Third Thursday Poetry Night, January 15

For the start of the New Year of poetry, our featured poet, S.L. Maurice (aka Sam), was reading for the last time, at least for the fore-seeable future, here in Albany, because early the next morning he was boarding a plane to fly to the West Coast where he planned to settle. We will miss him, & so I was glad I was able to schedule him for this night.

Tonight’s Muse was the recently gone poet, Renée Nicole Good, & I read her poem “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs,” published when her name was Renée Macklin.  ICE Out Now! 

First up was a writer who said he was new to the area, Isaiah Cuesta, who had been the first poet through the door tonight, read a poem of the imagining. Avery Stempel, who has been around the poetry scene for many years, read what he described as “just a generic poem,” as indeed it was.

Amanda had been here previously & she read about a near death experience as a pedestrian in Stuyvesant Plaza after CDTA changed the #10 bus route to not enter the Plaza, & on to other places where drivers seem to want to kill her. David Gonsalves read a poem about him & her doing the crossword puzzle, “One Evening at Home.”

Our featured poet, Sam Maurice, has been active in the poetry scene here for a number of years, participating in open mics, serving as a co-host for a while with R.M. Engelhardt for Rob’s monthly open mic, featured at some showcase poetry events, & serving on the Board of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild. His collection of poems, Vibrant Sounds, Colors in Motion, was published by Deadman’s Press Ink in 2023, with a 2nd edition, which is the one I have, in 2025. 

He began with the 1st poem in the book, “Spins on Change,” then on to the title poem of the book. Then one titled “Zoetic Hydrant” the 1st section of a longer poem, a bit of urban drama; then one titled “Ariadne,” from a character in Greek myth, but this poem is another urban drama of drinking, loving & leaving; he ended with “What You See,” returning to a desolate place where he had once lived. He performed his poems from memory, ending each with the tag, “Beat.” I had heard all of the poems he recited tonight previously so perhaps he just doing the ones he has committed to memory rather than sampling from the book. But he tends to recite the lines too fast, slurring & blurring the words, so I am glad I have to book to make out what he was saying & find the gems in the lines. 

After a short break giving folks a chance to buy the book, we returned to the open mic. I read my recent poem, “The Blue Wind,” reacting to a line in André Breton’s novel Nadja. 

The Poet Laureate of Schenectady, Adonis Richards, joined us this night to honor Sam, with a list poem to honor his grandmother, “Things That Say Thank You.” Sally Rhoades brought the night to a close with a poem from a new poetry collection, Like an Apricot in the Rain, that she is putting together, the poem, “On that Moon Lit Night,” about 3 poets hanging out at Caffè Lena.

Please join us at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY on the third Thursday of the month for a reading by a local or regional writer, with an open mic for the rest of us — start time 7:30PM, your donation supports poetry events in Albany & the work of the SJC.