Saratoga Senior Center Poetry Open Mic, July 12

This was the start of a busy poetry weekend for me (& some others), & a busy poetry Friday with 2 events on my calendar today. 

There had been an accident & traffic backed up on the Northway so I got to the Senior Center after the event started, with the featured poet, Joseph Bruchac, Saratoga Springs’ inaugural Poet Laureate, already in the midst of his reading. He went on to selections from a string of his poetry collections. Nisnol Siboal/2 Rivers is a book done with his son Jesse poems in both the English and the Abenaki language. From Four Directions (from Mongrel Empire Press out of Norman, Oklahoma), 3  poems of walking in the mountains. From Above the Line (West End Press) “Wild Strawberries,” “Proposition 666,” “Clouds.” From Ndakinna (Our Land) (West End Press), “Song of the Stars” based on a Abenaki song; he explained that the title of the book, Ndakinna is an Abenaki word meaning "our land," not as a possessive, but a collective in a sense. “Transplanting Trees” was literally a how-to poem, & from the St. Lawrence River “Seeing the Whales.” He ended with the very short poem “Song of Falling Snow.” One always learns something new from a reading by Joe Bruchac.

For the open mic David Graham read a new poem in which he hears his mother’s voice, “Grace,” starting with a quote from Jim Harrison. David Gonsalves followed with a poem in 3 parts (short parts) “Happy Opportunities.” 

Victoria Twomey read from her book from Kelsay Books Glimpse “Candy Hearts” & “Home Again” (her father gone). Carol Shup Star read an enthusiastic, descriptive poem about the joys of Kayaking. I read a new poem from April inspired by “The Full Pink Moon,” & then the recently published “Last Weekend in Gloucester.” Barry Finley squeezed in at the end with a recitation of a piece from George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

This reading with an open mic for poets & story-tellers takes place on the 2nd Friday of the month at 1:00PM, at the Saratoga Senior Center, 290 West Ave., Saratoga Springs, suggested donation $5.00, light refreshments served.