The Embassy Ball Book Launch/Reading, January 17

This collection of short stories & flash fiction was published on July 4, 2020, but a planned book signing at a local library had to be cancelled for the same reason that everything was cancelled in 2020. But John persisted & here we were but without the customary stack of books to sign & sell. The event was on Jitsi, an online platform that is very similar to Zoom & easy to use. 

John had been a frequent reader at the 2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose Open Mic formerly held at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, & is the author of a number of works of prose fiction. He began his reading with the Preface to the book in which he talked about the power of the word, & how he likes to launch his books on dates of historical significance, thus the July 4 release date.

He described the book as containing 38 stories, &, to a later question, that the earliest was written about 3 years ago, that he likes to capture the inspiration when it arises, rather than engage in a scheduled writing practice. Later he also talked about the value of learning other languages, he is fluent in French & a student of French literature.

The title story, “The Embassy Ball,” is his favorite he said, a short tale of 2 lovers one in the US, the other in Europe, with an ending worthy of O. Henry. Among the other stories he read were “Professor Sneiderman’s Discovery”, a meditation on immortality, & the international fable, arising from John’s interest in international politics, “The Mayor of Strasbourg.” 

The Embassy Ball by John R. Teevan III is available from the usual corporate suspects, but ask you independent bookstore to order it for you. 

How I Spent New Year’s Eve, Day, 2020 - 2021

New Year’s celebrations are alway problematic for me — New Year’s Eve is “amateur night” while New Year’s Day is my traditional Open House. But this year, in the Year of COVID-19, my problems were solved: nothing was happening anywhere, nothing was "normal", I stayed home all evening & day. It was odd, quiet, but I stayed negative. I immersed myself in 3 over-lapping events, Highlight House Party out of Vermont, the Poetry Project 47th Marathon in NYC, & Perfect Pitch Extravaganza from Kingston, NY, playing in the background while I made dinners, breakfasts, shaved, changed clothes, etc.

Highlight House Party

I was invited to this event, which ran Thursday (December 31, 220) 1:00PM to Friday (January 1, 2021) 1:00AM, by 3 Guys from Albany co-member Charlie Rossiter, who got me a friend-of-the-band discount ticket. Highlight is Burlington’s new virtual New Year’s Eve celebration, produced by Signal Kitchen & Burlington City Arts. The festival brings "Vermont’s leading artists, doers, and thinkers together to showcase our community’s creativity through lively festivities for all to enjoy," thus says the promotional material. Charlie & his son Jack Rossiter-Munley performed as Big Roads at 7PM — more on that below. I put on the program(s) as background to my New Year’s Eve.

The event was on a platform called “Run the World” which is an all-in-one platform to host interactive online events, workshops, masterclasses, shows, and conferences. There were a confusing array of overlapping acts, shows, etc. at once that you could toggle between, music, of course, but also circus acts, cooking shows, yoga, folk music from places suck as Tibet & Madagascar, each lasting 45 minutes to an hour. There was plenty of bad singing & dreamy plaid flannel shirt guitar songs from performers bedrooms & living rooms, sort of like “Wayne’s World” come alive, some folks just doing stupid shit. Many, if not most, of the programs were spoiled by bad or sub-optimum video quality which looked like the bad copies of TV shows my kids used to record on VHS tapes.

Charlie & Jack’s energetic performance as Big Roads was one of the more polished, due largely to Jack’s skilled & practiced guitar-picking, & Charlie’s deep knowledge of the Blues. The tunes they covered were Blues songs made known to the pop music audience by having been covered by bands such as the Rolling Stones, but also an obscure hit from the late 1950’s by Lieber & Stoler about “the terror of Highway 101,” as well as their own “paranoia rock” version of Bob Dylan.

Another refreshing performer was singer-song writer Julia Rose who performed with a variety of stringed instruments & a skilled use of the loop machine; her mother is another poet with an Albany connection, Susan Riback.

One program I enjoyed with my New Year’s Ever Happy Hour martini & spring rolls was a reading from a new book The Essential Ruth Stone (Copper Canyon Press), edited by her granddaughter, the poet Bianca Stone. She was joined by poets Didi Jackson & Gary Margolis, reading Ruth Stone's (1915 - 2011) grim poems of grieving & of Winter, which is to be expected, I guess, from this long-time resident of Vermont.

 

47th Annual Poetry Project New Year’s Day Marathon

At 11:00PM Thursday night I switched over the the Poetry Project’s Marathon in New York City, which ran for 25 hours to Midnight, January 1/2. In the last hour of 2020 the prosecco was already gone & the music was like “Gloomy Sunday,” that legendary “suicide song,” but at least the quality of the videos was mostly better than that from Vermont. As the name dropping performance of Penny Arcade & others took us into 2021, I was already anticipating that, just like in most New Year’s Eves in the past when I put on corporate TV shows, I was already heading into a string of tedious performances, just in a different way.

At midnight I blew out the candle, my wish is that it’s got to be better, just get the racists out, get Trump into prison. Already I’m going to sleep in 2021 & will wake up in 2021, just like it was in 2020 — more peace vigils, more poetry, & sometime, I hope, more hugs & our words out in the air instead of a corona virus.

Lewis Warsh reading at home of Pierre Joris & Nicole Peyrafitte, May 2000

Tuned back in at 9:30AM, while I made coffee, breakfast (I missed online breakfast crêpes with Nicole Peyrafitte & Pierre Joris), to Rosemary Waldrop, then Don Yorty who said “words are birds” & my parakeets, Uccellini & Aria, agree, on through the day with the words in the background —Sophie Robinson dressed like a Puritan reading “Fucking Up the Rocks,” Edmund Berrigan in a fancy party mask, Rachael Wilson’s quotidian poems, Onotara James & Ricardo Maldonado’s “diptych” of sonnets on 2020/2021 that I really liked. A black & white film from 1978 of Bernadette Mayer reading dream poems, (later during a tribute to Lewis Warsh, he reading from the same event), also home movies of them Bernadette & Lewis, their kids, when Greg Masters read from his memoir It Wasn’t Supposed to be Like This (which is going on my to-read list).

At 2:00 PM I left the Poetry Project for the mid-Hudson Extravaganza (which is described below) & was back to NYC at 8:00 PM, until the end at midnight.

A number of poets shared works by others (often as memorials for those gone this year), which was a respite from the over-arching egos of so much that I’d heard/seen, & evidenced by so much self-conscious costuming. & even though it was from NYC, the home base of so many “famous poets” the work was just like any other open mic running from the sublime to the inane. There was bad singing of bad songs here too, & tedious performance art like listening to other people’s boring, self-indulgent conversations. But ultimately I was glad to actually not be at St. Mark’s for an in-person event, to be at home playing it in the background, actually hear more of it as I move around my house, make breakfast, lunch, dinner, have drinks, go to the bathroom.

There was Anselm Berrigan reading a long poem-in-progress tribute to Lewis Warsh, & later Lydia Cortés’ tribute as well. Others afflicted with “the Bernadette Mayer curse” — writing down every thought that enters your head, everything that you see, or hear, or do, watching a recording of an Alice Notley lecture/poem from 1988 (which was actually one of the gems of the event for me), in which she says “the poetry of everyday life is basically people talking to each other,” & I realize so much of what I was hearing was also “the Alice Notley curse,” that even when a good poet does it even they can sound tedious & frivolous. The day sort of petered out, as most marathon events tend to do, but I was glad I made to the last hour to hear Anna Kreienberg again, who had once lived outside Albany & attended some of the open mics here.

“Perfect Pitch” The Hudson Valley New Years Spoken Word & Performance Extravaganza

At 2:00 PM, Friday, I tuned in to this event streamed in from Green Kill Gallery in Kingston, from 2:00PM to 8:00PM, put together by Bruce Weber, Joanne Pagano Weber & Therese Costa. Apparently it was pre-recorded at the gallery in October & November which made it possible to bring in lots of production values the “live” performances could not. It was also enhanced by the cut-out mobiles, decorative background of the gallery installed by Joanne. Each hour of the 6 there were 6 10 minute segments, individual readers, with a musician or musical duo each hour, & each hour introduced by a mid-Hudson poet, including Bruce Weber, Mikhail Horowitz, Teresa Costa, Sam Truitt, Phillip Levine, & Joanne Pagano Weber.

It was a pleasant mix of poets I’m familiar with, have even featured at the Third Thursday Poetry Night &/or Poets in the Park, & heard at open mics in Woodstock & Kingston, others I was not familiar with, but was to glad to hear. One issue I had was that each hour’s listing of the performers was in alphabetical order, but that was not the order they read in so I had to be careful if I tuned away from a performer I would have to check back in the next few minutes to see who was next.

During the 2:00 to 4:00 segment I heard a short story from Suzanne Bennett, Celia Bland reading from Cherokee Road Kill, poems by Fred Dugan who was new to me, Anne Gorrick read a poem based on Facebook comments, Ken Holland’s fine poems, the humor of Mikhail Horowitz on press release hyperbole (he was the host of the 3:00 - 4:00 hour), Paul McMahon on guitar a better singer than most I’d heard all day, a bass guitar improvisation Abby Travis, Matthew J. Spireng reading poems from his recent book Good Work, poems by Tamas Panitz, Pamela Twining, & Bruce Weber (who was the host of the 2:00 - 3:00 hour).

Teresa Costa, at Albany SJC, August 2017

In the middle segment from 4:00 to 6:00, Teresa Costa hosted the first half & read “The Art of Handwashing,” while Sam Truitt hosted the second half with a hobo jungle chant & drumming, there was Michael Bisio all over his stand-up bass, the quiet, descriptive poems of Robert C. Basher, the rhyming fables of Jennifer Bennett, Andy Clausen’s effusive, ranting catalogs, Guy Reed on sex & love, the humor of Sparrow (who also on Poetry Project), as well as poems by Lily Dunlap, Cate McNider & Sarah Vogill. 

In the final 6:00 to 8:00 segment host Phillip Levine included some of his short poems written on playing cards, the duo of Sylvie Degiez & Wayne Lopes provided music in the first hour, while the music in the 2nd hour was by another duo Karen Whitman & Rick Pantell, I enjoyed the folksy poems of Richard Comerford about being a farmer & making wine, Laura Hinton read from a book-in-progress The Little Book of Human Violence that I would love to read, Mike Jurkovic reading some favorites from other readings, Allison Koffler on the soul of her dog Cole, Dayl Wise’s poems colored by his experience in Viet Nam, Michael Ruby read his political poems while his niece Abby Travis (see above) accompanied him on electric bass, Joanne Pagano Weber hosted the last hour read a memoir of childhood, there was as well as the poetry of Josepha Gutelius, & Vladimir Nahitchevansky. & a charming piece by Jeffrey Cyphers Wright with puppets for his granddaughter.

Perhaps because this was all pre-recorded, but also certainly because the quality of the work was less ego-driven, more genuine from the heart words & music, this was for me the most consistently pleasant, even inspiring event of the 3 events in this day & a half, moving into the New Year, celebrating creativity, in words & music & community. 

Happy New Year!

 

Poetry Open Mic, July 22

Tim Verhaegen has been a welcome staple in the local open mic/reading/community workshop scene for many years, back to the 1990s. The first photo of Tim I’ve been able to find is from an open mic at Border’s Bookstore in July 1996, hosted by Mary Panza, a decidedly thinner & darker haired Tim. Recently retired from government service Tim has attended some Zoom poetry meetings & got the bug — not COVID — to take the leap to organize his first open mic. He set the list as folks arrived & put the order of the poets to his whim, & we went around twice.

Tim assigned me the first slot & I read the recently typed up “Content Advisory,” then in the 2nd round read the elegy “To my Parakeet Berlioz.”

Cheryl Rice began the night’s sub-theme with a new piece still on paper “Mask,” then a melancholy, related piece about finally getting out to a restaurant “Blue Devils” for sushi & a Mai Tai with it’s sad umbrella in the 2nd round.

Therese Broderick read from her chapbook of pandemic poems, in the 1st round “A Shortage of Crumbs,” about missing the open mics, then in the 2nd round, reflecting Cheryl’s theme, with one about finally getting to the Sake Cafe “Zen & the Art of Eating Inside a Restaurant for the First Time in 4 Months.”

Frank Robinson did a political parody based on the words of Nobel Laureate, Bob Dylan, memorably “how many years must a turd persist before it is flushed to the sea…” then in the 2nd round an anniversary love poem to Therese, his wife — ahh!

Howard Kogan was here from his home in Massachusetts to read about attending a poetry reading in a strange place “Die,” then in the 2nd round about waking up dead “One Morning.”

Bob Sharkey jumped into the issue of statues of former slave owners with “The Day Alice Green Drove Around the Philip Schyluer Statue” in front of Albany’s City Hall, then on the 2nd go around a strange poem from a prompt from a Bernadette Mayer workshop, “The Officer’s Hat” a memoir of piccolo player in a band & a hand job on a train.

Jan Tramontano was here from Florida, one of the pandemic hot-spots, to read the one COVID poem she has completed, “Il Nato,” about getting out a little, then in the 2nd round a descriptive piece about ex-Marine at “Paradise Nails.”

Mike Jurkovic is just down the River but didn’t have to drive to read a very new poem about pot smokers on the street “True Blue Sea,” then later one titled “Shamed Angels” referencing a magazine cover of Linda Ronstandt.

Kristen Day’s first round poem was an old piece about a trio in a nut house “Normal, Crazy, & St. Peter’s Girl Friend,” then in the 2nd round her hysterical, profane rant about rage at your ornery printer.

The sound of Peggy LeGee’s reading was a bit broken up but she was able to get through “Mommy’s Too Sick & Daddy’s Too Drunk,” then had better luck with a transition poem “A Little Girl Lost, A Little Boy Gone,” both poems in rhyme.

Our host, Tim Verhaegen, only read in the first round, a piece about breaking up from a 5-year relationship & what was wrong on both sides, “Boredom.”

This was Tim’s first foray, to my knowledge, in hosting an open mic anywhere, in any format & it worked quite well. There may very well be others in the future, stay tuned on social media — & keep writing.

Stay Home Session: Poetry Night at Caffè Lena, July 1

One of Caffè Lena’s responses to the restrictions on large gatherings of folks, this the monthly poetry night on the first Wednesday of the month, hosted by Carol Graser, held on YouTube. You can also find their music events on YouTube, including this year’s SPAC/Friehofer’s Jazz Festival which I enjoyed as it was happening in the comfort of my home & cheap drinks.

Tonight’s reading was a trio of poets who make this region such a hotbed of vibrant, engaged poetry, Joseph Bruchac, D. Colin, & Bunkong Tuon.

BK read first, primarily from his most recent book The Doctor Will Fix It (Shabda Press, 2019), focusing on his daughter, his wife, & his own response to becoming a father. His poems are part story, part personal questioning, part meditation on existence. BK’s grand theme is family, this book the latest in that exploration. He also read briefly from his other 2 books, And So I Was Blessed (NYQ Books, 2017) & Gruel (NYQ Books 2015). Gruel deals with his early years as a refuge from Cambodia, while And So I Was Blessed contains poems about returning to Southeast Asia as a tourist. He also included a recent poem beginning “America you were brave once… “ saying he loves America so he must criticize it.

D. Colin, who has the amazing task of hosting Poetic Vibe open mic & reading every Monday, (formerly at the Troy Kitchen, now on Zoom), said she was trying tonight her best to balance the positive & the grim. She began with “Magpie” a “fairly new” piece about trying to protect her plants, her self, from racism. From her book Said the Swing to the Hoop (Empress Bohemia Press, 2019) a poem in tribute to her mother & the lessons she taught “The girl dream,” as well as the powerful anthem/manifesto “for every Black Woman who has been called angry.” From Dreaming in Kreyol (Empress Bohemia Press, 2015) she put together into one piece the first 3 poems in the book paying tribute to her family in Haiti. & with careful hope she read her poem, “For the Days Ahead” written on the window of the Arts Center in Troy.

Joseph Bruchac is a familiar figure here at Caffè Lena & throughout the region, & he began as he does with a greeting in “the old language“ (Abenaki) then some notes on his flute, & on to a poem he had just scribbled for Danielle about his own time in Haiti, “Travel Trivia.” He said he was mostly reading new poems, some were “a little raw.” There was a poem for a new anthology of native writers to a young poet who stood up to protect the Missouri River, also one titled “My Grandfather’s Hoe,” another titled “We Remember” (but titled in Abenaki), another to 2 Abenaki rebels, “Tracks Not Left Behind.” The poem “What the Eagle Says to Us” carried the message that a new day will begin, we are not alone. He ended with a piece about walking across Lake Champlain on snow shoes.

You can watch the entire program (& hear poems I didn't tell you about) here.

While this was a stellar evening of local essential poets, I do miss the open mic with its variety & the unexpected unknown — maybe someday again soon — in person.

An Afternoon with the Author Elisa Albert, May 14

Since 2014 the Albany Public Library Foundation (now the Friends and Foundation of Albany Public Library) have named & honored one or more Literary Legends each year. Last year I had the great thrill & honored to be named a Literary Legend, along with poet Lyn Lifshin & novelist Peter Golden. This year the FFAPL has named fiction writer Elisa Albert as the 2020 Literary Legend. The celebration has traditionally included a “Meet the Author” event in the Spring & a grand fund-raising Gala in the Fall. But since 2020 is also “the Year of Covid-19” things are a little bit different.

On May 14 FFAPL held a stay-at-home online version of the Meet the Author event, with a reading & talk by Elisa Albert, in conversation with her friend & former student, local author, Jay Deitcher. Elisa is originally from Los Angeles but now lives in Albany, teaches at the College of St. Rose & is a Visiting Writer at Bennington College. Her most recently published novel is After Birth (2015), with 3 others previously, & a string of short stories & non-fiction, & she has been working on a new novel. The whole megillah is on her website here.

It was a lively discussion, mostly with Jay, about the importance of the non-writing community in her life, on her “soft spot” for Hudson, but also “a lot of unfulfilled potential” in Albany, on her novel Afterbirth (one of the main characters is not based on the late Maggie Estep), on her constant grappling with what it means to be Jewish, on the need for mentors/elders in her life (or, as Elisa called them, “lighthouses”).

She went on to read the beginning of a story published by The Literary Review as a chapbook titled Assholes, about a relationship (with a baby in it, again), & as you would expect from the title, a shit-load of profanities.

It was a pleasant literary afternoon, one in which I could enjoy my happy hour drink while “in the Library,” so to speak. I’m looking forward to meeting in person our new Literary Legend, Elisa Albert, & celebrating with her, her friends & colleagues, & others who make up our rich literary community at the Gala in the Fall.

Capital Region Earth Day Marathon Reading, April 22

Another online reading during this time of being sent to our rooms, this one sponsored by the Albany Public Library Foundation & the consortium of groups organizing a string of events in the Capital Region to celebrate Earth Day & Earth Day’s 50th Birthday. In the grand style of the Readings Against the End of the World, the annual 24-hour reading/performance marathon organized on or close to Earth Day from 1984 to 1993 by Tom Nattell as a fund-raiser for the Albany Peace & Energy Council, this year’s marathon reading was essentially Sunrise to Sunset. I joined in sometime after 6:00AM & hung around all day until 8:00PM, with the sound of people reading wafting through my house all day. Also on all day were organizers Lex Bhagat, Anne Erling, & Amy Forando. Lex & Anne served as hosts throughout the day while Amy smoothly handled the online logistics.

There was a great variety of literary works -- of course poetry, prose fantasies, children’s books, scientific/environmental articles, even the text of speeches by Al Gore & Greta Thunberg. I OD’d a bit on Mary Oliver, but that was to be expected, fortunately that was balanced by 2 or 3 folks who read Wendell Berry, & even 2 readings of Elizabeth Bishops’ poem “The Fish.” Early in the AM, & in the afternoon, I filled in during gaps with selections from Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology edited by Melissa Tuckey.

Someone read a story by Ursula Le Guin, Pippa Bartolotti read from her post-apocalyptic novel Barbarian, Cara Benson read from the manuscript of her novel How To Live In End Times, & Silvia Lilly charmed us with a segment from Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. Paul Grondahl read poetry by Diane Ackerman & Mayor Kathy Sheehan read Mario Cuomo’s charming children’s book The Blue Spruce. The youngest reader was Lex’s daughter during “The Children’s Hour” which included a sing-a-long with Kim Tateo.

There was also a lot of original work from local poets such as Therese Broderick, Paul Lamar, Mary Ann Murray, Lucyna Prostko, Sarah Giragosian & others, including me.

As typically happens with any marathon reading there were frequent gaps & changes of who was reading when from the schedule put together by Lex & the others. This is not uncommon even with in-person marathons, with readers just not showing up, or having a sudden “emergency” & needing to read earlier or later than scheduled. This was compounded this day by it being on a digital platform, specifically Google Hangout. Some folks perhaps were flummoxed by the sign-in process & got on late, or never, some were confused by the computer screen, the icons, whatever, with “can you hear me” a frequent refrain. But then that happens too when you put a microphone in front of some people on stage. It’s not Hollywood, nor is it meant to be, nor would I be there if it were.

It was as Earth Day should be -- people from the community at large sharing, in this case words, their own, those of others they admire or who have moved or inspired them. Sorry you missed it? Or, want to hear it again? Visit the Capital Region Earth Day website or check it out on YouTube.