2nd Sunday @2: Poetry + Prose, April 14

What would National Poetry Month be without 2nd Sunday @2? So here we were back among the mushrooms, the co-hosts me & Nancy Klepsch. 

Rachel Baum led off with 2 poems from her new chapbook How to Rob a Convenience Store (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2024), “From the Rear View Look Back” & “Mirror,” 2 ways of looking it seems. I followed with a couple of older pieces, from November 2010 a found poem composed of the book titles from The New York Times best seller lists, “Never Let Me Go,” & “Star Maps” about how the Greeks viewed the constellations differently.

Joe Krausman began with one of my favorite poems of his, “A Passionate Accountant to His Love,” then on to “The Great Choir of Being” how everyone dies someday. In a related mode, Tim Verhaegen said he was reading poems about dead people, the first about an aunt he thinks about a lot “Florence Verhaegen: Lots of Times,” the 2nd poem about a young friend of 15 who suicided, “You Said I Was Your Best Friend.”

Tom Corrado is now up to (at least) number 754 in his series of “Screen Dumps,” this one linking the unknown to the beach to 45 rpm records to Henry Miller & Annie Hall. Joel Best’s 1st poem titled “Unsettled” was addressed to that ambiguous “you,” while his 2nd poem was titled “Two Different Endings,” so the doesn’t have to introduce it, he said.

Tom Bonville had only 1 poem, about the death of his “Good Dog.” Co-host Nancy Klepsch read about how she wants a real bagel in her poem “Damn Bagel,” then read a rant against male poets attacking Taylor Swift, “Dear Taylor.” It has literally been years since I’ve seen Ed Rinaldi reading his poems out, today he read a poem about the end of Winter “Squirrel at the Window” (& thinking of the koi in the pond & flowers).

Anne Hoenstein read what sounded to me like a break-up poem, “Prayer of Wicked & Fire,” then read “Song Mountain Intangible” a mix of description & pondering. 

The last reader was new here, Jeided, said she was a nurse, a poet, & an activist about to go to  the West Bank; her 1st poem, “Trigger Warning” was a political rant about Palestine & racism & oppression, her 2nd piece was titled “She Does It,” a portrait of a woman in pain, giving up control -- good to have Jeided here.

It was a nice mix of the regulars, poets from past days, & a new voice. This happens — usually — as the title says on the 2nd Sunday @2, at Collar City Mushrooms, 333 2nd Ave. Troy, NY — but be warned that in June the 2nd Sunday open mic will occur on June 2nd, so that we can all attend the Pride Parade in Albany on June 9. 

Saratoga Senior Center Poetry/Storytelling Open Mic, April 12

Our host, Rachel Baum, got the afternoon rolling into poetry by reading a poem titled “Hoodie” by January Gill O’Neil, then introduced the day’s featured poet.

Rhonda Rosenheck is a member of the Board of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild, runs Poetry Circle a critique group on the 2nd Monday of each month at the Schenectady County Public Library, & is a frequent participant in area poetry open mics. As she says, “I write sometimes.” She also talked about her obsessive writing projects, including daily Haiku, & read some Haiku (as well as other short poems, such as the “Lost Scarves”); also, limericks from the Bible, & even an example of her “crime poems,” “Slightly Bitter,” in an obsessive form, “tumbling rhyme.” An energetic, entertaining reading.

To start off the open mic portion of the afternoon, Rachel Baum read the title poem from her recently published poetry chapbook How to Rob a Convenience Store (Cowboy Jamboree Press). Gail Nixon followed with a pandemic poem, “Chaos,” then the self-affirmation poem, “Who Am I?”

Victoria Twomey read 2 poems from her 2023 poetry collection Glimpse (Kelsay Books), “Stadium Gods” & “White Dress on a Clothesline,” visual poems as befitting a painter of visual art. 

David (the 1st of 3 on the sign-up sheet) Soval read just one poem, titled “Suicide.” David Graham read “Totality” an eclipse poem, then a poem about the loons at Indian Lake in the Adirondacks. I followed with my eclipse poem, “Spathe is the Plathe.” Joyce Ruben read a piece about staying inside titled with a pun, “The Hides of March,” then one titled “Different Gardens.”

David Gonsalves began with “Neighbors,” a parody (or one might say, cynical take) on a Robert Frost poem, then a description of “Daybreak.”  Jay Rogoff, who has many books under his poet's belt, read a new poem titled “Why I’m Here” which told the story of the Jewish migration & his family from Belarus, the story of his grandmother & his parents.

Suzanne Rancourt came in towards the end & read from her phone (like so many of the young poets do), a poem about woodcocks mating in the backyard (& somehow I feel there is an [un]intentional pun in there).

This is a rare daytime poetry open mic held on the 2nd Friday of each month at the Saratoga Springs Senior Center, starting at 1:00PM, free, but check-in with the nice lady at the desk.

Out of Bennington All-Genre Open Mic, April 9

A post-eclipse gathering of poets, from lots of places. Our host Charlie Rossiter likes to do the 2-round thing, as long as the poets have 2 poems (which, of course, they do).

I was “there” early & was first on the sign-up list. In the 1st round I reprised my poem from yesterday’s eclipse party at UAlbany reading poetry for a thousand or more students & other celebrants, “Spathe is the Plathe” about the 2017 so-called “great American eclipse.” In my 2nd round, an old poem for an even older celebration “What Passover Has Taught Me.”

Cheryl A. Rice read “I Forgot the Glasses,” found another one, about our disappointments in the sky & elsewhere. In her 2nd round she read a piece titled “Breakfast Solo” sprung from a poem she heard at a reading.

Tom Nicotera began with a longer poem about a trail head library at a nature center in Woodbury, CT,  stories in the forest & the “book” of Nature. In the 2nd round he read a  a poem he found in his taxes that he forgot he had written, about hunting bears.

Bill Thwing brought out his guitar for both rounds; in the 1st round “Foggy Days & Foggy Nights” about scary nightmares as a scout; in the 2nd round, “Mountain Meadow” with lyrics written by his wife.

Our host, Charlie Rossiter, read a poem about attending a concert at Bennington College, the lights going out & back on during the “Concert to Dispel Demons.” The 2nd poem a piece of American working-class nostalgia, “For the Frederick I70 Rest Stop Torn Down."

Sharon Smith read a poem with a tantalizing title, “Hearing the Shaman Boogie, or Is That a Waltz?,”with a complex mix of dead dogs & her late Mother, numbers & other signs from friendly spirits; in the 2nd round a piece from last Fall about listening to the rain, “Birds Speak.”

Julie Lomoe also had an “eclipse poem” of sorts, a memoir of Charles Mingus at the Newport Jazz Festival, the Mingus band playing his tune “Eclipse;” in her 2nd round she read a poem from 2014 “Blinded by the Spotlight,” about reading a poem on stage surrounded by photos of stars of the past.

Naomi Bindman’s 1st round poem was written in the Fall, “Interstices,” with leaves, song & love; & for the final poem of the night she read “Shabbat,” which was brought to her mind by my poem earlier “What Passover Has Taught Me.” 

This monthly gathering is on Zoom each 2nd Tuesday of the Month; if you would like to join it & you are not yet on Charlie’s email list, write him at charlierossiter@gmail.com & ask him to send you the Zoom link.

Eclipse Poetry, April 8

Paul Grondahl, Dan Wilcox, Natalya Sukhonos

What would a solar eclipse be like without poetry? Actually, I guess it would be like any other astronomical event — another reason to look up at the sky. But the visionary Opalka Endowed Director of the New York State Writers Institute, Paul Grondahl, thought that at least at a university setting, poets should be be there to provide, if not commentary, at least a literary perspective, so he invited me & poet Natalya Sukhonos to provide that perspective while hundreds of students stared into Space (with the necessary Eclipse glasses).

The day was a bit overcast & in Albany, NY we were not in the path of totality, & I had given my glasses away to a student, but the ambient light did darken somewhat, as if the Sun were turning the rheostat down briefly.

Natalya’s eclipse poem was titled “The Journey of Eclipse,” written specifically for this occasion, mixing together images of the characters from Waiting for Godot & of the Cheshire cat, invoking silence. She also read 2 other poems that pondered the stars, one inspired by Rilke, “Lost Souls,” the other an ekphrastic piece from a painting, “Night Sky #16 by Vija Celmins.” 

I too had 3 poems, the word play on the term “Physics” (both as the type of science & the old-fashioned term for “laxative”), a poem inspired by “The Transit of Venus;” my eclipse poem was based on watching TV news coverage of the 2017 Great American Eclipse, & is titled “Spathe is the Plathe,” which one can find on my Blog here.

Check out the work of the NYS Writers Institute here, & sign-up for their email list, if you haven’t already.

19th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival - Grand Finale, April 6

Indeed, a Grand Finale — the last event (#25 for the Festival) of Saturday morning, all gathered in Estep Auditorium. Quraysh Ali Lansana is the author of 20 books in poetry, nonfiction & children’s literature. His role as host & consultant on the documentary film Tulsa Race Massacre: 100 Years Later earned him an Emmy, as well as other awards. You can read a more detailed bio on the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival website.

The 1st part of his presentation was titled Killing the Negative: A Conversation on Art & Verse, based on a touring exhibition, a collaborative project of visual artist Joel Daniel Phillips & Quraysh that explores the intersections of representation, truth & power. The exhibition is titled Killing the Negative: Poetic Interventions; find the information here.

Quraysh included a few slides of Phillips drawing to show examples from the exhibit.  The exhibition also includes poems by select American poets, including recent US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green,  Randall Horton, Rose McLarney, Moheb Soliman, Candace G. Wiley & Ken Hada, who was invited up to read his poems in the exhibit, among them one about a photograph of a Blind Street Musician, “Even the Music.”

Then on to Qurahsh’s The Skin of Dreams: New and Collected Poems 1995 - 2018, a generous selection of his work, including from the 2014 collaboration with Christopher H. Stewart The Walmart Republic (Mongrel Empire Press). He read from a series of short poems with “Bible Belt” in the title, & a piece inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. (“violence is the language of the unheard”) “Elephants in the Room,” then on to an essay about his 40th high school reunion in Enid, Oklahoma, probing issues of race. He ended with another poem in multiple short parts, on racism & hate, “Symbolism,” with the theme of “hate is lazy, love is work” — the perfect note to end with, & to conclude these very busy 3 days of readings by a vast, complex variety of writers from Oklahoma & beyond, in Ada.

19th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival - Saturday Morning, April 6

The last sessions of any festival are always bitter-sweet moments, the end of a communal gathering of old friends, new friends, leaving to catch flights, or to get home after a long drive before dark. And interestingly enough it was Ken Hada’s birthday, still another reason to shake his hand, get a big bear hug, thank him for another memorable Scissiortail Festival.

The first morning session was also the last of the choices between competing readings. I opted for the Estep Auditorium, more from a mental flip of a coin than any more conscious process.

The first reader was Paul Juhasz who is yet another graduate of the Red Earth MFA program. His stories & poems were lively, often funny. “Where the Wild Things Were” was a memoir of his youths pushing back at their suburban lives. Then went on to new poems, including the ironically titled “In a Children’s Museum,” then a poem titled  “My Last Moment” about a conversation with an ex reciting lines from Prince together (which he dedicated to me, since I continue to wear a customary beret, albeit not raspberry color, in this sea of cowboy hats & baseball caps). His “Buying Condoms at 51” was, of course, laugh-out-loud funny, & he ended appropriately enough with “Leaving Scissortail.”

Roseanna Alice Boswell is originally from upstate New York & currently is a Ph.D. student in English-Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University. The 1st poem she read, “Queen Anne’s Lace,” was about returning to the Adirondacks to visit her mother. Her poems were from a forthcoming book, many with running titles (i.e., too long for me to transcribe), such as “I Dream My Brother Tells Me He Was Wrong About…” & “Two Months After My Sisters Funeral…” & other poems about death, “Bereavement Rate” about her sister’s funeral, & “Unseeing Ghosts” about returning from a funeral with her mother, but all written in a descriptive, meditative manner without undo sentimentality. It sounded like an interesting work-in-progress.

Corbett Buchly is a writer based in Texas. He began with “Writing Backward on a Cave Wall,” as if the dead were speaking to us, then on to a couple poems about his deceased father. He also read on a variety of topics from the the natural world, such as a recent supernova, on “Peripheral Sight,” & an apocalyptic eco-poem “When the World Ends.” A number of his poems were in parts, such as his apology for his ancestors “Generic Cultural Identity." There was good advice, “Do Not Rent to Poets,” & he ended on Hope, “This Window Through.” Some fine poetic fun.

I had read with Molly Sizer in a session in Estep Auditorium in 2022. She is a retired rural sociologist, & began by noting that Oklahoma has “small mountains & big poets” — indeed! I felt a connection to her poem “Coyote’s Way” having written a few coyote poems myself, then a series of philosophical, meditative poems, I particularly liked one, “Hard Luck,” based on the quote by Woody Guthrie, “working man’s hands are the hardest hand to play.” Of course there were “sociological poems” including “District 32” about the confluence a union election in Southwest Oklahoma & the attack on Gaza, another, “Life Begins with a Scream.” She also ended with a leaving Scissortail poem, “Beignets & Bread Pudding.”

Continuing on to the last of the Scissortail readers in Estep, first reader was Paul Bowers who is the founder of Turning Plow Press, which if you’ve been paying attention has been mentioned frequently as the press of many of the Scissortail readers. He read from a piece titled “Tortuga Jorge,” about a clash of cultures between 2 women in a retirement community, & hibernating turtles, much of the humor from repetition & the way the story circles back on itself.

Denise Tolan was the judge of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest, as mentioned in the previous Blog entry, & is another of the graduates of the Red Earth MFA program mentioned so often in these Blogs. She read 3 prose pieces on the subject of childhood abuse the first, in which she has a talk with her mother, Part 1 from “A Very Short History of Abuse in 5 Parts.” Then a section from a long essay, “Things that Go Boom,” comparing her father to waiting for Mt. Vesuvius to erupt, then from an essay “Betrayal by Blood,” the story of her mother escaping with her & her brother. Difficult, but necessary, to listen to.

Christopher Murphy was also one of those I read with here in 2022, another prose writer, who, when introduced, received an enthusiastic ovation from his students in the audience. His working-class story was set in Boston, a tale of violence by rivals from high school, with a fierce fight & a car chase. A vivid piece of good writing.

Maria Polson Veves read selections from 2 of her 4 poetry books. From The Breaking Place (Stonecrop Press), COVID poems, she read the title poem, others on going to the dentist, or getting a mammogram, others. Her 2017 collection Church People was an Oklahoma Book Award finalist, poems about the very human conflicts that occur in any congregation. My favorite title was very telling, “Lutherans Behaving Badly.”

There was one more reading, the Grand Finale, this morning that will be covered in the next Blog. 

19th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival - Friday Afternoon/Evening, April 5

During the lunch break, poets seemed to scatter, & we found some at the Brickhouse on Main St., where Ron Wallace shared some of his “cat fries” with me, otherwise known as “Prairie oysters” or “Colorado oysters”, depending where you are; I wonder what they call them in the Adirondacks?

Back to the readings, & I opted for the 3 readers at the Regents Room, all new writers to me.

Heather Levy is a born and bred Oklahoman and graduate of Oklahoma City University’s Red Earth MFA program for creative writing. She read a couple chapters from her forthcoming novel Hurt for Me, 1st selection from chapter 1 in which the protagonist, a woman named Echo, is on the run & shops for pre-natal vitamins. The 2nd selection was from later in the novel where Echo is undercover to help track down a sex-trafficing ring. Readers can follow her on X and IG @heatherllevy and explore her website at www.heatherlevywriter.com

I had met Cody Baggerly in earlier sessions, he was wearing a keffiyeh & I shared with him a copy of the Veterans For Peace newspaper Peace & Planet News with its articles on the destruction of the Gaza & the Palestinian people. He is a graduate of East Central University, where he received his degree in English and Literature. He read from a work-in-progress that might be called "Somewhere Between." He said that his biggest influences are the farm & house he grew up in, & the music that has influenced him. He read 2 pieces inspired by the Scissortail Festival, a piece just written from his memory of last year's festival, & another titled “This Morning” written last year about his mother (who was here today in the audience). As for the inspirations from music, he read his “most rejected poem,” “Rock’n’Roll Prairie Fire,” another on Summer in Oklahoma inspired by Bob Seeger, “Summer Fire” (John Fogarty), “Camp Fire Fortunes,” & 2 poems inspired by Sam Cooke’s songs. One poem not in his book was inspired by the attack on Gaza “Where Our Eyes Can’t See.”

Remi Recchia (he/him), PhD, is a trans poet, essayist, and editor from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He started with 2 walking poems, the 1st a love poem/memoir, the 2nd about his back spasm he named “Sparkie,” as if it were a dog. His pantoum titled “An Image” (which was of a statue of Adam & Eve) was about being trans, while a poem in the form of a golden shovel about the ending of a relationship used a line from Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a fly buzz …), & others. Again, it’s another reason to come here to be surprised by the work of writers I had not yet heard.

The last afternoon session (but not the last of the day) was in Estep Auditorium, for 3 veteran writers from Scissortail Festivals in the past.

Rob Roensch teaches at Oklahoma City University. He read from an early section in his novel, In The Morning, the City is the Prairie (Belle Point Press, 2023). The narrator is a high school dropout & the setting of the episode was a protest by teachers at a state capitol in 2018, vivid descriptions of the swirling crowds & the chaos that often happens at such events.

Cullen Whisenhunt, another graduate of Oklahoma City University's Red Earth MFA program, read from his new book Until Air Itself is Tinted (Turning Plow Press), a flock of poems about birds, geese, juncos, vultures, hawks, & even the Scissortail fly-catcher (of course!). Among others, he read an ekphrastic poem, a tornado poem, even a poem about a pig pasture, as well as a genre unique to Oklahoma, “the McAlester poem.” A total Oklahoma experience.

I first met Rilla Askew here at a Scissortail Festival when she & her husband Paul Austin were splitting their time between Oklahoma & Woodstock, NY; they’re now in Oklahoma full time. Rilla is the author of 5 novels, as well as books of shorter fiction. But today, for the 1st time at Scissortail she read her poetry. She began with “They Tell It Wrong” in the persona of Eve, & a poem on a related theme (i.e., snake) “Work.” She read poems on a rodeo, on immigrant workers (“Shadow Work Force”), a poem set in New Mexico, & “As If We Knew” reflecting on the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Prose, poetry, all good writing is putting one right word after another.

After a dinner break we were back in the Estep Auditorium for the reading by the featured reader, novelist Steve Yarborough. But 1st, a reading by this year’s winner of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest, Glory Curda, from Oklahoma City University, about driving through a snowstorm, “7AM Outside Gallup, New Mexico.” The judge of the contest was Denise Tolan, another graduate of The Red Earth MFA program. I hope to see Glory reading here in the future.

Mark Walling introduced Steve Yarborough, who is currently a professor in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College. One can find a detailed bio on the Scissortail Festival blog. He read from his most recent novel, Stay Gone Days (Ig Publishing, 2022), a section set in the segregated schools in Mississippi. A big part of the charm of this reading was Steve’s voice, a sonorous Mississippi accent. I don’t know if there is an audio-book version of the author reading, but if you see one you should check it out.

One can find bios of each of the readers at the festival at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival Blog.

19th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival - Friday Morning, April 5

Once again, choices, choices, choices — 

I opted for the readers in Estep Auditorium for my 1st stop of the day. Benjamin Myers was the 2015-2016 Poet Laureate of the State of Oklahoma and is the author of four books of poetry. He read from his most recent, The Family Book of Martyrs (Lamar University Press, 2022), starting with “Decoration Day,” then the discursive, detailed “Listening to Reggae at the Nashville Airport" (that he dedicated to fellow poet Hank Jones, who was also here at Scissortail). As one would expect from the title of the book there were a string of poems about the older generation, such as “My Grandfather’s Fake Rolex,” & a trio about his father, ”My Father on the Diving Board,” “Storm Cellar,“ “What Peter Looked Like Walking on Water.” Ben is another poet that I met at my first Scissortail in 2011, & he continues to scribble out good, reflective poetry.

R. Anjum, center; S. Rhoades, right; D. Wilcox, left

Rubeen Anjum, from Dallas, TX, by contrast was new to me, & her work was quite different stylistically from most of what I’ve been hearing at this festival — more fragmented, less discursive, string of images & words. She began with a poem/essay “Blue Diamonds” about COVID-19, then on to a more recent piece describing a man in hospice. Some of her poems were from her full-length collection My Photo Album (Finishing Line Press, 2023), such as the sonnet “Journey” (with words from Robert Frost in her head). “Dervish from Dallas” was her
thoughts on a plane, like a list of words & images, & she ended with the brightly musical “You Dance with Me” (which I did the next day).

On to the next session, across the courtyard, to the Regents Room, where Josh Grasso was the MC. 

Andrew Geyer is a prose fiction writer, another whom I’ve heard read at previous Scissortail Festivals. He introduced his short story as from a cycle titled “All that is Holy,” with characters he said we have heard before; the story was titled “The Rainbow is Salty and Smells of the Sea,” from the point-of-view of character Anna about her near-death experience — it was like a riff on the story of Persephone.

Joey Brown is a fun person with whom to hang out at Scissortail — & elsewhere, I suspect. Her first poem titled “Making a Hand” is an expression that was new to me, it means one has done a good thing. Her poems were very much of place & the people living in it, “Drought” about an old house shifting; “Black Jack After a Fire” (a kind of oak); a poem about love, “Tributary;” & “Old Home Week,” about memory, Oklahoma towns & how/why she got there. She introduced a poem about a company meeting online by saying she was “reading a poem I probably shouldn’t.” And even though the eclipse was still a few days off she read “Missing the Eclipse” (she will be coming home from work). 

For the final session of the morning I was back at the Estep Auditorium. 

John Graves Morris lives in Lawton, OK & is a Professor of English at Cameron University, & is a regular at Scissortail. His poems often had long titles, some, as in his first poem, “This Is a Reply to an Internet Troll…” were longer than the poem (& longer than I could transcribe on one hearing), & all were descriptive meditations on the topic at hand. For example, a poem about long-term memory recalling faces, “All the Words There Are,” & an eco-poem about a severe drought & heat wave, “Bodies Littering the Floor Southwest Oklahoma, 2023” (imitating the poems of Arthurs Sze, who was a featured reader here in 2022).   There were poems for/about his father & a couple about birds, one responding to a line from a student, “Never say yes to a gas station Moon pie” — hmm?

I had mentioned Jessica Huntley earlier as a co-author with Britton Morgan of the mini-zine Cross Timbers (2022). She read a series of ekphrastic poems, often abstracting her emotions, a couple from Cross Timbers, “Still Life with Horse in Window,” & “Graduation into Surrealism” based on a Dali painting. Others with titles like “Lotus Blooming Under an Eclipse,” “Jungian Shadow,” & the rhyming “Rain Dance.” The thing about a good ekphrastic poem is that one does not have to see the art to dig the poem.

Quinn Carver Johnson is the author of The Perfect Bastard (Curbstone Press, 2023), a poetry collection about queerness and class in the world of professional wrestling. They began with a “perfect bastard” poem, then a grim description of of a declining city “Cheap Heat Action City.” I know that I’ve never heard any pro-wrestling Haiku but Quinn read 3 new "Death Match Haiku." Another new poem was titled “Dinosaurs,” in which the extinct creatures were capitalists, & “Ode to the Pink Cowboy Hat” was a response to the hit song “Boys Don’t Cry” & a tip of the hat to the wrestler Cowboy Bob Horton. Quite a wild ride indeed.