Third Thursday Poetry Night, March 19

Tonight’s featured reader was Caitlin Conlon, but first I invoked the Muse, tonight for the first time not a poet (although who knows, maybe she did write poems, I just have not found any) but the visual artist Jane (sometimes Jayne) Robbins (1945 - 2024) whose work I was introduced to by a volume she collaborated on with Vincent Ferrini, Deluxe Daring (Bliss Publications, 1994); I read my elegy, “A Poem for Ja(y)ne Robbins, Deluxe Daring, with Vincent.” Then on to the open mic sign-up. With just 7 signed up to read, it was a 2-poem night if folks wanted to. 

First up was Doug, who had been here last month for the 1st time, read 2 autobiographical poems in rhyme, the first perhaps titled “Dawn’s Early Light.” Ian Macks was the featured poet last month, tonight he joined the open mic with 2 poems from his collection titled Identity Crises (Recto y Verso, 2024) “Homecoming”  & “Ghosts among me.” David Gonsalves gets around to lots of poetry open mics, tonight read “Variations on a Theme by Howard Kogan,” & “Altar Crawl,” both short & succinct. Sam Maurice, who had been the featured poet here in January, was back from a short sojourn on the West Coast; he recited from his collection Vibrant Sounds, Colors in Motion (Deadman’s Press Ink, 2nd ed. 2025), “The Therapist, the Meteorologist …,” & “Zoetic Hydrant.”

Caitlin Conlon had read in the open mic here last month. Tonight she read from both of her poetry collections, first from Burning the Ghost Light (Central Avenue Publishing, 2025), which is formatted like a play, with poems about how she “performs” when she is with different people in her life. From Act I: The Mother, “Three Vignettes on Loss;” from Act II: The Father, “Cluttered Intimacy” & “Genesis.” She took a brief “intermission” to read from her first poetry collection, The Surender Theory (Central Avenue Publishing, 2022), poems dealing with grief & loss, first the title poem, then “Coded Signals” (formatted like a telegram), “Nesting Doll” (on the sizes of different griefs). Back to Burning the Ghost Light, she ended with poems from Act IV:  The Self, “26,” “The Moveable Future,” & “Night Walk,” poems to lead us from the dark, back into the light. 

We took a short break for Caitlin to sell books & for folks to make contributions to the cause of poetry, then returned for what remained of the open mic list. I stepped in with a poem from 1994, inspired by Jayne Robbins’ drawing of a nude male angel in Deluxe Daring, “Angels.” Maria Sohn was back again to share her poetry, tonight 2 poems, a memory of childhood, “Que Sera Sera,” & “Bird in the House.” 

I’ve known Anthony Bernini for a very long lime in the local poetry scene & published his firs book Distant Kinships (A.P.D., 2002); he began with a new piece “The Shortest Day,” then from his Selected Poems (The Troy Bookmakers, 2025), (& also in Distant Kinships), “The Banks of the Stream” about the “sundered heart of Palestine.”

One can find us each month at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY at 7:30PM for a local or regional poet & an open mic for community writers -- you donation supports poetry events in Albany & the work of the Social Justice Center.