Third Thursday Poetry Night, November 21

It is getting dark & cold earlier here in Albany, NY, but still the bravest of the brave poets show up, including a couple of new voices. In honor of the surrealistic bent of our our featured reader tonight, John Thomas Allen, I invoked the Muse of the French poet Paul Eluard (1895 - 1952) by reading selections from his poem “Liberté,” which was once once dropped as a leaflet in World War II over Nazi occupied France; I also acknowledged the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first Surrealist Manifesto by André Breton in October 1924.

Leading off the open mic was the host of the monthly poetry open mic (2nd Wednesday) at the Schuylerville Public Library, Elaine Kenyon; her poem was based on “the word of the day” from Dictionary.com in November, “Ab Initio” a sexy, humorous tale from chemistry class. 

David Gonsalves read “Elegy Shot List for an Art House Obsessive” a string of phrases, list of images, as the title says — hearing it once is not enough.

Melissa Anderson, a Future-Feature here at the Social Justice Center, read for the first time from her just published book, Dog Star Poems, “Time Which Has Not Drowned Me Yet” a poem for the darkness of seasonal depression.

Our featured poet, John Thomas Allen, began with a poem from Cemetery Tour (mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, 2023), “The Polite Bride” based on the movie The Haunting of Hill House & the character of Nell, showing his surrealist chops; then to a couple of poems read from a notebook which he had a difficult time reading his own hand-writing, one about exploring the atmosphere of the liminal space of an abandoned bank building, another written in the Halloween spirit after the recent election. One can sometimes catch John reading at open mics at other venues in Albany; his poetry book Rolling in the Third Eye (2010) is available from SurVision Books.

After a break I read a Thanksgiving poem, from a prompt, “The Bird’s Thanksgiving,” with an oblique reference to poet Billy Collins. 

Tom Bonville brought a seasonal poem, “Thanksgiving Dinner,” turkey, gravy, stuffing, potatoes, etc., the same every year, now his honor as the oldest to carve the turkey, deliciously descriptive. 

One of the great pleasures of being a host at such an event is when there is a new name on the sign-up sheet — this night there were 2(!) such readers, who arrived together. The first of the 2 was Shevoné M. who read a poem titled “No Time to Lose at 2:32AM” in pain over the loss of men in her family, longing for sunshine to come.

Next reader was her friend Nia Know, who was our last reader for the night, she read “Love Held Right,” a philosophical pondering, trying to understand what love means.

We gather each third Thursday of the month at 7:30PM at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY for a local or regional featured poet & an open mic for community writers — your $5.00 (more or less) donation supports poetry events in Albany & the work of the SJC.