2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose, December 10

I was on my own this time as the Host, but it was easy to handle with just 4, including me, on the sign-up sheet. It was a casual, collegial gathering, exchanging not only poems but elephant jokes (I won’t repeat them).

Rhonda Rosenheck began with a piece from a workshop on metaphor, “Morse Code,” a cup of warm tea; her second piece was a personal memoir about a deathwatch for a fiancé, “Counting Blessings on My Fingers.”

One has to pay close attention when David Gonsalves gets up to read, his poems tend to go by fast — his first piece was about the sun & word play “Candle & Calendar,” his next piece was a list poem.

I read a poem from a few years ago that was part of the Poetic License project at the Art Society of Kingston, “Writing Crows” that inspired a painting by S.L. Ritka, then, holiday tradition, I read Enid Dame’s (1943 - 2003) cross-cultural “Holiday Poem.”

We are here at Collar City Mushrooms because Avery Stempel makes the space available each 2nd Sunday; his first poem began with a quote from the sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982), the poem composed of quotes from a CNN report on robots, with the refrain “they live;” then another piece composed of words from someone else’s mouth, this from the things Avery’s Dad’s cousin said, “No Peaches.”

Put 4 poets in a room & it’s better than football (in my opinion).

2nd Sunday @ 2 takes place at Collar City Mushrooms, 333 2nd Ave., Troy — an open mic for poetry + prose — & you can buy mushrooms to take home.