19th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival - Thursday Afternoon, April 4

Back from lunch, a long table of poets at The Blue Moon Restaurant in the North Hills Shopping Center, I always look forward to their exquisite fried green tomatoes, I opted for the reading in the Regents Room.

Marc DiPaolo was the 1st reader, another transplant from New York, an Italian from Staten Island, that I am certainly familiar with from my single days in NYC. His work draws upon his youth but he included a piece titled “The Rose Withered in Concrete,” about a black student in his class when he was an adjunct at a New Jersey private college. Then a piece about being Italian in Oklahoma during COVID, “When I Had 5 Senses,” & the richly humorous “The Smallest Ass at the Family Reunion” from Fake Italian: An 83% True Autobiography with Pseudonyms and Some Tall Tales (Bordighera Press, 2021).

Sharon Edge Martin is a much-published Oklahoma writer who hosts a monthly poetry reading at Tidewater Winery in Drumright, OK. Her reading followed her own adage that “poetry has no boundaries” with poems on a variety of topics. “The Grandmothers Gather” was a response to the Russian attack on Mariopol, Ukraine; “How the World Works” was about poets v. politics; “Lucky Me” on being blessed with poetry & music, others. She included a segment from a biography in verse, “You Don’t Know Jack” about her husband’s father.

Britton Morgan is an active member of Oklahoma’s music & poetry community. Among the poems he read were a cluster from his handmade, mini chapbook (with poet Jessica Huntley who read later in the festival), Cross Timbers, “Trespassing,” “A Forged Oracle,” “Automatic Poem from Tarot,” & the title poem in the persona of a wolf. He also read what he described as the 1st poem he wrote, an essay titled “Harlan” about an ancient mound in the lake in Wagoner, OK where he lives.

I stayed in the Regents Room for the next session as well, of which the host was Cody Baggerly.  I had noticed him earlier because he was wearing a kaffiyeh (I gave him a copy of the Veterans For Peace Peace & Planet News with its stories of the ongoing assault on Gaza).

Shaun Perkins is the founder/director of the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry — who knew?! Her reading was focused on powerful women, witches from history & in myths & stories. In addition she not only encouraged us to cackle in response to her poems but got an enthusiastic audience response. Her poem “Mother Shipton” (1488 - 1561) was in the voice of the character herself. Others included “Hermione,” “Wicked Witch of the West,” & “Nasty Women” (the witches of MacBeth), & one about a male witch, “Listen to the Dead.”

Paul Austin has been a perennial reader at Scissortail, & is another transplant from NYC (& Boston). He has been an actor, director, and teacher for all his professional life in the theatre. One of the pieces he read was titled “How to Play Pinter’s Pauses & Silences.” But the killer performance was a piece with a long title I couldn’t catch that began “The Simple Riff…” which was profound in its simplicity, a cacophony of rationales, “Me, Me, Me” from all sides of the political spectrum delivered as only a master thespian could, or would dare.

The final reader was another ECU professor, Joshua Grasso, who writes speculative fiction stories. What he read this day was a strange, fascinating story titled “Doma Boy” about a house-hunting couple confronted with a property they love that comes with a house-spirit. What would you do? 

Featured reading

After a break with a leisurely time for dinner, we gathered back at the Estep Auditorium for a reading by Kai Goggin, host of the Wednesday Night Poetry open mic in Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas. She was lavishly introduced by ECU professor Steve Benton.

Kai Goggin is the author of the just-published poetry collection, advanced copies were available for sale after the reading, Mother of Other Kingdoms (Harbor Editions, 2024). She began with a poem, “Priest of the Invisible,” inspired by a quote from Wallace Stevens. The on to a couple of morning poems, “Coming to a Poem” & “Petals.” There were many, descriptive, mediative poems about birds, each of which she tried to give the proper scientific name, even when they were torturously difficult, & a poem (“I’ve Been Feeding a Monster”) about a caterpillar. Love, even when not the direct topic, was very much in many of the poems, including those of the birds. Her poem on the common blue violet was for Sappho & titled “Lesbian Flower,” & she read a list poem titled “Things I Love About this Generation of Queer Kids.” It was a wonderfully affirming reading of lush poems filled with the beauties of, & affection for the natural world.

After a book-signing we all adjourned to one of Ada’s fine establishments, Polo’s Restaurant, for a relaxed reception of poets & writers once again enjoying food, drinks & conversation. 

More of Scissortail to come.

19th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival - Thursday Morning, April 4

I was last here at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma in 2022 & was very glad to be back. I was first here in 2011, returning every other year until 2019, then back in 2022. Glad to be back for the poets I’ve met before & for the new poets to meet now.

Scissortail is two & a half days of often over-lapping readings by writers in poetry & prose. Each day started with a reading in Estep Auditorium in the ECU Campus Center, followed by readings in 2 to 3 locations during the afternoon, followed by a break for dinner, then a reading & book-signing by a featured reader back at Estep Auditorium. Meanwhile throughout the festival is a string of tables with books for sale by the readers, the tables staffed by volunteers from ECU.

The beloved ringmaster of this writing extravaganza is Ken Hada, Professor in the Department of English & Languages at ECU, whose welcoming comments & introduction this morning were done in a torn shirt, which to me was a signal of success & a call to buy a lottery ticket (i.e., the day has got to get better).

Estep Auditorium

In his comments Ken noted that the festival this year had 19 new authors reading, & this first segment started off with young writer Ky George, a graduate of the Red Earth MFA program at Oklahoma City University. Their poems invoked a female coyote (“Coyote Calls”), “Madonna Whore” (words she will teach her daughter), social justice eco-poems, & “Riding Bikes with Kids on the Res.” A most auspicious start to the Festival.

I first met Alan Berecka on the first day of my very first Scissortail Festival back in 2011.  I was surprised to hear that he grew up near Utica, NY, I enjoyed his poetry, & invited him to read at Poets in the Park in Albany, NY later that same year. Today, he read poems in a mix of topics, including baseball (e.g., “The Crack,” “Reconciliation,” “Why Barry Bonds Belongs in Cooperstown”), his parents, on being an English major (“Angling with D.H. Lawrence”), among others. He ended with a poem for his wife that he likes to end with, “Why Matter Might Matter.” 

Mark Walling is also a Professor in the Department of English & Languages at ECU & has long been associated with the Scissortail Festival. He read from his short story collection I Can Hear Everything from Here, recently published by Turning Plow Press, a story about a man alone wanting a Dalmatian then finds one he names “Disco.” He then noted that Ken Hada never reads at this festival & invited him to read 3 poems selected by students from his new book, Come Before Winter (Turning Plow Press, 2023), the poems “Blue Jay at Dawn,” “In the End,” & “When Happiness Comes.” Good to hear Ken's fine work again.

Then on to the inevitable conflicts — my travel companion from Albany, Sally Rhoades, was reading across the courtyard in the Regents Room, but since I hear her read frequently in Albany she gave me dispensation to attend another session. I opted to stay in Estep Auditorium to hear 3 writers I had never heard, or heard of.

Mark Walling did the introductions for this session. 

First up was Nikki Herrin, an ECU alum who is now a high school teacher & softball coach. She was resplendent in a red hat that she wore in memory of the late poet/activist Dorothy Alexander who was a regular here at Scissortail. She began with an impassioned poem on teaching, “Oh But We Get the Summers Off,” & then on to mostly short, intense dramatic poems about relationships, many sounding like sticky notes venting to her boyfriend. She ended with a poem about going home after a Scissortail Festival — it made me wonder how many others in this & past audiences had written poems after being here.

Wendy Dunmeyer read mostly from her recently published full-length collection My Grandmother’s Last Letter (Lamar University Press). She introduced her reading by saying “our subject matter chooses us,” her subject matter being the physical abuse as a child at the hands of her father, a chilling image of her surrounding her bed with her toys that would wake her. But her reading included some healing poems not in the book, finding the connections she needed in Nature, other poems about finding hope in her new, different self. 

Mark introduced one of his students as the next reader, another example of how our subject matter chooses us, in Ben Payne’s case the subject matter was his own family & what he learned working in their plumbing business, & Ben’s life as a student & a young man falling in (& out) of love. His poems included also a tribute to “English Professors,” & “Backup Plan” was a funny piece about how there is no money in poetry.

I had made the correct choice finding wonderful voices I’d never heard before.

You can find bios of all these fine poets & everyone else on the schedule at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival site.

Salon Salvage, March 30

This was #19 in this monthly series! There were 4 poets reading this night, 1 local, the rest from out-of-town, & 4 hosts, if one counts concluding comments by Matthew Klane. 

Steven Alvarez

Amie Zimmerman got the night going with a general welcome, then Michael (introduced as a “guest host”) introduced the 1st reader Steven Alvarez, who read 3 poems from 3 different books, not identified, but the pieces seem to be interrelated, & were read fast, almost pressured speech. The 1st seemed to be set in 2008 & depicted the scene in Times Square; the 2nd was apparently a connected story & titled “Land of Red Daylight 2;” the 3rd was a memoir of his father’s 11 months ago.

Shira Dentz

Amie introduced the 2nd reader, Shira Dentz, who is local. She began with the title poem from her 2020 book from PANK Books, Sisyphusina, a piece about women aging. Then on to a series of newer, eco-poems, pieces titled “Small Things” (micro-plastics), “Custom Made” (with the line “we need birds & blue sky”), “Greenway,” “Sparks,” & others. She concluded with a family memoir of the Bronx, “Black Flow” saying “this poem has scribbles in it” which she represented by crumbled paper.

Jenna Hamed

Hajar Hassaini, who, with Amie Zimmerman, is one of the co-coordinators of Salon Salvage, introduced the next reader, Jenna Hamed who read a piece of “instant poetry” printed out on a roll of pin-feed paper, titled “3/30/2024” — how instant is that! — a meditation on the war on Palestine, read quietly, in a flat voice, a string of automatic writing, some in Arabic, then on to a related issue, a link on her Instagram to a fundraiser for “HEAL Palestine,” which you can find @heal.palestine

Kamalya Omayna Youssef

Hajar introduced the final reader, but first called for a “palate cleansing” moment of silence. Kamalya Omayna Youssef took some time setting up her stacks of texts, read from a small press chapbook some political/revolutionary meditations as if they were fragments, then on to another stack of papers, an intensely introspective piece, perhaps a love poem, &/or on poems & language. She ended with “an old poem,” also fiddling with the booklet, to her family, titled “There’s a Hole in It.”

A grand, moving mix of themes & images, & even of the forms of production, the kind of thing Salon Salvage is known for. The curators are Amie Zimmerman, Matthew Klane, & Hajari Hussaini. You can find the event each last Saturday of the month at Weathered Wood in downtown Troy, NY, at 13 Second St.; the 7:00PM time seems to be the time they open the door. One can find information about the upcoming reading on the Facebook page, & on the Instagram page, salonsalvagetroy 

Third Thursday Poetry Night, March 21

Back in June, 2006, the Lark St. Bookshop where I had been holding the Third Thursday Poetry Night since February, 2004 closed. I approached the Director of the Social Justice Center, Victorio Reyes Asili, to ask if the storefront space there was available for the monthly open mic. Interestingly enough, Victorio had been a featured reader at the Bookshop in April 2004; welcomed us to the Center’s space as the Third Thursday home & that continued to today, with the featured reader this night the very same Victorio Reyes Asili, Ph.D. 

But before we got into the open mic list, I invoked our Muse for the night, the gone American poet  Jayne Cortez (1934 - 2021) by reading her poem “Find Your Own Voice” from her book Jazz Fan Looks Back (Hanging Loose Press, 2002); Cortez was in Albany twice to read her work, first in February, 1989 at the NYS Writers Institute, then again in October, 2010 at the Sanctuary for Independent Media, in Troy.

The first open mic reader on the list was Mia Morosoff, who is Victorio’s mother; she read a sad, longing poem about a man waiting for a train, leaving. Sally Rhoades read her poem “I Can’t Hear You,” that she wrote at her first time the Scissortail Creative Festival in Ada, OK, about a native chief inviting her to find her own voice (included in her just-published poetry booklet Where Light Falls). 

Ray Drumsta, here for the 1st time, had been the 1st to arrive & helped me to set up; he read a piece titled “Another Plane,” a portrait of a combat veteran needing to go back. 

Out featured reader, Victorio Reyes Asili, read largely from an unpublished chapbook, beginning with a poem titled “Erasure Re-Mix 1994 After Biggie” based on the text of Juicy, a famous hip-hop piece by The Notorious B.I.G. (1972 - 1997), the poem preserving the last 2 syllables of each verse, the poet giving the classical prosodic names for the feet. A major he piece he read/performed was from an incomplete “Crown of Sonnets,” (see the footnote below) 9 sonnets, in the language, style, & content of hip hop, the lines short as in song lyrics. He concluded with 2 short sections from a verse novel, 2 Hispanic characters in dialogue, talking about brujas (witches/healers). Victorio’s performance was a compelling mix of hip-hop infused with the academic tradition of analysis. 

After a short break we returned to the open mic list, & I led off with my poem about an astronomical phenomenon (no, not an eclipse) but “The Transit of Venus.” David Gonsalves followed with a short piece, as are many of his poems about teenage grand kids.

Austin Houston read a tender poem titled “Pillar” about his father. Maria Sohn’s piece titled “Endless Summer” was about a relationship.

The final performer was Victorio’s sister, Taina Asili, singer/songwriter, she recited the lyrics of a song on economic democracy, with the line that “liberation is on the horizon.”

It isn’t always such a family affair here (although poets are perhaps family), but you can join us each month on the third Thursday for a featured poet & an open mic for community writers, at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY, 7:30PM (sign-up anytime after 7:00PM) — your donations support poetry events in Albany & the work of the Social Justice Center.

The footnote:

A Crown of Sonnets is a sequence of sonnets usually addressed to a person or concerned with a single theme; each successive sonnet uses as its first line the last line of the preceding sonnet. The final sonnet ends with the same line that begins the first sonnet, thus completing the circle. An advanced form is called a heroic crown made up of 15 sonnets, but the final binding sonnet is made up of all the first or last lines of the preceding 14 poems.