Pine Hollow Arboretum Open Mic, August 18

This series that had been suspended for the pandemic now seems to be back on a monthly basis. This night there was no featured poet, but plenty of open mic poets to share their work. The reading was held round-robin style with each poet reading 1 poem in each round, some went all 3 rounds, others less.

Alan Casline served as host/moderator & began the night with a poem by the founder of the Arboretum, the late John Abbul, M.D., the poem written February 19, 2001, “Belongings.” In other rounds Alan read a poem titled simply “Holy Moly,” the another filled with grim images “The Goddess of War;” somewhere’s in-between a poem dedicated to Mark O’Brien’s cellar, “The Old Cellar Blues.”

In the first round I read one of my 3x5 poem cards what could serve as an introductory piece, “Content Advisory;” then later “Confused About Pronouns,” & at the end the salacious “Author Photo.”

Paul Amidon only read in 2 rounds, a piece titled “Bus Ride,” about the regular riders as he went to visit his mother in a nursing home; then “American Dream,” an “old guy’s commentary.”

Francesca Sidoti’s first entry was a social justice piece titled “Skin,” later a gentle lullaby “Child’s Heart,” & the title poem from her book “Civil Twilight.”

David Gonsalves had just a couple of short pieces, which seems to be his specialty, one was titled “At the Gross Hotel,” the other, about a performance was untitled.

Tim Verhaegen often writes graphically, humorously about his youth growing up in Eastern Long Island. Both poems he read this night had that as its theme; the first titled “Grandfather Amagansett” evoked the history & nature of the place in a single character; in the 2nd piece “Thelma Talking Harry in East Hampton…” he effectively performed the voices of both characters.

Tom Corrado weaved an intricate literary web through the 2 pieces he read, the first “Disconnecting the Dots” inspired by a visit to NYC’s Strand Bookstore with references to the experimental novelist David Markson (1927 -2010) (who was born in Albany) & to Alma Mahler &, of course, Frank O’Hara, with his 2nd piece “particulars” from Shakespeare, chunks & sound dumps from Frankenstein & Tiki Tok, or so he said.

Joe Krausman seemed obsessed with rhyme, railing against some un-named critics who claims, Joe said, “rhyme is dead,” while we all know pop music thrives on rhyme, both the inane & the profound. All 3 of his poems had rhyme (both the inane & the profound), one from an old picture of him with a fiddle, another from memory about jumping in a river, & the 3rd simply another rhyme from memory.

Tom Bonville hung in until the end with 3 poems, a master of the childhood memoir, the 1st titled “Summertime” a memory of Yankee Stadium, that morphed into an old man’s rant about physics, “but what about baseball?;” then on to the 2 poems he read last night at the Social Justice Center, on the end of America, & on Jerry Lewis’ laugh.

Mark O’Brien had 3 poems to share, the 1st, “Every Angle” was based on a poem by Peggy Seely, then a couple of memoir poems, “Tres Amigos,” then one about the TV show “The Rifleman” which aired from September 1958 to April 1963.

So if you were there (also a title of a 1950s era TV show) on this night in August 2023 you would have experienced this reading in a different manner, but this is as close as I can get here on DWx, where, as it says, “it’s not the Truth, but it’s pretty darn close.”

See the calendar of events on the website for the Hudson Valley Writers Guild for information about this & other open mic events in the area — & come join us.