Saratoga Senior Center Open Mic, September 13

This was the first of the day’s 2 poetry events, & the 2nd time this week that I’ve driven to Saratoga County for a poetry event — phew! The guest host today was Barbara Ungar, who started the afternoon off with a poem titled “AP Physics” — in honor of the featured poet’s 2023 publication from Oxford University Press Lyric Poetry and Space Exploration from Einstein to the Present.

That featured poet was Margaret (Maggie) Greaves, Associate Professor of English at Skidmore College, who said she is an “aspiring” poet, but mostly a student & a teacher of poetry. Her poems were about her life & the world world around her (& she shouldn't have been so tentative). She read about being a Mom, (“Everlasting Life”), including potty training a toddler in the oppressive heat of Turkey, the hysterical “Things My Daughter Said During the Wildfires,” & “Nocturne” (a “space poem,” with babies). Like the rest of us, she had her COVID poems,”Expecting” (pregnant during COVID), & “Swimming Near the End of the World” (testing positive for COVID while in Turkey). Her husband is Turkish &, in addition to other poems already mentioned, she included a ghazal influenced by reading a Turkish poet; read “Wedding Day” that contrasted wedding photos of her husband’s parents with her own wedding photos; then one titled “First Lesson in the Language;” & the stunningly tender love poem to her husband, “Anatolian Rug With Stylized Animals.” It was altogether an engaging & entertaining reading. I for one would love to read a book of her poems rather than an academic study of the poems of others.

To start off the open mic portion, Barbara read a poem for the late Stuart Bartow, “Sunset on Mars” with a Haiku. David Graham read a poem from 2008 (& still current for this year’s election) “Talking with Uncommitted Voters.” My poem was also on a political theme, “Another Tuesday,” about September 11, 2001 in NYC, & 1973 in Santiago, Chile.

Pat Curtis read what she described as her manifesto on aging, playing humorously on the word “old”. Jackie Craven read 2 poems from her collection of poems, Whish (Press 53, 2024), “Pi huddles in a cloakroom” & “What alien astronauts fear” — it’s a book I’m really enjoying reading. Naomi Woolsey read an essay/memoir about her work in the State Department as an inspector of international schools & an evacuation during the civil war in Libya.

Susan Kress read a new work in-progress, “What It’s Like Now,” pondering the faces of old poets & whether she likes plants more than animals (plants win). Angela Snyder read a descriptive dog-walking poem, “Night,” then one titled “Enough” from a prompt to write about something without naming it. Jay Rogoff finished off the event by reading a deceptively titled poem “Latin Class” (it was a Latin dance class).

This reading with an open mic takes place on the 2nd Friday of each month, starting at 1:00PM, at the Saratoga Senior Center, 290 West Ave., Saratoga Springs, NY.