Third Thursday Poetry Night, April 18

Not only was this the third Thursday of the month, it was also Poem-in-your-pocket Day as part of National Poetry Month, & it was the birthday of the great Beat poet, Bob Kaufman. The featured poet was Alan Casline, whose poetry friends filled up the sign-up sheet & the seats in the SJC. Of course, the night’s Muse was Bob Kaufman & I recited his poem/prayer, “Believe, Believe.”

Sylvia Barnard read 1st, her favorite spot on the list; her poem “Signs of Spring” was about what she saw out her window. David Gonsalves read a similar descriptive piece titled “Landscape in 12 Colors.” Edie Abrams showed up to honor her friend Alan & read a poem proclaiming “I’m Zooming.” Joe Krausman dreamed of having hair again “Hair Today.”

Mark W. O’Brien read poem set in California in the days of the Gold Rush, “Bidwell Bar,” from a forthcoming poetry collection from FootHills Publishing. Joan Goodman was back in town & joined us to read a sestina with the end-words from the work of the American writer Brian Doyle (1956 - 2017). Ray Drumsta was new here, read a poem about what we do, “Getting On.”

The featured poet, Alan Casline, is a publisher of broadsides, books, Rootdrinker newsletter, a mapper of watersheds, a student of the I Ching, & host of poetry events at Pine Hollow Arboretum. His connections to poets of both the 20th & 21st Centuries run varied & deep. Alan began with a poem written on New Year’s Day 1974 in California, “an adolescent poem” (he said) on Death for poet Michael McClure, then on to a poetic lecture, based on the I Ching, titled “Pillars of Local Poetry.” On to a grand melange of poems, such as descriptive, meditative pieces (“The New Crescent Moon,”  “Tiny Blue Bird,” etc.), 3 poems on War, poems from a trip cross-country in 2019 with his son Tom (“Mountain Meadows,” “There is a Hill”), even “A Wild Ride on Normanskill Bridge.” & others. Just what his friends & family have come to expect from this pillar of the local poetry scene.

After a break for Alan to sell books & greet fans, we continued on with the open mic. I invoked my right as the host to read next, my tribute poem to Bob Kaufman referencing, bouncing off Kaufman’s “Believe, Believe.” July Lomoe was putting together a self-published collection of poems titled Poems from the Slush Pile & read an example, “Red Alert,” about Donald Trump’s election. She was followed by her husband Robb Smith with a series of Haiku for Poetry Month.

Coming up from East Nassau, was Annabel Lee who read from a poetry chapbook of 7 of her poems, inspired by the work of Bernadette Mayer & by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Not the Joker Man,” with the recurring pattern of “this…, not that…” Also from East Nassau, Phil Good read a poem dedicated to Alan Casline, “Coffee & Cookies.” 

Therese Broderick read an inverted Haiku (7 - 5 - 7) after seeing the Solar eclipse. She was followed by her husband, Frank Robinson who read an announcement for the “Dan Wilcox Imitation Open Mic” in Catfish Corners, in Green County, a very funny spoof (Thank you, Frank!).

Marea Gordett is not here often so it was a treat to hear her work again; she read a new poem, “A Story of Snails,” inspired by an interview with the former Supreme Court Justice, Steven Breyer, which sounds like a prose tale, pondering good & evil, & the meaning of art versus famine. Elaine Kenyon followed to read a poem by the late Stu Bartow from his book Reasons to Hate the Sky, the poem titled “Reasons to Hate Birds.” The final poet of the night was Tom Bonville, a frequent reader here, wrote his poem this week, “All the Truth,” about a woman at an open mic, reminding him of a the death of his own memory of a young girl in an automobile accident, the reader courageous to be reading the poem.

We gather every month on the third Thursday, open mic starts about 7:30, a featured poet goes on about 8:00, then we continue the open mic. Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany — one poem in the open mic, $5.00 donation supports poetry events & the work of the SJC. Join us.