Poetry at the Arboretum, May 23

Just like the flowers, the lawns, the trees budding, poetry is back at the Pine Hollow Arboretum, with a new coordinator/host, Mark W. O’Brien. The co-founder of the series, Alan Casline, has passed the baton to Mark, but Alan was in the audience & read as part of the open mic. There was a good turnout of the poetry faithful.

The featured poet was Paul Horton Amidon who had the honor of getting 2 introductions, the first when Mark O’Brien read Paul’s poem “Man Planting Trees” from his first book, then Tom Corrado introduced Paul by thanking him for his years of friendship & being part of the poetry community.

Paul Amidon’s new book is titled Late in the Season just published this year by The Troy Book Makers. He read a generous selection from the book, & included a few poems not in this (or any other) book, including “First Love,” the humorous take on the phrase “Word on the Street,” “Last Train,” &, for Memorial Day, “People You Kill Never Leave You,” based on his military service in Viet Nam. Paul’s poems are straight-forward, easily accessible, often about memories, or with a narrative line. 

The open mic list was a who’s-who of the veteran local poets, beginning with Joe Krausman who read another of his meditations on mortality, “The Great Chain of Being.” 

Edie Abrams read a couple poems from her 2011 chapbook Mermaid in Metamorphosis (from Alan Caslines’s Benevolent Bird Press), “Courage,” & “Watched the Eddy in the Farina,” then another “Last Light.”

David Gonsalves read 2 short bird poems, “Sparrows” & “Tuesday Mourning Doves.” I don’t often see Ron Pavoldi out at open mics but when I do it is usually at venues, like this, in Slingerlands or Voorheesville, so it was a treat to hear this old piece, “The Big Bang Theory,” a tribute to World War II veterans, in particular to Dom, in a nursing home.

Tom Corrado said he has been writing his (in)famous “Screen Dumps” for 12 years now & I know from recent reading he has written well over 700 of these meandering pieces of stream-of-conciousness; he has also been self-publishing them in a series of chapbooks & read from the recent Jump Dump, which my notes say is #22, of which I have many. Tonight he gave me 2 more of his chapbooks, drivebys (2024) & particulars (2025) — now there is a dissertation topic for a graduate student of the future.

Mimi Moriarty read a poem written this year at Easter time, “Cousins,” in which planting daffodils become a metaphor for the family, then a poem in 5 stages, “Waiting for Tires.” This being the return of this series that reunites poets associated with various poetry venues in Voorheesville, I dug out an old poem that parodies a collection of writing by “the Poets, Writers, Folklorists, and Historians of Albany County…” that includes many of the writers here tonight, The Annals of Perious Frink (Benevolent Bird Press, 2007; my poem is titled “The Anals of Perious Frink;” then I read one of my poem cards, “Cafe Society,” recently published in an anthology of poems by folks living in New York State.

The venerable former host of this series & the published of Benevolent Bird Press, Alan Casline, read a piece titled “Screening Screen Testing Test,” layered thoughts on medical advice — or perhaps separate poems strung together. Tom Bonville read a short piece beginning “I slept to dream…” Mark O’Brien read a piece he said was inspired by Alan Casline, a sonnet based on a wedding notice from the Johnstown Daily Recorder in 1895.

This series is designed to take place on the third Friday of each month (but subject to getting bumped to other Fridays of the month due to program scheduling) at the Pine Hollow Arboretum, 34 Pine Hollow Road, Slingerlands, NY, sign up 6:00PM, start at 6:30PM — a featured poet with an open mic for the rest of us, your donation supports the work of the Arboretum.