Live from the Living Room, April 9

[Sally Rhoades reading at Caffe Lena, April 4]



Our host Don Levy introduced tonight's featured poet Sally Rhoades. Her work rises out of her life, with poems about her mother ("My Mother was a Waitress"), friends, about growing up ("I Grew Up Poor," "Street Fighter"), her daughters ("The Gate Closes", "Without Daughters," "The Daughters' Diligence"), about her life as a dancer ("Dance Questions All"), even about riding the train to NYC ("Six Yogis All in a Row", "Snow on the River"). Later, during the open mic section, Sally read a poem by her friend Nur Cheyenne, "Old Friend." Nur read with other SUNY students at the Albany Art Gallery in March 1990; she died of cancer a year later in March, 1991.

After the break I read 2 newer pieces, "Jack Sketching," & "Walking Washington." Bob Sharkey did his "St. Patrick's Day program" with Irish poet Dan Lordan's "Explanations of the War" then Bob's own poem on the confusion of terms & gender, "Fairy Dust."

Mimi Moriarty read "Flight to Gethsemene" about Thomas Merton's body being on the same plane in 1968 with the bodies of soldiers killed in Viet Nam, then "What $25 will Buy."

Kristen Day was back & read "Phobic" & then the only poem I can remember hearing about the frustration of frosting a cake. Jim Masters, who has a short article in the Center's latest issue of their newsletter, read "When the Angel of Death Calls" reacting to poems by William Cullen Bryant & Dylan Thomas.

A new voice, Jeff Wellman, read 3 "haikus" that were just written here, one on death, on a Red Sox Cap that Jim Masters was wearing, & April 9 (in the park).

Our gracious host, Don Levy, left us with a bit of kvetching humor, "See You in the Complaint Department."

Always the second Wednesday of each month, the Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Center, 332 Hudson Ave., Albany, NY 7:30 PM.

Aime Cesaire, voice of French Black pride, dies

By Astrid Wendlandt
Thu 17 Apr 2008, 13:18 GMT

PARIS (Reuters) - French Caribbean poet Aime Cesaire, founding father of the "negritude" movement that celebrated black consciousness, died in his native Martinique, France's Ministry of Culture said on Thursday.

Cesaire, 94, who was mayor of the island's main city Fort-de-France for more than half a century, was admitted to hospital last week suffering from heart and other problems.

His writings offered insight into how France imposed its culture on its citizens of different origins in the early part of the 20th Century.

The theme still resonates in French politics today, as the country continues to struggle to integrate many of its residents of African and North African origin.

In 2005, Cesaire refused to meet then French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy (now French president) over concerns that Sarkozy's conservative UMP party had pushed for a law which proposed to recognise the positive legacy of French colonial rule. The law was eventually repealed.

Cesaire and African intellectual Leopold Senghor -- later president of Senegal -- founded "The Black Student" in 1934, a journal that encouraged people to develop black identity.

ANTI-COLONIAL VOICE IN THE 1960s

The Caribbean writer rose to fame with his "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land", written in the late 1930s, in which he says "my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral, it plunges into the red flesh of the soil."

His poems expressed the degradation of black people in the Caribbean and describe the rediscovery of an African sense of self. In his "Discourse on Colonialism", first published in 1950, Cesaire compared the relationship between the coloniser and colonised with the Nazis and their victims.

He was a mentor to fellow Martinican author Frantz Fanon, and their anti-colonial writings were a major influence in the heady intellectual climate of the 1960s and 1970s in France.

The negritude movement was a counterpart to the Black Pride movement in the United States, though it has been criticised for not being radical enough.

Cesaire was also a friend of the French surrealist poet Andre Breton who had encouraged him to become a major voice of Surrealism.

Cesaire's anti-colonial rhetoric did not prevent him from having a long-lasting political career.

After becoming mayor of Fort-de-France in 1945 at the age of 32, he was elected deputy of parliament a year later, a post he held until the early 1990s.

A graduate of the prestigious French Ecole Normale Superieure -- unusual for a black Martinican in the 1930s -- he remained a member of the French communist party until the Soviet Hungarian repression of 1956.

Cesaire was born in 1913 in the small town of Basse-Pointe in Martinique. He married Suzanne Roussi in 1937, a gifted writer in her own right, with whom he had six children.

Post Traumatic Press/Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, April 3

Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace in the former Republican enclave of the Town of Bethlehem is one of the most active & best organized of the local peace groups. They host films, discussions, a weekly peace vigil at the 4 Corners in Delmar & lots of other events. So when they (in the person of the irrepressible Trudy Quaif) asked me to organize a poetry event for them of course I said, "of course". My friend & comrade in arms Dayl Wise published Post Traumatic Press 2007: poems by veterans last year & included me among the other fine poets. So that was the germ, the starter, of this reading. But Dayl, ever on patrol for more poet-veterans, reached out & invited poets not in the current collection into the platoon-reading.

We started (& ended) with community open mic poets. The new voice Tony Avacato started, appropriately, with "Give Me the Gun." Mimi Moriarty read "Movie Version" from her book, War Psalm.

Dayl began the main event with "Tack" Trostle's "10th Anniversary - The Wall". Thomas Brinson read "Just After a Monsoon Shower" (his son), "The Bone" (an obscene celebration of war machinery), & "Parade".

W.D. Clarke is not in this anthology but is a familiar figure in the local open mic scene. He takes the broad, historical approach to the issue of war, from "Urchins" to the "Shit-burners" & his own "Night-time Army" from the Viet Nam war, to the World War II "The Boys from Troy," & even back to Civil War "Gettysburg."

Jim Murphy shared the stage by reading Gerald McCarthy's "The Hooded Legion" (from Shoetown) & a Viet Namese poem, "Where the River Flowed", in addition to his own "Black Granite Panel 53W, Row 13."

Vince Traenor is also not (yet) in the anthology but gave moving readings of his 1995 "Monsoon Memories" & the 1970 "Welcome Home." World War II vet Jay Wenk read us the just-written memoir "The Jew" and "A Different Sort of War Horror Story."

I read a combination of old & new, the old rant "Richard Nixon Must Die" (& folks fantasied an updated version about the current president) & the new "Combat Boots." Our editor Dayl Wise read the "Cross of St. Andrew" & the new "Ode to the P38" & the moving "Stop Round-Eye or I Bite."

Two open mic performers brought us on home. Local peace activist Michael Rice read from Mumia Abdul Jamal, then Laura Baboulis sang Otis Redding's "A Change is going to Come," a great way to end this night.

Join the Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace every Monday (until the war ends) at the 4 Corners in Delmar from 5PM to 6PM.

Caffé Lena Open Mic, April 2

This was a wild event with 23 readers, including open mic-ers & folks in the just-released-that-night collection, Every Drop of Water: Voices from the Caffè Lena Poetry Stage, Volume 1. The "featured poets" were the poets in the collection, with some of them reading their poem in the chapbook & some other works, or a mix. The poets were: Barbara Ungar, Sue Jefts , Joe Bruchac (with a couple of new poems, one about a World War II uncle just beginning to write), Kristen Day (who read her hilarious-outrageous "Pick a Poem"), Thérèse Broderick, D. Alexander Holiday (who has a news book of personal poems coming out soon), me, Sarah Craig, our host Carol Graser (who read her classic "Poetry Open Mic"), Barbara Garro, Bob Sharkey, & A.C. Everson. There are more poets in the book so you might want to pick up a copy.

The other poets who read were familiar voices like Marilyn Day, Tim Verhaegen, Michael Hare, James Schlett, W.D. Clarke, Mimi Moriarty, Josh McIntyre, & Sally Rhoades. Newer/lesser heard voices were "Nuwanda" (Mark Devett -- down from Glens Falls), Liam (with a poem on a napkin about Hindu gods), & Nick.

It was a full night but our expert host Carol moved it right along. I picked up my copy of the chapbook when I arrived & purchased other copies for friends, but at the reading I read other poems, not the poem in the book, so it wasn't until I was home, in bed, that I opened a copy of Every Drop of Water. The chapbook is an interesting design with 2 signatures sewn together without any other binding on textured, deckle-edged cream-colored stock. Most comments I over-heard from the other poets were on how attractive the book is. And indeed it is.

Unfortunately, Every Drop of Water is marred by production/layout errors. When I finally that night read the text I discovered that my poem, "Water", was printed without the last 9 lines. The poem fills the page so it is not apparent to someone not familiar with the poem, it just has a different ending from what I intended. Another error is that one of the poet's bios is repeated on another page, & the credits/acknowledgments that usually go on the "copyright page" (the reverse of the title page) are on a page facing the title page. There are also no page numbers & thus no table of contents, which in an anthology not arranged alphabetically makes for difficulty in finding the individual poets' work. I connected with Beth DellaRocco of the Caffe Lena board the next day & she said they will print another, shorter poem of mine (so it will fit on the one page) in the next printing, and those of you with the truncated version of my poem will be getting an errata sheet. In the meantime if anyone wants the complete text of my poem, please send me an email. All's well that end's well, I suppose.

Anywho, the open mic continues with interesting featured poets & is always the first Wednesday of the month, at historic Caffé Lena, Saratoga Springs, 7:30PM. See you there.

Poets Speak Loud!, March 31

Last Monday, last day of the month, & Mary Panza still the host, oh my.

The featured poet was John Raymond, who began with a series of "oldies," generally poems he has read at open mics & his previous features at the Social Justice Center, the GLCC, etc., like the one about eating a chicken, or the woman at the end of the bar, or a dingy old bar with friends, or "Surgery," "The Damned" (killing a fly). The new poems were also sexy, pickled -- a "Bath" with candles & gin, or 4AM "Existential Alcoholism." The love poem "Clichés" echoed "Left Unwritten" in the first half, the struggle of writing & the struggle with love. Did John resolve it in the last poem, a love poem in magic language? Stay tuned.

I read a poem that had been lurking in my workbook until a poet friend helped me lace it up, "Combat Boots," then a new poem, "Painter's Eyes." And out of the blue came Billy Stanley with a "Stained Vision" of Ashley Dupree in a dingy hotel, "The Flash" for a friend in the National Guard, & a poem about never wanting to leave home -- nice to hear his twang again.

Ed Rinaldi breezed in from South Troy with a series of short pieces, one on ghosts & memories, "Esophagus Rising" (love repeating on him), winter with an ex, & writing in an empty house. Chris Brabham showed up in a fancy turtle neck to do a couple pieces on drug abuse, "Methadone Sea" & "Medicine Cabinet Junkie" getting ready for the day.

The performance piece of the night was Don Levy dropping a page to his new piece, "See You in the Complaint Department," bumping his head on the music stand as he bent (which is a generous use of that word for what he had to do) to pick up the page, then almost knocking over the mic stand -- phew, he got through it -- a funny, new poem, even without the shenanigans.

Coming all the way down from Glens Falls, the poet known as "Nuwanda" explained "The Secret of the Mullet," then a couple more, including a performance piece about waking up in the morning, "Five More Minutes."

William Eng read a piece like a journal entry of a visit home, then the returning Joe Hollander did a short poem I think was called "Fremont" that he was about to write at the end of April, or something like that -- hey, it was late.

Last Monday of most months, Lark Tavern, Madison Ave., Albany -- you find it.

Poetry @ the UAG, March 28

This collaborative series between Jawbone & Albany Poets continued in spite of the Spring break at the University, with the host Chris Rizzo.

Carol Graser is the fine, popular poet who is the host of the monthly open mic at historic Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs. Her carefully prepared program included poems from her book, The Wild Twist of Their Stems (FootHills Publishing), & other poems, a few rarely read, like "12 Years" & the tender love poem that began "there is a land in me of you..." Others were old favs such as "Discourse on Myself Addressed to the Patriarch," These Colors" (responding to the proliferation of flags), "Ecology," & the moving description of her father's PTSD, "Pope Air Force Base". Accessible work that is sometimes funny, often takes poetic leaps, & always engaging, getting better all the time.

Jacqueline Jones LaMon traveled from Adelphi University where she is an Assistant Professor of English. She began with poems from her book, Gravity, U.S.A. (Quercus Review Press), from her name, to her son, her father, even to mis-carried children. "Turnaround," about conversation on the bus between L.A. & Las Vegas, is a subtle abcdarian, even negotiating the tricky "x". She also read from a series in progress on missing children, sometimes from the family's view, sometimes over time ("The Age Progression Artist Pencils in Thicker Lashes"), sometimes in sonnet form, & often with long titles. She ended with "Ariel", a poem about the destruction & aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. While carefully crafted her poems are not by any stretch "academic"; they are entertaining poems that confront the personal & the political with images from real life.

Still another fine reading in this series. More to come.

"What I Did on My Spring Break": Split this Rock Poetry Festival

["What are those numbers?" I asked. "They're not numbers, they are ages," said Nathaniel Siegel, the ages of the U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq. Outside Busboys & Poets.]

That is if I had a spring break -- I can't say enough good things about this event: a great gathering of poets/activists/teachers in Washington DC for Poems of Provocation & Witness. There are a lot of poets out there who mouth the easy cliches of "Bush bad, freedom good" but who have never been seen at demonstrations, vigils, actions -- this was not the place for them. The people here are the ones who make things happen. I took 22 pages of notes, there was a helpful, detailed 35 page program, I picked up some handouts, clipped some newspaper articles & bought some poetry books, but you really don't want to read 25 pages of commentary, so I'll try to hit some highlights & you can check out the website http://www.splitthisrock.org/index.html & the Washington Post story http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032103319.html.


The kick-off event on Thursday, March 20, was a reading by Sonia Sanchez at the headquarters for the festival, Busboys and Poets, a cafe & bookstore on 14th St NW at the corner of V St. -- check it out, & the entire U St. area, next time you're in DC. Sonia was the perfect elder to open the event -- the figure of the engaged, activist poet. Her poem, "Peace," is in the Beloit Poetry Journal chapbook, the kind of poem that on the page is like trying to read a musical chart, but in performance takes you along to where the poet wants you to be. You need to check out www.bpj.org. The editors are Saints Lee Sharkey & John Rosenwald.

There were some Albany connections early on. Kazim Ali was a student at SUNY Albany in the early '90s & read at the Albany Art Gallery on Jefferson St., now has a poetry collection & a novel out & I've been reading his essays in American Poetry Review. He co-led a workshop titled "Yogic Path to Poetry and Conscious Action" with Susan Brennan (I found when I got home 2 photos of her reading at the QE2 in 1990) & Jeff Davis, who does yoga workshops & other community events in the Woodstock area. I also attended a workshop later, "Off the Page and Into the Streets -- Reports from the Field," run by Susan and fellow Brooklynite Nathaniel Siegel. Nathaniel gave out samples of his "tokens," small paper objects with messages, like a picture of Gandhi, or a "Declaration of Interdependence." He is engaged with an art project that is stenciling the ages, in chronological order, of the US military killed in Irag.

The panel on "Poetry, Politics & the Rant" was right down my alley. The moderator, Jose Gouveia, who had done his PhD dissertation on rants was also a fellow biker-poet with Colorado T. Sky, a one-eyed Viet Nam vet, who cited Warren Zevon & gave one of the best metaphysical statements of the event: "you gotta die of something, but what matters is the kind of skid marks you leave on the way out." Also on the panel were Martin Espada & Alicia Ostriker. Espada gave a wonderful reading opening night & here gave some examples of "good" rants: Neruda's "General Franco in Hell" & his own "For the Jim Crow Restaurant in Cambridge MA ..." (he said you tell a rant is coming because the title is long). Ostriker was our Jewish mother, quoting her "older brother" Blake about why we are doing this: "... to encourage those who do." Yes! She referenced "Howl", June Jordan & Grace Paley. In the Q&A, a discussion developed about what was called the "war on content" & Alicia told the joke of the week: Q: what do you get when you cross a member of the Mafia with a Language Poet? A: a offer you can't understand.

I would be remise for not mentioning the workshop I attended with Sarah Massey, from Massey Media, on Media Skills: at other conferences such valuable information, advice, encouragement would have cost 4 to 5 time as much -- an invaluable fine-tuning tool -- thank you, Sarah.

I can't comment on, or even mention, every great poet I saw famous or otherwise, but will try to run quickly through the field: DC icon E. Ethelbert Miller the great-uncle of the DC Poets Against the War; Naomi Shihab Nye leaving everyone wanting a cookie after her poem "Gate A4." Bopping, pierced, everybody's lesbian daughter, Alix Olson (check out "Dear Diary" in the BPJ Chapbook). DJ Renegade aka Joel Dias-Porter, & on another night, Patricia Smith, seminal slam poets who read good poems well without the slam-poet posing, back when "performance poet" simply meant reading your poems well & not droning on with your voice rising at the end of each line -- no histrionics, no spastic hand gestures. Stephen Kuusisto, a DC poet who is visually impaired & read with the assistance of an earpiece plugged into his laptop, adding a new level of self-referential comment. Pamela Uschuk, Kenneth Carroll & Belle Waring were a couple of other poets I hadn't heard before, but was glad to be there for. Mark Doty is at lots of festivals but that is because everyone likes him, he can be sensitive & intense & shares the poets he likes. And Carolyn Forché was as beautiful as I've ever seen her, & moved us with "The Lost Suitcase," "The Museum of Stones" (in the BPJ) & the new poem, "What Comes" (she said, "to be exposed to the coming of what comes" as grand a statement about her recent health problems as anyone our age could make.)


[Reading poems by Lucille Clifton: Coleman Barks, Pamela Uschuk, Sarah Browning at mic, Belle Waring, March 22]




The closing reading on Easter Sunday was at an auditorium at George Washington University with a reading by Galway Kinnell & DC poet Naomi Ayala. Throughout the event there were gaps where scheduled poet had cancelled for health reasons: Sam Hamill, Lucille Clifton & Sharon Olds (Kinnell, in a moment of inadvertent pornography said Sharon had bronchitis & "we had to practically screw her down into her bed to keep her from coming"). So DC poet Naomi Ayala filled in admirably with a fine reading -- I regret not knowing her work, but will (Curbstone Press).




The last event was a silent peace march to Lafayette Park across from the White House for a "cento" (as explained by Sarah Browning, meaning "patchwork"), a group poem where each person could read one line of no more than 12 words. At some point this may be up on the website. I doubt that George or Laura were listening or watching, but somebody was as evidenced by the antennas & cameras mounted on the roof of the White House.



During the festival there were a couple of open mics run by Regie Cabico but they were marred by in-group early signups & late insertions of buddy poets. But that was about the only negative thing I can cite from the festival.

I must commend the festival organizers for a wonderful, fruitful, inspiring experience. I regret that I never found a chance to tell Sarah Browning how beautiful she is but I expect she know that. Melissa Tuckey gave me her chapbook (from Pudding House Press) & Jaime Jarvis was always there. I kept bumping into Yael Flusberg, a curly yogini.

And then there were the poetry friends from elsewhere, & the new friends who just happened to sit down at my table, or next to me at the bar, or those who just exchanged smiles, or notes, or advice or directions. See you on the line.