Saratoga Senior Center Open Mic, November 8

Once again a busy day, a double-header of poetry readings, starting off in Saratoga Springs. Our host, Rachel Baum, started us off with a poem by Jack Gilbert titled “Rain.” 

Then on to poet Marilyn McCabe, today’s featured reader, with a walk through some of her books & newer poems, with, as she said, poems with questions in them, starting off with “Perseveration” from her 2012 book Perpetual Motion (The Word Works), a poem she said is a favorite of hers to read (with good reason). From her curious & fascinating chapbook, Being Many Seeds (Grayson Books, 2020), she read a sample poem: the short poems are each presented twice, first as a conventional poem, then chopped up & the words spread out on the remainder of the page, & each containing a footnote about the ideas & life of the Jesuit theologian & paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. She also read a couple poems from Glass Factory (The Word Works, 2016), “Self-sight” & “Incarnate,” meditations on death. And then there were some new & “newish” poems sprinkled about, such as the word play on the terminology of the theater, “Poor Player,” & the concluding poem “Bed” putting her readings to …

Rachel Baum quoted poet David Graham to the effect that “you can never have too many dog poems,” to read her post-election piece “In an Election Year to My Canine Self.”

Pat Curtis read a humorous piece on aging titled “It’s Not That.” The afore-mentioned David Graham didn’t read a dog poem but rather 2 about family & love, “Smoke at the Lake” (a place as sacred ground to 6 generations of family), the poem about love titled “Thirst.”

Rhonda Rosenheck read a political poem from 4 years ago, “Pop Goes the Weasel,” then one titled “Garden Tour” from her wordle exercises. 

Angela Snyder read a poem written on assignment about her youth in Liverpool, England, “Childhood Memory,” then a “bop poem” about “A Thanksgiving Dinner.” I read a poem for the Veterans Day (aka, Armistice Day) holiday on Monday about an encounter with a ghost at the NYS Viet Nam Memorial at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, “John Lees.” 

Jay Rogoff read a cluster of “ridiculous little poems” in a form called a clerihew invented by British novelist Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875 - 1956) in the early 20th Century. The form is 2 uneven couplets, rhymed AABB, the first line is the name of well-know person. Here is an example from Jay:

Donald Trump

Took an enormous dump

On America, the nation that he sold

for a toilet made of gold. 

A good way to end with a bit of politics & humor.

This open mic is held on the 2nd Friday of each month at the Saratoga Senior Center, 290 West Ave., Saratoga Springs, NY at 1:00 PM — a featured reader & an open mic, the host is poet Rachel Baum.