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.

Virtual Poetry Open Mic, April 18

This has been a most-strange April, a poetry month without poetry readings -- I know, there are lots of online venues & literary projects that you can spend all day (what else do you have to do?) staring at on your computer screen (in between porn, of course), but it's not how I like my poetry served up.  I like the books & I like the poets, in person, as painful as it can be sometimes.

This was the first "virtual" real-time open mic that I've attended; I've submitted recordings of myself reading for the AlbanyPoets.com project & to Charlie Rossiter's Poetry Spoken Here podcast.  But this was different.  Like most things in life we dread, this wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. Although I recently was in a Zoom.com gathering for a family happy hour, I’ve avoided these type of things for the poetry gatherings I love. But this was put together by my friend Karen Schoemer & folks at the Roeliff Jansen Community Library down in Hillsdale, NY & I felt it was neutral ground to test it out. Besides, I’ve been playing around with the Zoom app & wanted to use some of its playful features, like the virtual backgrounds. At the most crowded there were 18 people in attendance (Zoom told me that), & 14 readers (by my count). I could even “take pictures” using the computer’s screenshot feature.

This was actually the Library’s traditional NaPoMo annual open mic, & as I noted, the first time I’d had a martini at an open mic “in” a Library. Tamara Gaskill from the Library served as the technical moderator, which became apparent is a good thing to have to mute the audience, unmute the reader, & take care of other technical issues.

Our host, Karen Schoemer, was apparently keeping her own “sign-up sheet” & broke the ice with a bunch of her poems from a recording project she has been working on, beginning with a series of similes titled “It’s Hard to Say Exactly How I Feel;” most of her poems were piles of descriptive images, such as the one with the great title “Zen Real Estate Broker.” As you would expect at this library out in the country there were a great deal of “Nature poems.” Jennifer Anderson read poems by other poets such as Archibald MacLeash, & her own poem about goldfinches, “Yellow For Gold;" at the end of the open mic she came back with a poem about canoeing “Rams Horn Creek.”

Eugene Aronowitz read a couple of short personal essays (I’m not sure where the line breaks were), “Stranger” about a jukebox battle with his daughter in a diner, & the pensive chronology “I Am Among the Formerly Young.” Jason showed up with his plush hand puppet, Frankie the Pigeon Poet, who performed “Shelter in Place” (with the plaintive anxiety “to get back to the dance”), then Jason followed with a rhymer “I Don’t Know.”

Charles Elkind used the Zoom virtual background to put up one of his paintings as a background to read a trio of serious philosophical musings, one with the improbable title “The Compassionate Impracticality of Equanimity.” Phyllis Carito read a poem about using isolation to stay in bed “Morning” then one about apple orchards “Barely Spring.”

Frances Colombo had to look for her poem on her Mac book, a variation on the poet shuffling papers when it is their turn & read a short poem about celebrating her birthday. Joan Binzen read poems by Jack Gilbert & Czeslaw Milosz, with her own poem on silence “There Was No Plan Leaving the City” sandwiched in the middle.

I was glad to see that Cecele Kraus had joined us & she shared 2 poems, “Future Thoughts” written this Winter on the theme of Time, & a more recent piece “Out of Bounds." I followed, switched my virtual background to a shot of Wonson Cove in East Gloucester to read 2 poems written there “Hanging Over the Edge” & “The 6 of Cups.”

Todd Johnson began with a pastiche of William Shakespeare’s famous Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to …”) but his version was a negative complaint, then another piece on the cosmic show of flowers, & the last about his profession as a teacher. Daniella Van Gennep read a poem about conversations with her daughter over the years where the daughter would ask for something then get something else, & another poem about being an immigrant (from the Netherlands).

Al Stumph said he was reading his own poems because he is his own favorite poet, read “Spring Walk” & a poem written in Florida about missing his home here “Night Lights.” Phyllis (who was identified by Zoom by her iPad) read “Daffodils & Cat in the Pandemic.”

A few thoughts about the Zoom experience: it was handy to have the app note the participants’ names rather than me tracking down the sign-up sheet at the end; the “spotlight” feature which shows the speaker/reader in the center of the screen makes it almost like focusing on the reader at the mic; & the “mute” feature would be good to have for regular open mics to tune out the tedious (but the downside is the audience reactions — laughter, sighs, those indescribable sounds of appreciation at a line or phrase, & most of all applause — are not there to encourage the reader). This is certainly not the way I want to be with my poetry community, & as I started out by saying “this wasn’t as bad as I anticipated” but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, it’s not — it SUCKS!  & where was the waiter when I needed another drink?

Open Mic of the Air #1

Poetry Spoken Here is an audio project on Soundcloud.com that poet Charlie Rossiter embarked on after moving from Chicago to Bennington, VT — in fact this segment is actually Episode #121 in the canon. He also runs a poetry open on the 2nd Tuesday of the month at the Tap House in Bennington, but now that we are in the Time of COVID-19 he created this open mic with more-than-appropriate social distancing (with participants ranging throughout the USA as well as Brazil, India, & Mexico).

G.E. Schwartz (r.) with Solomon's Ramada
Albany Art Gallery, February, 1990

I was a willing attendant, but unfortunately since this is an audio-only event & I was stuck in Albany & there are no photos. But I was pleased to see on the list poet G.E. Schwartz who had been a regular at poetry venues in Albany, particularly the QE2 rock club on Central Ave., & a member of the poetry/art rock group Solomon’s Ramada.

This was like any other open mic — good poems, eeh poems, & everything in between — the way community poetry is anywhere I’ve been in this most poetic country of ours, &, I suspect, throughout the world.

This Week's Readers (or one might say, the "sign-up sheet"):

2:52 Dan Wilcox, Albany, New York – “Hanging Over the Edge”
4:20 Andrew Shaw, Port Townsend, Washington – “On the Nature of Motifs”
6:38 Leonides Jongui, San Luis Potosi, Mexico – “Momnto et Pasado”
8:39 John Berry, Winchester, Virginia – “How to Teach Poetry”
10:42 Jeannie E. Roberts, Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin – “The Tempo of Gratitude”
12:47 G.E. Schwartz, Henrietta, New York – “The Searchers”
16:22 Charles Castle, Eugene, Oregon – “Poetry in the Time of Coronavirus”
18:47 Ralph Carusillo, Hudson River Valley, New York – “The Last Avenue”
23:36 Vandana Parashar, Panchkula, India – “A Leap of Faith”
25:48 Sandy Rochelle, New Jersey – “To Mothers All Alone in a Sandbox”
27:26 Dottie Joslyn, Springfield, Missouri – “Virus Two”
28:34 Michael Glassman, Newburgh, New York – “Drop Zone”
31:33 Louiza Mussnich, Rio de Janiero, Brazil – “Accident (to Iris Murdoch)” and “For Sale”
33:56 Romy Maimon, Cape Cod, Massachusetts – “I Wish”

Listen to it here
 
& submit your work for future Open Mics of the Air here  & if you see a guy show up with a camera taking notes, you’re hallucinating.

The Poetry of Oklahoma

The Scissortail Creative Writing Festival happens each year at East Central University in Ada, OK. I have attended every-other year or so since 2011. This year’s festival, scheduled for April 2 thru 4, was, of course, cancelled. However, just in time, a book arrived in the mail, Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush, The Poetry of Oklahoma, edited by Oklahoma poet Ron Wallace of Durant, OK.

By my rough count, nearly half of the poets in the anthology I have see & heard at Scissortail at one time or another. There are some names with national reputations, such as our current Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, the novelist Louis L’Amour, N. Scott Momaday & Rilla Askew. & many I count proudly as my friends, including Ken Hada the director of the festival, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish who 1st introduced me to Oklahoma in 2010 when Charlie Rossiter & I made a trip to Albany, OK, Jim Spurr (sadly no longer with us), feisty Dorothy Alexander, Rilla Askew, former New Yorker Paul Austin, & the editor himself Yankee fan Ron Wallace. Others whose books I have on my shelf of Oklahoma writers, or with whom I’ve shared dinner & drinks & conversation.

Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Oklahoma Poet Laureate 2017 - 2019, once lived in Albany, where her son Michael was born, & on visits back to the East she has stayed at “The Poetry Motel.” It was Jeanetta who made it possible for Charlie & I to visit Oklahoma & even be part of the Oklahoma Labor Fest when we were there. Ken Hada has also made trips to the East & also been a guest at “The Poetry Motel.”  Both have read at poetry venues in the area, such as at Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs.

It’s a marvelous group of writers & I look forward to seeing them again, maybe next year. But this anthology brought these, & other writers I haven’t met (yet) into my home in Albany, NY.

You can order Bull Buffalo and Indian Paintbrush directly from Ron at his website www.ronwallace.com — tell him Dan Wilcox sent you.

2nd Wednesday Open Mic, March 11

Schenectady’s monthly open mic at C.R.E.A.T.E. Space, 137 State St., doing poetry in the time of COVID-19, there were still 6 of his here, no need for a sign-up sheet, we all knew each other — & then part way through there was a surprise, but more on that later.

The host here each 2nd Wednesday is poet Jackie Craven who started us off with a poem by West Coast poet Suzanne Lummis, “How I Didn’t Get Myself to a Nunnery.”

Alan Catlin was the first to read & began with a poem by Bunkong Tuon (aka BK) who had been scheduled as the featured poet but had to cancel, “Thoughts When I Found Out I Was Going to Have a Daughter” (which you can find at the Misfit Magazine website). Then on to poems from his work-in-progress of poems based on the work of American photographer Diane Arbus (1923 - 1971), “House of Horrors: Coney Island,” & “Untitled #10” (from Arbus’ series of photos taken in asylums), then a poem written yesterday about a neighbor dying “Across the Street…” Alan has a new book just out from Dos Madres Press Asylum Garden: after Van Gogh, he read the title poem & a series of poems titled “Aspects of Vincent.”

Judith Prest began with a selection of poems from After (Finishing Line Press, 2019), including the title poem, “Unsafe,” “Recovery Poem 1,” & “Witness.” Then a newer poem written in November “Prayer for St. Janis” (based on Ernesto Cardenal’s poem “Prayer for Marilyn Monroe”).

Scott Morehouse usually (always?) leaves us laughing ’til we gasp with his outrageously humorous tales, tonight was no exception with the story of a widow, her friend, & a custody trial over a monkey, set in 1925, “Society’s Darling” made all the better by Scott’s theatrical rendition.

Susan Jewell talked about a panel discussion by scientists on poetry at the recent AWP convention, & read Jim Johnstone’s piece on virus “Identity as a Reproducible Method.”  (For anyone interested in the conjunction of poetry & science, check out the CapSci Facebook page or their website www.capsciny.org. Susan is a persistent writer of ekphrastic poetry & read a couple tonight, “Abandoned Ware” (about the end of an affair), & one titled “How Did the Birds Not Shit on Me.”

While Susan was reading 3 young women wandered in, a bit uncertain & shy. One, Tamoya (spelling?) said she had been looking for a poetry open mic in Schenectady. With encouragement from us more seasoned readers she read an untitled piece written this morning, a moving letter to her mother discussing her childhood & their troubled relationship — a surprising gift to us all.

I was up next with a couple new poems, “First Date” (based on a poem a lady gave me on our first date), “The Helicopters of Peace” (from my recent retreat on Cape Ann), & an older piece, “Epidemic,” on earlier epidemics, the bird flu & the swine flu.

Our host Jackie Craven finished off the night by telling us about a series of successes she’s had recently in getting her poems published. She read a series of “sister poems,” the first with birds, then one based on the Pleaides, based on a Nancy Drew novel with the same title “The Mystery at the Moss Covered Mansion,” then ended with “Cyborg Sister.”

As it turned out this was the last poetry event I attended before the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic began to shut everything down. By that weekend most entertainment venues had closed down, & I decided to cancel the Third Thursday Poetry Night I host at the Social Justice Center. As the days have progressed bars & restaurants, movie theater & gyms have closed & “social distancing” has become not a description of pathological behavior but an accepted, protective behavior.

Writing is something that is done alone, in private, like, well you get it. But poetry open mics have become a way for us solitary poets to get our work out there in our community, to try out our work & perhaps take it back home to revise or re-work it & try it out again, or to promote our poems when they are published in a zine or as a chapbook or collection, & to hear the work of others, to learn from them what to do (or not do), to respond to, to emulate (or copy, or imitate, or steal). What began in private becomes transformed into public statement, into community, into friendships, or into the conflicts that create change.

I will have to see how this Blog will change in the time of COVID-19 until we begin meeting again in bars, coffee houses & other community spaces. But the important thing is for all of us to keep writing, to stay connected by social media, telephone, messaging, email, one-on-one encounters, to send your best work out there to the many online & print venues that exist. & to create new ways of sharing our work via the magic of electronic media — we’re all made out of electrons anyways.

Now go write that poem you’ve been wanting to for as long as you can remember. Peace.

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

Poetry in the Time of the Coronavirus, but clearly less than 50 people here, hosts Nancy Klepsch (“Pandemics make me cranky”) & me (Dan Wilcox).

& I was up first on the sign-up sheet with a poem, “The Poet’s [Poet’s] Decalogue” based on a poem by Sharon Mesmer, in American Poetry Review, November/December 2019, based on a poem by Gabriela Mistral, then a flash-back to past epidemics, in 2 parts.  Dave DeVries is the host of the long-running open mic at the Colonie Town Library on the 3rd Tuesday where they sometimes select words for folks to incorporate into a poem to read at the next gathering, his first poem “Blurred Vision” was one of those poems, his 2nd poem in funny rhymes was titled “A 2nd Chance.” Bob Sharkey’s poem “After St. Patrick’s Day” was printed appropriately enough on green paper (Bob said he couldn’t remember reading it out before, but I distinctly remember it with its description of a unique snow globe); earlier in the week he had announced the winners & other honorees of the 2020 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest & read today cento composed of lines from some of his favorite entries “Lie Down Here in the Green Green Field.”

Kate Laity made a welcome return to the 2nd Sunday @ 2 to read a piece of short, noir fiction, “Lavender” originally published here in Punk Noir Magazine.  Certainly not “noir” Sally Rhoades read a piece from her ongoing memoir about growing up in foster homes, a piece she wrote only a few hours ago. Co-host Nancy Klepsch began with a piece I’ve heard before (& like) “My Clit Thinks for Me,” then the anaphoric (“Send me …”) “I Am the Algorithm.”

Karen Fabiane began with a piece on music written yesterday “Most of the Notes,” another new piece, a long series of ex’s “You’re In the Big City Now,” & ended with “Clingy Men” who created the Bible. Tara seems to like to work in forms, today a piece titled “Invalid” which she said combined a Haiku with a villanelle not sure what she meant but I only heard it once, as I did her 2nd piece, a short untitled poem. Earlier Nancy had been discussing the possibility of doing this gathering online on one of the conferencing platforms out there, Lauren Pinsley had wanted to tell a story about that & was added to the bottom of the list, a hilarious tale of someone falling asleep during a conference call whose loud snoring triggered the camera — it could happen soon at an online poetry open mic, stay awake.

We are not certain what will transpire for Poetry in the Time of the Coronavirus here on the 2nd Sunday @ 2: Poetry + Prose at the Arts Center in Troy, but we hope to let you know.

Epidemic

EPIDEMIC

Bird flew --
it’s what
they do


EPIDEMIC (II)

Everything is
coming true:
Swine flew

 

EPIDEMIC (III)
The King is
COVID-19
It wears a Crown