2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose, July 12

There was a full sign-up list for this monthly open mic (not that we couldn’t have squeezed a few more in). The hosts are Nancy Klepsch & me, Dwx. Readers can do 2 poems or 5 minutes of prose.

1st up was Thomas B. who started with a celebratory poem that began, “When I read a good book…” he wants to share it, then an amusing piece about trying to understand the meaning of his own poem. Rhonda Rosenheck’s 1st poem was about food, “Esther’s Domestic,” then she talked about having performed a poem with the Albany Symphony Orchestra for the festival in Waterford, “The Aerie Beneath My Feet.”

Joel Best began with a conversation ironically titled “Soliloquy,” then a funny, outrageous narrative “Twice You Lie,” both with his characteristic wild mix of images & leaps. David Gonsalves read short pieces (of course!), an Haiku “Fish Take Flight,” & “Lost.” 

I read an older piece, inappropriately appropriate for the month about a woman on street corner in an American flag blouse, “Patriotism,” the another piece I recently turned into a poem card, “Parallel Parking.” I was followed by my co-host, Nancy Klepsch, who read 2 experimental, prompt-driven pieces, that may be without titles, an exquisite corpse beginning “a line, a line...,” then one written from a prompt to write a piece with the word three.

Sam Win showed up to connect with the writing community with hopes to publish a book; he read a long piece in rhyme titled “3D Freedom” & handed out business cards to his real estate business. By contrast, Anthony Bernini has been around since the earliest days of the poetry scene here in the late 1980s; he read 2 political pieces, “If You Can Keep It” based on Ben Franklin’s comment about democracy, another piece from the Iraq war, on the birth of words, “Before Iraq” (“Mesopotamia…”). Anthony’s most recent book is Selected Poems (The Troy Book Makers, 2025).

Sam Maurice recited poems from memory from his book Vibrant Sounds, Colors in Motion (Deadman’s Press Ink, 2nd Edition 2025), “The Therapist, The Meteorologist,” & the title poem. 

Annie Borthwick was a late signup who said she was a Troy native, with a story of the places she lived in Troy, some gone now.

Please join us for this open mic for poetry + prose on the 2nd Sunday of the month at 2:00pm at Collar Works, an arts collective, at 50 4th St., Troy, NY — Free! & open to all.