Saratoga Senior Center Open Mic, September 11

David Graham filled in as the MC for our usual host, Rachel Baum, who had proposed reading poems responding to the 25th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centers on 9/11/01. David read a poem by the recently gone poet Wendell Berry (1934 - 2026), one from Berry’s Sabbath series, “Now You Know the Worst.”

Ron Pavoldi read a poem that he said was his 1st time in print, “Fiboracci’s Number 9/11/01.”

Janice Cutbush continued the theme with a piece written about her experience as a teacher on 9/11 “Senior AP English Assignment” where the play Hamlet becomes irrelevant.

David Gonsalves’ 9/11 piece was a conversation with a neighbor’s wife, “Tom’s Wife Says,” where Tom had worked “the pile” at the WTC site.

My contribution to the theme was a piece I read out just yesterday, “Matins & Lauds,” from Meditations of a Survivor (A.P.D.), then a 2nd piece as a tribute to the memory of Dolly Parton, “Vaccine Haiku,” from 2022, when we got our COVID shots on the same day.

Leslie Sittner read memoir, not of 9/11, but from 1994, with a jump forward to Trump, perhaps titled “Patriotism Partisanship,” then a letter she had written to a prisoner who had been in her writing workshop & who, by chance, had years before met her brother.

Kathie McCoy said that she also was teaching an English class on 9/11, read “Teaching the Literature of Peace on 9/11.” 

David Graham, too, was teaching a class when the attacks took place, but he was in Wisconsin; he read a poem he wrote on the 11th anniversary, “9/11 Again.” 

Mary Lou Abbott arrived late, said she had been working on 9/11/01 for Goldman Sachs on Broad St. in NYC, only blocks from the Trade Centers, her piece was titled “Eye Witness.”

David suggested that since there was time left that we go around again, if readers wanted, with perhaps a less grim topic. Janice Cutbush read 2 pieces, one titled “Family Reunion,” then one titled “Love Affairs in Two Centuries,” with the pieces of the poem alternating back & forth over time, using the slang & jargon of the times. Ron Pavoldi said that he had similar poem in slang in pidgin, “Old Money.” Amazingly enough, Leslie Sittner also had a poem in slang & idioms, “The Co-ed.” Mary Lou Abbott read a love poem, “Always My Favorite Valentine,” composed of the list of names of other, past boy friends.

David Graham bookended the afternoon of poems with another poem by Wendell Berry, “The Wild Geese.”

This monthly, daytime, open mic takes place each 2nd Friday of the month at the Saratoga Senior Center, 290 West Ave., Saratoga Springs, NY, starting at 1:00PM. You don’t have to be a member, just tell the nice people at the desk that you are going to the poetry reading.