Third Thursday Poetry Night, September 19

There is usually a featured reader to go along with the open mic, but unfortunately Karen Elizabeth Sharpe had to cancel; I will try to reschedule her for sometime in 2025. But there was plenty of poetry to be heard this night, with 13 poets on the sign-up sheet. 

The first reader up was Sylvia Barnard, just where she wanted to be on the list; she read a piece from one of Ellen White Rook’s workshops, a poem titled “Granny’s Cottage” about her mother’s house outside of Greenfield, MA. Julie Lomoe read a poem from 2016, “Hope Dawns in a Grungy Gun Club,” about being interviewed by a reporter from the New York Times when she was voting. I read from my Poem Cards a revision of another Poem Card “Books Not Bombs,” then a poem card about the recent Lunar eclipse, “Eclipse Haiku.” 

Don Levy hasn’t been here in quite some time, & we were glad he was back; he read 2 poems from his favorite (old) anthologies, Contemporary American Poets, Frank O’Hara’s “To the Harbor Master,” then “Her Kind” by Anne Sexton. Kim Henry returned to read an untitled piece about the death of her mother, then a lighter piece describing an outfit she wore (& her daughter as fashion police) “Mismatched.” Kristen Day also has not been here in a while, read some older poems, beginning with  “Personal Question,” then one of my favorite poems about 9/11 “The 6:20 & the 2:45.” 

David Gonsalves attends many of the open mics in the area; tonight he read a poem titled “Under the Weather” a list of disasters, then “On the Couch” in, apparently, a form he created, or at least temporary restrictions for the life of the poem. Also getting through the seasons of no baseball, Tom Bonville read a very short descriptive piece, “My Old Man,” then the nostalgic, almost bitter “Love.” Maria Sohn read a short poem titled “Role Reversal” about a turbulent plane ride with her daughter, followed by a song co-written with a friend about the effort to pass the ERA in the perspectives of a young girl, a middle-age woman, & an old woman. 

Francesca Sidoti is a “future featured reader” here — very soon! — & she read a piece she hadn’t read out before, “Wives,” on War & its aftermath, then a poem on the solar eclipse, “The Eyes of Time.” Tom Corrado was the night's closer (as they say in baseball) with another of his “Screen Dumps,” this number 781, with its characteristic pile up of images & phrases.

Join us any third Thursday of the month at 7:30PM at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY — $5.00 suggested donation, more or less — a featured reader (usually) & an open mic (always).