Saratoga Senior Center Open Mic, January 10

Back to this daytime open mic, with our host, Rachel Baum, who began with a poem titled “Grace” by someone else.

The day’s featured poet, Kathleen McCoy, led off the reading with a poem titled “The Burning Garden,” then “Green and Burning Oak” for her mother after death, both from Kathleen’s book Green and Burning: Glad Agus a Dhó (WordTech Editions, 2016). Then a couple poems from More Water Than Words (Finishing Line Press, 2017), “The Island of Black & White,” & “Multi-Lingual” (for her mother-in-law) with hard-to-pronounce Hungarian words. From Ringing the Changes (Finishing Line Press, 2019), “Larval Dream” (on miracles), “Dreaming of Jesus,” “The Sixth Sign” (from John, chapter 11), ending with a 9/11 poems, “Praying in the Dark” that ends with “… that each breath might be a prayer.” I was pleased to once-again hear Kathleen’s poems in her own breath.

Rachel Baum led off the open mic list with a poem titled “Like Beatniks,” portraits of her parents at a family dinner in a NYC bistro. David Graham read his poem “The Dogs in Dutch Paintings” (the 1st poem he ever read at Caffè Lena) from a recent Caffè Lena collection Table Top Poems, then a poem titled “Love” playing off a famous William Carlos Williams poem. 

Both of the poems that David Gonsalves read contained images of fire, “Evening on Mt. Epilogue”  was a string of random images, while his 2nd poem was about wild fires in Hawaii. Jay Rogoff read one poem, “Over the Underworld,” on the death of a poet/friend. Barbara Ungar’s poem, “Knocked Back,” on grief, sounded like automatic writing, but she said it was a “collage” poem, published in River Harbor Review.

Mary Abbott said this was her first time reading; recently widowed, she has moved here from NYC; she read a few short poems written in the ’90s, many with rhymes: “Happiness 2,” “Just Another Broken Dream,” & “Heat Wave for NYC in July.” Marilyn McCabe read an eco-poem on the death of a baobab tree “Subtraction & Addition.”

Gerry Wichrowski read what we call in the open mic biz OPP (other people’s poetry), nothing wrong with that, ”The Three Kings” by Muriel Spark, & “The Future” by Leslie McNair (watching afternoon TV talk shows). My poem, “2 Dreams,” was commissioned by my late friend Mark Tremont, a community & environmental activist. Rhonda Rosenheck brought the afternoon of poetry to a close with 2 pieces, “One Poet,” written this morning, & a Haiku on the loss of a friend.

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.