happened before, but not often. But there were 8 of us on the open mic list to keep the night interesting. The Muse for tonight was the late Charles Simic (1938 - 2023) & I read his poem “Club Midnight” to set the stage.
Tom Bonville started off the open mic with a tale of being in a Summer home during a storm with his family.
Catherine Dickert was back again, this time to read her piece “Persistence of Memory at the E-waste Recycling Center” where the pictures have a life of their own beyond the digital picture frame. Julie Lomoe sang a little song dedicated to her new cat “Sympathy for Cleopatra” a take-off of the song for the Devil by the Rolling Stones.
Josh the Poet was next with a new poem from his new book soon to be out the poem titled “Home” lost in his thoughts & finding solace there. Alexander Perez, the winner of this year’s Gay Pride Poetry Contest in Troy, read a poem titled “Dark Eyes” a mix of images of various “dark eyes,” then continued with the dark with the intense images of “The Poet as a Mad Dog.”
Joan Geitz read some poems, the first titled “Elevator,” written in 1978 by a former incarcerated person, Thomas Portelli, another about trying to rid himself of the pain of his years in prison. Joan Goodman showed up at the very end, as she usually does, & read a rambling memoir about Summers throughout her life.
I read at the end a poem for my friend Tamara now living in Costa Rica, a descriptive tribute titled “Tapestry.”
We are at the Social Justice Center in Albany each third Thursday, starting at 7:30PM for an open mic with (usually) a featured reader, $5.00 donation supports poetry events in the area & the work of the Social Justice Center.
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