2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose, June 2

Although it was June 2, it was the 1st Sunday, this misnomer the result of switching the day this month so that we can all go to the Pride Day festivities in Albany’s Washington Park, the next Sunday, which was the actual 2nd Sunday.

No matter, poets/writers showed up to read just the same. My co-host, Nancy Klepsch, took this one off & so I was the solo host. There were just 5 readers on the list, perhaps indicative of what happens when you switch days for a monthly event usually held on a different day of the month.

Rhonda Rosenheck talked about the soon-to-be published Thriving: An Anthology, of poetry, photographs, & prose writing, which she edited — look for it on Amazon. Her first poem was a Summer Solstice piece titled “Effigy,” written at an artists retreat in Iceland. She followed that up with a new midrash (i.e., Biblical exegesis) “Our Angels Rise & Fall,” based on verses from Genesis.

I wasn’t here last month, but if I had been I would’ve read “Crane Alley,” about the site of the 1886 Haymarket Riot in Chicago, so I read it this day; my 2nd poem was my entry to the Writers Institute call for texts about folks’ experiences with summer camps, my entry a poem titled “My Summer Camp.”

Avery Stempel, the proprietor of Collar City Mushrooms, where we were gathered, had 2 announcements in lieu of 2 poems, the 1st announcement about the establishment of a project about the history of the Albany poetry scene & that they were looking for pieces of remembrance about people & places in the scene in the early days; his 2nd announcement was about the NYS Assembly Bill A10375 to allow “the growth, cultivation, and adult use of psilocybin for the treatment of certain health conditions”; with the session ending soon it is not likely that the Assembly will take up the bill, but they are hopeful to re-introduce it in the next session.

Julie Lomoe read from her new self-published, spiral-bound chapbook, Proof of Process, “Red Alert,” about Donald Trump & a memoir of growing up in Wisconsin amid a similar pending dystopia; her 2nd poem was a celebrity-fantasy “Eclipse, the Brilliance of Charles Mingus,” on Mingus’ song, “Eclipse,” written for Billie Holiday (but not performed by her) & 1st recorded by Mingus in 1953.

Karen Fabiane read her poem “Finding the Car” that is included in the recent CAPS Poetry 25th Anniversary Anthology (I also have a poem included in it); her 2nd poem was was a tribute to Charles Bukowski from the Moonstone Arts Center anthology Remembering Charles Bukowski.

Join us the next time for real on the 2nd Sunday @ 2 for a poetry + prose open mic at Collar City Mushrooms, 333 2nd Ave., Troy, NY — it’s Free! & you can buy
mushrooms & mushroom products.