Third Thursday Poetry Night, September 18

It’s not like I’m trying to fill the MVP Arena, but to have an intense, poetic gang gathered at the storefront of the Social Justice Center is as gratifying as having an overflow crowd. I invoked the Muse, tonight Louise Glück (1943 - 2023) & read her poem “Theory of Memory” from Faithful and Virtuous Night (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014).

First up on the sign-up sheet was Sylvia Barnard who read a descriptive memoir poem about the old family farm in Shelburne, MA. Joe Krausman showed the cover of a book of poems, Late Blossoms by his friend, Barnett Zumoff, then read one of his own poems, “At the Dollar Bargain Store,” a conversation with another customer buying a can of nuts.

David Gonsalves read 2 short poems, descriptive with a dash of humor “Heart Throb,” then “Slipknot.” This was Ian Mack’s first time here reading, which surprised me I guess because I’ve seen him read at other venues around Albany; he read from his book Identity Crises (Recto y Verso, 2024) “Temptation Island” then “Red Eye,” a rant against being an object of a woman’s interracial fantasy.

Valerie Temple said that “life intervened” so that she hadn’t been here in awhile, but here she was; she sang a little ditty about abuse, then a “fairy tale” as she called it, written on her birthday about God & Man & the mess Man made. I finished off the open mic I read a new poem, an accidental sonnet, “The Sound of the Tides,” then, honoring our featured poet, a baseball poem “Dusty Baker.”

I met tonight’s featured poet, Karen Elizabeth Sharpe, at the 1st National Baseball Poetry Festival in Worcester, MA; she is one of the folks who organizes the event & spent a few minutes talking about this year’s festival & the plans for next year. She has been working on a new poetry manuscript, & began with a piece responding to the 90th anniversary of the Loch Ness monster, “Monsters Among Us,” followed by “Safe as Houses, a Duplex” (which is the name of the form of the poem). She read one poem, “Reflections on Sex Lessons,” from her 2023 book from Prayer Can Be Anything, a poem which she described as a palindrome, or a mirror/reflection, as was “Forgiveness” that she read later. “Casino of Love” played with images of gambling & of love; the word “worry” was a repeated refrain in “Lines Written During Another Something or Other” a poem on climate change & stress; “St. Christopher Patron Saint of Travelers Punches Out” was a persona poem; & she brought her well-wrought reading to a close with a tender poem of morning “Autumn Aubade.”

This series continues each third Thursday of the month at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY, 7:30PM, with a local or regional writer as the feature & an open mic for the rest of us. Your donation supports poetry events in Albany & the work of the SJC.