Third Thursday Poetry Night, May 16

As I’ve said before, “If your friends & relatives don’t come to your readings, who will?” This night’s featured poet, Rachel Baum, did just that, & they (we) were treated to coffee & homemade cookies in addition to her entertaining reading. But first I invoked the night’s Muse, the ubiquitous small-press American poet, Simon Perchik (1923 - 2022) by reading one of his characteristically untitled poems (except for an * in the upper left corner), one beginning “Pulling the mirror closer…” Then on to a portion of the open mic list.

First up was Alan Catlin (whose poems are equally ubiquitous to those of Simon Perchik’s in the small-press world), with a grim piece about a shooting & its aftermath, with the reverberating repetition of “Wasted.” I usually see Carol Schupp Star at readings up in Saratoga County, but here she was to support Rachel; she read a nonet titled “Storms.” Betsy Lynch also came here to support Rachel; her poem titled “The Arrival of Childhood’s End: Sci-Fi Becomes Fact” about watching a grandson engaged with virtual reality goggles, a meditation on gaming.

Jackie Craven has a new book out, WHISH, tonight read “something silly” (her description) from the book, a poem about the stopped clock in the tower of City Hall in Schenectady. Melissa Anderson, who has had a book manuscript accepted for publication, Dogstar Poems, read from it a poem titled “Love Letter from Quarantine.”

Rachel R. Baum began by introducing Berta Leone, whose photo of her bullet sculpture E Pluribus Unum is on the cover of Rachel’s book How to Rob a Convenience Store (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2024). However, most of the poems in the reading tonight were not from her new book, & many were read by friends & family members. She began with with opening poem in the book, “Rodeo Winner,” a portrait of an abusive, gun-toting cowboy; she also read from the book “I See Your Ghost,” & “Sitting Shiva, After the Tree of Life Shooting,” & included a poem about her long-COVID diagnosis, “Long Haul Year Two.” Shuffled in between were poems, mostly not from the book, by others: Rod Driscoll read “Summer Concert,” her daughter Dr. Ariel Schwartz “Alterations” (about NYC & her grandmother), Don Shore “Diners,” Sheree Mirochnik “In Dreams Cars Flew,” & Betsy Lynch read “Like Mercury” which is in the book. Rachel brought the reading to an end with the 1st poem she ever wrote, “The Destination.” Proceeds from the sale of How to Rob a Convenience Store go to the Gifford Law Center for Gun Violence.

After a necessary break we finished off the open mic list. I read a poem from my sequence of “Witch” poems, “I Am a Gift,” the title taken from Dineen Carta’s poem of the same title from her book Rumi’s Granddaughter.

The final 3 readers are regular supporters of this monthly open mic. David Gonsalves  read “Ars Poetica,” a dizzying play of words about things he can or can’t or won’t do. Tom Bonville’s poem “To Know” was a colorful celebration of the beginning of Spring. Sally Rhoades read a recently written poem title “Lilacs,” inspired in part by one of my poems with the same title, but really by the lilacs growing in her yard.

Special thanks Rachel Baum’s family & friends for both supporting her unique reading, & for their generosity in supporting poetry events locally & the work of the Social Justice Center.

We are at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY each third Thursday of the month for a reading by a local or regional poet & an open mic for community poets. The reading starts at 7:30PM, sign-up from about 7:00PM, $5.00 donation, more if you got it, less if you don’t.