All-Genre Open Mic Out of Bennington, May 14

This is a monthly Zoom open mic, so Tom Nicotera & I plotted to each read our poems recently published in the new anthology of baseball poems Who’s Your Team? (Orenaug Mountain Publishing, 2024). The host of the open mic is Charlie Rossiter; there were 2 rounds, 1 poem each round.

I was up first with my entry to Who’s Your Team? a parody/pastiche of the opening of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” my poem titled “October Land” (I can’t imagine Eliot at a baseball game, a hot dog in one hand, a beer in the other). In the 2nd round I read my poem titled “My Summer Camp” submitted to a call for entries from the NYS Writers Institute.

Ginny Folger’s 1st round poem, “The Afterlife, if Indeed There is One,” was published in the Spring 2024 issue of The 2River View  hoping that the Afterlife is not like being at Walmart. In the 2nd round she read “On the Night Balcony,” a short piece read twice.

Mark O’Brien on the Zoom camera seemed to be up in his garret, otherwise known as the Pirates Den, he read sonnets based on small town newspaper comments “Slingerlands” on baseball taken from the lines of newspaper, & a piece bases on a report of an accident in the Farland Newsletter from 1892.

Tim Verhaegen read poems from what he does best, write about his family. In the 1st round, “Is it True?” pondering if his mother, who died in 2009, made a suicide attempt by driving into a stone bridge soon after he was born; in the 2nd round, a re-write of the same story, titled “Dear Mother,” based on what an aunt told him. 

Francesca Sidoti read an eco-poem about the plan to harvest the Marcellis Shell, & how many could die harvesting it; in the 2nd round a true-crime story titled “Gates County.”  

Sharon Smith read “Whose Woods?” about a black bear, in Farmington CT; later, a story of a wedding in rhyme from Maine, “My Doctor’s Brother’s Horses Carriage,” what happened to a spooked horse.

In Charlie Rossiter’s 1st round he read a descriptive piece titled “At the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame,” being a long way from the crossroads; then, a descriptive piece of the college town Madison WI, “Mad City Syndrome.” 

Tom Nicotera read his poem for Who’s Your Team? about the 7th game of the 2003 World Series between the Red Sox & the Yankees, “It’s Just Like Love;” in the 2nd round he read a brand new poem, “Worm Meditation” dead worms after a rain, a memoir, to war & profiteering & his own death.

Naomi Bindman read 2 new poems, both works-in-progress, “The Other Dogs,” friends talking dogs & plants & turkey vultures in the woods; then a stream of phrases, a found poem rant, “Inbox,” on the flood of messages we all experience on our computers. 

Julie Lomoe began with a memoir of her daughter, “The Terrors of Motherhood;” then from her new poetry chapbook, Proof of Process, the poem “Donald the Bantam Rooster Speaks His Mind.” 

This monthly Zoom broadcasting from Bennington VT is on the 2nd Tuesday at 7:00PM ET. If you would like to join it & you are not yet on Charlie’s Zoom list, email him at charliemrossiter@gmail.com & ask for the link. It’s not just poetry.