2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose, November 9

On November 14, 2010 we held the very first 2nd Sunday @ 2 at the Arts Center of the Capital Region. Since then we were displaced by the COVID pandemic, then when the Arts Center didn’t have funding for Sundays so we moved on to Collar City Mushrooms, then when they had to move to Indian Ladder Farms, we couch-surfed to a couple other Troy locations until being invited by Collar Works to their space on 4th Street, where we continue on.

Rachel Baum, the host of the monthly open mic at the Saratoga Springs Senior Center, joined us for this anniversary celebration, with “Skunk Cage Haibun,” then from a children’s book in-progress titled Sit, Stay, Work, the entry “Dentist Dachshund.” 

I read my Blog post about that initial Sunday afternoon of poet + prose, which one can find here.

David Gonsalves reprised his piece he read a week or so ago “Dave’s Dybbuk,” then a rant “Large Language Golems.” 

My co-host oh these 15 years, Nancy Klepsch, also reprised poems she read at La Perla, the poem-on-a-bowl “Eat” & an elegy she co-wrote with her wife Lauren Pinsley, “Pierre Joris Talks with Jane Goodall in Heaven.”

Sally Rhoades who was also with us at the Arts Center 15 years ago, read an excerpt from her prose memoir, about the custody battle between her parents when she was a child.

Julie Lomoe began with a piece about her Toyota, “Me & My Sion,” then a sang a ditty she sang at the recent bra extravaganza Brava, “I Can Be Braless Now.”

Karen Fabiane began with a new bit of automatic writing titled “Many Voices One Word,” then a poetic portrait of a girl she knew, “Plays Around Guitar.”

Tim Verhaegen is another writer who was there 15 years ago; today he read a piece inspired by seeing billboards including one about the suicide hotline, “Signs & Sayings.”

Graydon had been here a few months ago, he returned to recite a piece from memory, a monologue about a visit to a doctor’s office & of a contemporary Sisyphus.

Robb Smith read an untitled, meditative piece about thresholds, beginning “I am a lover of liminal spaces …”

The afternoon came to a close with the afore-mentioned Lauren Pinsley, who is frequently here but rarely reads, with a prayer & song “It is a City,” then a funny piece of an experiment on ChatGPT “Who Is Nancy Klepsch?” — a fitting end to our anniversary of 15 years of 2nd Sunday @ 2 — on to another 15 years.

2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose is now at Collar Works, 50 4th St., Troy, NY — read 2 poems or 5 minutes of prose — Free!

Poetic License Reading, November 7

Mabel Lucia Smith

This was the 2nd of 2 readings by poets whose work inspired a visual artist(s) to create a piece on display along with the poem. The first reading was held in September when the exhibit was at the Fish Market Gallery in Troy; this November reading was held at the Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany while the exhibit was on display there. Other poets who did not have a poem in the exhibit also read their poems. A gathering of poets among the painters, as someone once wrote — or perhaps painters among the poets.

I served as MC/host of the reading & was ably introduced by artist Mabel Lucia Smith, who has a piece of visual art in the show, as “the man, the myth, the mustache.”

Pam Jacobson

The poets with poems in the show who read were Sylvia Barnard (“Stonehenge”), Pam Jacobson (“Tree Snag”), David Gonsalves (“page 22”), Mimi Moriarty (“Empty,” & also read “To My Father”), Jil Hanifan (“Mad Lark Laundry,” also read “Last Bright Day Before the Dark: Ode to November”), Rhonda Rosenheck (“All the Wonders,” also read “Earth’s Watch”), & Will Nixon (“Dancing Tulips,” also “Inquiring Minds”).

Will Nixon

The poets who read but did not have a poem in the show were Carlton Wells (a word-play sonnet, & “Wino in the Garden”), Marea Gordett (“Awaiting the Inauguration of a President”), & Frank Robinson (“Chicken,” & one beginning “Woke up this morning …”).

Visit the Poetic License website to find all the poems & the artwork the poems inspired.

Marathon Reading of Legs by William Kennedy, November 5

For the third year, a marathon reading of one of the novels from Kennedy’s Albany cycle at Albany Distilling on Livingston Ave., in Albany, NY, sponsored by the NYS Writers Institute. 

I was signed up for 3:00 but got well before to sit & listen. They were behind schedule, as always happens with readings like this. I had missed the beginning, had my copy of Legs, saw that they were somewhere in the section titled “Jack, Out of Doors.” My friend Roger Green from the Book Talk at the Albany Public Library was reading.

 

The lighting in the cavernous room was bad but I resisted using my flash until later in the day. I would sit & listen, sometimes just find where we were in my copy, take a photo. In the course of the next 3 to 4 hours I heard about 21 local folk read.

I was pleased to read 2 sections, a pretty hot & steamy in section “Playing the Jack.” After me, Wanda Fisher, who has hosted a radio program for years year read a section with multiple “fucks,” something she doesn’t get to say ever on the radio.

It was late afternoon, Happy Hour. My back & ass were sore from the metal folding chair, so I went up to the bar for a drink. I got a bourbon & soda, Ironweed, the title of the book we read in another marathon 2 years ago. Talked with lots of folks I knew, some had just read, others waiting to go on later. 

Bill Kennedy arrived with his entourage & was greeted heartily by a roomful of fans, as well he should be. He read later, towards the end. It was time for me to go, hoping to return later for the finale but didn’t make it. I had taken photos of those I had heard read, not always getting the name correct. I have the printout of the signup sheet but there are always substitutions & no-shows so I can’t entirely match up my shots with the list, or my notes for that matter. Lots of others have shared their photos on Facebook so there certainly is an archive.

I finished reading the rest of Legs that weekend, enjoying the play of language & the vitality of the characters in Kennedy’s inventive prose. Eventually I will post what I have on my Flickr site. One can find the shots from the marathon reading of Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game in November 2024 here.