2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose, November 8

Unfortunately, my co-host/co-conspirator, Nancy Klepsch, could not be with us today. But many writers & listeners did show up, for a great variety of poetry & prose.

First up for her second time here was Sylvia Barnard, with 2 poems about her neighborhood, the first from her 2012 book of poetry, Trees, “Neighborhood,” the 2nd an untitled work-in-progress in which she invokes the past in the buildings around her. Peggy LeGee read a thank-you to veterans, a piece that talked out breaking the cycles of anger & of other root causes of war. Mike Conner had not been here in about a year, but said he was glad to be back & brought 2 seasonal poems, one about looking ahead to Winter back to Summer “Seasonal Morphing,” & one from late Winter “Fog & Chicken Soup.” Tim Verhaegen read a prose piece on sudden deaths, including that of his much-written-about mother.

Bob Sharkey began with his own descriptive piece, “Tate St.,” about where his grand-parents lived in Maine 100 years ago, then a poem by Elaine Feeney from Galway, Ireland, from a book he picked up at an Irish poetry festival in NYC. Joe Krausman found another of his poems that he had forgotten he had written, “How It Goes,” then one about “Jane the Psychologist” who sees meaning in everything. I read just one poem, a new one, “Naming the Parakeets."  Cathy Abbot read a tribute piece for Veterans’ Day, then a haiku. Howard Kogan’s poem was about what poets need, words (& balls, it seems). Brian Dorn read from his book, From My Poems to Yours (The Live Versions) as he has been doing, on death, “Pain & Poetry,” & “My Impropriety.”

Jamey Stevenson arrived tired from an all-night project & started off with some haiku, then a piece starting with horses, “The Meek.” R.M. Engelhardt made a rare open mic appearance to read from a new book coming out in 2016, 2 poems, “Not My Time” & “The Waiting.” Karen Fabiane read a poem from each of her chapbooks, from Dancing Bears “Oceans Everywhere” & from Seeing Your Again “Begone.” Robert had slipped in late & I added him to the end of the list; he read from his phone “He Walks” & a piece about hiding the past “There Is Something Drab About Fridays,” both filled with rich, descriptive language.

2nd Sunday @ 2 is just what it says, an open mic for poetry & prose held on the 2nd Sunday of each month at 2PM @ the Arts Center of the Capital Region on River St. in Troy — & it’s free. Join us.

Yes! Poetry & Performance Series, November 7

Yes, we were back again at the Albany Center Gallery for an eclectic evening of the sounds of words & a guitar. & an activist-oriented reading at that. Matthew Klane & James Belflower were our hosts & MCs.

Lee Gould gave a quiet, undramatic reading of often difficult poems. But the work engaged some of the world-wide issues. Her first piece dealt with “invasive species” — what, who, why are they — as much a matter of how we define things as an ecological issue. “Rationale” was read from a hand-made book (she is also a print-maker & crafter of books) with references not only to the Wa-Wa convenience stores, but also to native Ojibway culture. Her last piece, “Man Made” was a meditation on the manufacturing of our clothes, beginning with an image bag of her daughter’s cast-away clothes leading to thinking about a fire in a Bangladesh factory where many of those clothes could have been sewn.

Victorio Reyes, a long-time social justice activist, & performer in this area, gave a much different reading, beginning with his first piece, the anaphoric “I am this poem…” & as another piece was titled “This is a Rant Not a Poem.” While he did separate poems for Travon Martin, for Sandra Bland & for Oscar Grant, on racism & violence in American society, they were each individual pieces, with different approaches to the topic & in different styles, including a hip-hop sonnet sequence & self-consciously “anti-literary” rant. He also read a much quieter love poem, “Orange Love Seat,” & a touching elegy for his father “Lefty Morning Breeze.”

The final performer was musician Nathan Pape who was literally all over his guitar. His single, extended piece ranged from simple, melodic interludes, to volcanic strumming, thumping & massaging the guitar body, to ripping at & un-tuning the strings, getting sounds from almost every part of the instrument.

Yes! is a poetry & performance series so one is never sure what one will see or hear. Look for notices of future events on their FaceBook page.

Nitty Gritty Slam #104, November 3

Amani

I hadn’t been to the Nitty Gritty Slam here at The Low Beat since #100 & in the meantime there had been a regime change with Amani & Poetyc Visionz apparently taking over the management, bringing their own style to the event. Amani served as host & started us off with a couple of her pieces, including a sexy piece about her mystery man.

The open mic started with Olivia who read a long, rambling, stream-of-conciousness piece that she said was written yesterday, about the Skidmore College students were hit by a car over the weekend (Olivia is a student there). She was the first of many women poets in the open mic, greatly out-numbering the guys. Rashanda (I’m guessing at the spelling) said that she too was a Skidmore student & began a long, long set, like about 20 minutes, as if she were a featured poet, mostly personal therapy rants that all sounded pretty much alike. Tim Verhaegen was more judicious with his time, just 2 modest pieces about, of course, his family.

Jazz

Jazz introduced herself as a homeless youth activist & did 2 pieces about her own experiences being homeless in New York City. Amanda did the first real poems of the night, the descriptive narrative of “Possession” & “Him.” Poetyc Visionz followed with his piece on dark & light with the message to be yourself. Jacky’s first piece was the “lighter” of the 2, “Swipe Right” about an encounter in a bar in Austin, then a moving memoir of growing up in Colombia County “We Were Poor.” K.P. said he had a couple of seasonal poems, a haiku by a friend, then “On the Weather, or Winter is Coming” which was actually about complaining. Salina ended the open mic with more real poems, on tenderness, love, sex & about the power of women in the “Game” of sex.

Rare shot (by Amani) of me doing Slam

There were just 4 poets signed up for the Slam, Amani, P.V., Tim Verhaegen & me, but first Jazz served as calibrating/sacrificial poet with the “Game of Love” for a score of 26. Since there were only 4 of us we went “head-to-head,” first Amani (her signature piece “Amandita…”) then me with “The Pussy Pantoum.” Amani gracefully conceded her spot, in spite of all her 10s, since she was the host, giving me the round. Then P.V. with his technology poem & Tim Verhaegen with “Pussy” (!), somehow technology beat “Pussy” — never so with me. That left me & P.V. This time he went with an audience participation piece (rare in Slam) & I got a respectable 24.5 for “Going Postal.” But it was P.V. in 1st place, me in 2nd, & Tim somewhere in 3rd, & after giving Tim a chance to do “Letters.”

The Nitty Gritty Slam is held on the 1st & 3rd Tuesdays of each month at The Low Beat on Central Ave. in Albany, NY, about 7:30PM, $5.00 (cheaper with student I.D.), with an open mic for the non-competitive sort.

Poets Speak Loud!, October 26

This is always a high-powered event with a heavy dose of outrageousness, due in no small part to the host, Mary Panza, but tonight promised to be over the top with the featured reader Tim Verhaegen. But first a bit of the open mic.

Strangely enough I was first on the sign-up sheet & began with a poem about my first colonoscopy back in 1999, “Thru the Circle,” then a piece assigned by Shaun Baxter when he ran the open mic at the Night Sky Cafe in Schenectady “Zombie Gourd.” Joe Krausman’s 2 poems were about sex, the first about being “Too Old,” then the funny rhymes of “Pandering to Pandas at the National Zoo.”

Carrie Czwakiel was back again with 2 poems about an ex-boyfriend “Pain Lingers On” & the somewhat preachy “Complacency is Stagnant.” Don Levy read 2 new poems that I’ve had the pleasure to have heard previously (& would like to hear them again), “My Guy Friend” & “The Family Business” a letter to his niece about writing. J.L. Weeks was introduced as next month’s featured poet (& had popped up at the open mic during this year’s WordFest) & started with a rhymed Halloween themed piece on Jack-the-Ripper “The Leather Apron, then, from memory, the self-assertive “I Found My Way Around.”

Then on to the main event, featured poet/writer Tim Verhaegen, who is known for writing about his largely dysfunctional family. He began back in childhood with “Things Mom Used to Say When I Was 7,” then on to a piece about his older brother & his mother, "The Middle Child."  He already had us laughing & he would return to stories of his Mom soon. His poem “Letters” was about reading through a box of them from high school & college, & shifting tone to considering the labels we attach to others “Across a Crowded Ballroom."  Then on to poems reflecting different aspects of gay life, “It’s Down to You” (on cruising), “Cynthia the Stereotypical Angry Lesbian,” “The Pool Boy,” & the surprising “Swans” describing their dancing & fighting (& it applies to all of us I dare say). One piece was a hilarious take on writing workshops, on being praised & the price of fame. Tim returned to his mother (& father) in his final, bring-down-the-house piece, one I’ve heard before & one that always cracks me up, “The Fuck Family” — if it was a movie you couldn’t show it on TV.

Once the house quieted down again, Mary brought us back to the open mic. Cheryl A. Rice read 2 Halloween poems, the 1st so old she no longer remembers what guy it was about “Jack O’Lantern,” then to a poem about her niece on Halloween. Thom Francis’ poem “He Looks Around the Room” was short, poignant. Julie Lomoe read from a series a short poems that are observations from walking her dog to poop (no shit). Karen Fabiane’s 1st poem “Someone Laughed” spun out & around from the first cruel line that becomes a refrain, followed by a conversational poem of longing “I Woke Earlier.” Kevin Peterson read an anaphoric piece (“Your 4:00 called…”) about the job, “Working List of Lies I Told to the Therapist.” Avery, whom I hadn't seen out in a while, closed out the night with a song lyric pondering “What Do You Choose?”

If you want to join in the fun, come to McGeary’s on Clinton Square in Albany, NY on the last Monday of the month for Poets Speak Loud!, 7:30PM.  Come early & have dinner — good drinks, good food, good service — & good (mostly) poetry.

Sunday Four Poetry, October 25

I missed the season opener of this series last month but had to be here for today’s featured poet Karen Skolfield. I had met Karen at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival when when she read as a winner of the poetry contest & invited her to read at the Third Thursday Poetry Night. But first today we had an impressive line of open mic poets, introduced by Edie Abrams.

Mark O’Brien began with a plaintive “missing you” poem, then to a childhood memoir about shooting squirrels “Gun Control,” & another “You Can Always Burn that Bridge When You Come To It.” Dan Lawlor said he was reading of couple of early, “old-fashioned” (i.e., rhyming), poems, “A Young Boy’s Literary Friends” (a tribute to the books he read as a youth), & an exploration of “What Is Music?”  Dennis Sullivan’s poem on the scourge of power started like Horace’s Epode 2 “Beatus Ille Qui” (happy is he who), then he read a poem for me, “All’s Well that Never Was” from when the hosts of Sunday Four honored me with the Arthur Dare Willis Award in 2011. Then I followed with a poem about my 2009 colonoscopy “Thru the Circle,” & a related piece “At the Center.”

Kathleen O’Brien’s first poem “Waste” was about food going bad, & her next poem “Thank You” was also a descriptive piece but this about the Home Front Cafe in Altamont. Joe Krausman injected some humor into the afternoon’s reading with a funny piece “Independence Day” about a picnic gone bad & the lawsuits that followed, then a poem on the dilemma of making choices, this or that. Lloyd Barnhart’s poem “Aromatherapy” was a rare piece that described smells, in this poem, of Autumn, then a square dance/death poem “Mockingbird.” Howard Kogan gave us “A Brief History of Fun” over the changing years. Sally Rhoades stuck close to her family, beginning with the auto-biographical “When I Was a Poet,” the “The Sky is My Witness” on her father as a poet, & ending with a poem for her daughters “A Summer Serenade.”

Philomena Moriarty began with a new piece about the violence of boys playing punch-ball, “New Orleans” (a “flash-back”), & a poem from her new book My Moon Self “If Poems Were Wishes.” Alan Casline returned from a visit to Montana with “Mountain Song” about clouds & birds, then read 2 poems from his recent book 64 Changes (FootHills Publishing, 2015), “The Army” (#7 in the I Ching) & “Deliverance on the Day For It” (#40), both read for the passing of a cousin. Bob Sharkey’s poems were of Maine, first displaying a shell carefully unwrapped for “The Shark’s Eye” with references to Longfellow & E.A. Robinson, then another about a storm in the off season.

Edie Abram’s poem was a timely piece about changes “The First Frost.” Joan Gran read a couple of companion pieces from a series of poems on the death of her mother, but both poems were about her father, “The Funeral” & “The Day After the Funeral.” Paul Amidon finished out the open mic with a couple of memoir poems, “Dinner for Two” & “Legacy” (a box of old photos & a garden gone to weeds).

Dennis Sullivan introduced the afternoon's featured poet, Karen Skolfield. She began with poems from her wonderful book Frost in the Low Areas (Zone 3 Press, 2013), the book’s opening poem “Where Babies Come From,” then “Lost Mountain,” “Rumors of her Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated,” &, by special request from Dennis, “Ode to the Fan” a touching memoir of her youth & her father. Then Karen read some new poems, “I Asked My Son To Send Me a Word for a Poem & He Sent ‘Nothing’” with Biblical references, “Raven versus Crow” a made-up conversation with her son, “Death’s Head Necklace,” & a poem based on the curious fact (?) that there are only 2 escalators in Wyoming “Upward Mobility.” She ended with a couple poems from a new manuscript on military themes, “Double Arm Transplant” & another poem with Biblical references “Combined Plow & Gun Patent, 1862.” I admit to being a big fan of Karen’s intricate & engaged poetry, but I know from the reactions of the other members of the entranced audience that she garnered a number of other new fans this afternoon as well.

Sunday Four Poetry continues each 4th Sunday of the month at 3:00PM at the Old Songs Community Center, Main St., Voorheesville, NY, for a modest donation supporting the featured poet & Old Songs.

St. Rose Poetry Reading, October 23

In the absence of the Frequency North series due, I guess, to budget cuts at the College of St. Rose, it was refreshing to have this reading by poets Barbara Ungar & Bernadette Mayer & both teaching at the College of St. Rose.

Student Amber O’Sullivan introduced Bernadette Mayer with one of the best introductions in an academic setting I have heard in a long time, telling us “I’m not going to talk about…” but of course talking about what she didn’t want to talk about by not talking about it (or something like that).

Bernadette is teaching a course in the MFA program in creative writing at the College of St. Rose, & many of us in the larger poetry community have benefitted from informal poetry workshops at her home here in upstate New York (without paying exhorbetant tuition fees). Tonight she began with a long litany, at Barbara Ungar’s request, of all the “phil” words, a long compilation of ancient Greek words for the things we love, such as philalogia, philanecria, etc. Bernadette loves (“phila-“) wordplay, often for its own sake & read some of her earliest poems that wallowed in it, such as “Moon in 3 Sentences,” “Laura Cashdollars” (a high school classmate), “3 Men Resting,” & “Yellow Orange.” She ended with her “absolute most favorite poem to read,” available in Scarlet Tananger, an early work of hip-hop, “Words That Rhyme with Disease.”

Alyssa Cohorn did a more conventional introduction for Barbara Ungar, who read her own “Phil poem” from Immortal Medusa (The Word Works, 2015) “Dead Letters,” about mail being delivered to her house addressed to a former occupant. Continuing on with more from Immortal Medusa she read “For the Weather,” “Things Do Not Look As Dismal As They Did” (a found poem listing endangered species), the title poem “Immortal Medusa,” & “A Young Person’s Guide to Philosophy.” Then on to a couple new poems with dead poets connections, “Emily Dickinson’s Estate Sale” & one she said was based on Frank O’Hara’s poem “Ave Maria” “Maria Lactans” (the Nursing Madonna).

A great pairing of 2 local poetic treasures.

An Evening of Poetry and Prose, October 22

I’ve been to many poetry readings where the audience didn’t show up, but few at where half the readers were a no-show. Harvey Havel had organized this reading at the Hudson River Coffee House on Quail St. in Albany, NY with 4 readers, mixing poetry & prose. But, in addition to Havel, our host, the scheduled readers who did show up were Allen Parmenter & myself, Dan Wilcox.

Harvey Havel began the program with a reading from the anthology Coming of Age of a short story by Mary F. Chen Johnson about her experience with food in an immigrant Chinese family.

I followed with a selection of poems from various published chapbooks, beginning with “Where Were the Professors?” from boundless abodes of Albany (Benevolent Bird Press, 2010). The book is available in a Kindle edition.  Then on to poems from Poeming the Prompt (A.P.D., 2011), 2 from my latest chapbook, Gloucester Notes (FootHills Publishing, 2015), & a couple from Coyote: Poems of Suburban Living (A.P.D., 2015). I ended with a rare reading of “Baghdad/Albany” from Baghdad/Albany & Other Peace Poems (A.P.D., 2007).

Allen Parmenter read what he described as 7 brief sketches or poems form his spiral notebook, impressionistic image-based pieces that he ripped through without introductions, including images of dead birds, a dead god, night with plants & coyotes, & a voice as a hole. The last, & longest piece, I found the most beguiling, a list poem on mercy. I would like to see him read out more at some of the local open mics.

The Hudson River Coffee House is the scene of a weekly open mic that seems to cater mostly to musicians on Thursdays, starting at 8:30PM. For more information contact the Coffee House.