Third Thursday Poetry Night, September 21

Susan Comninos was the featured poet with a half-dozen of our regular attendees on the open mic list. This night’s Muse was not so much a literary poet but a poet of social justice, Archie, as he was known in the community with his homemade sign, “Stand Against Racism,” who recently went to that eternal peace vigil in the sky on August 14. During the open mic I read my poem “Communion of Saints” the most recent line added being, 

“Veteran Saint Archie, whose one name was enough, may our stands against racism erase it from our streets.”

First on the sign-up list was David Gonsalves, his first poem about being surrounded by the magic of what’s around him, then one titled “Ghost Song.” 

Ellen Rook had been the featured poet here back in April where she read from her just published book Suspended (Cathexis Northwest Press, 2023); this night she read a poem from an epistolary poetry project she had joined “Visiting Hours” about going to a nursing home which so often raises such deep thoughts.

Tom Bonville was here again with a poem that contained some writing advice, “Don’t Stop,” then a piece titled “River Eternal” about where the water comes from & the meaning it gives to our lives.

Sylvia Barnard is often first on the list but tonight ended further down the list; she read a piece from a recent trip to England with her daughter to the shrine for the English Saint Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas à Beckett).

Sadly at this point the batteries in my recorder went dead & Joan Goodman’s reading of 2 pieces went off into the night, as did the recording of my poem, & those of the featured reader. But as for the featured reader I had her book to consult.

Susan Comninos was the night’s featured reader & read largely from her recently published collection of poems Out of Nowhere (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2022) including the litany “Our Father, Our King,” the news-inspired poem of nudists at the Louvre “Naked Admission: a fantasy,” what she described as a "failed" ghazal “Creed: a still life” and the meditative “Commitment.” Having published her first book she has begun to work on the next & shared with us a quartern, a French form divided into, of course, 4 parts, her poem titled “A Body Breaks Up With Its Woman.” 

We gather each third Thursday of the month at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY at 7:30PM for a poetry open mic with a featured reader -- your $5.00 donation (more or less) supports poetry events & the work of the SJC.