Caffè Lena Poetry Open Mic, October 5

I was glad to get back to this long-running open mic & its featured poets. Our host is Carol Graser who welcomed us with a poem titled "Sallow," then introduced the venerable Joe Bruchac to welcome us with a greeting in the Abenaki language.

The featured poet was Lance Henson, who in recent years returns around this season; his native name is Walking Badger. He once lived in the Capital Region, & his son Michael was actually born in Albany. Joe Bruchac accompanied Lance’s reading on his wooden Native flute, beginning appropriately enough with “Rain Song” & the sound of birds. He read poems about his grandmother, on wolves (written in Bologna, Italy), & poems to other poets, such as W.S. Merwin, Miguel Hernández, Charles Bukowski & others. There were short poems like Haiku, & a poem in a Native language, that could have been Chippewa. You can see his reading, which was live-streamed that night, at the Caffè Lena YouTube Channel.

Then on to the open mic, with Carol starting us off with her poem “A Prayer for the Sorrowful Brain.” I followed with a seasonal poem “Yom Kippur 2004,” & one from years ago dedicated to Lance Henson “I Meet an Old Friend on the Subway.” Kate read 2 poems, perhaps  related, “Barefoot” & “The Child.” Fred Ziernan (not sure of the spelling) read a poem about the 1983 war in Grenada.

Elaine Kenyon read a poem with a punning title “Coming Day Dreams” on sex fantasies, & an old poem from a workshop, apparently without title. Leslie Sittner’s poem titled “Gun Power” was a memory of her father hunting. Pauline read a descriptive poem about her stepmother “Lucia in the Garden,” then a piece in rhyme “Little Red Riding Hood Revisited.” Todd Fabozzi just read one piece, titled “American Spirit.”

E.R. Vogel asked one the Caffè Lena servers to video him while he read his poem about an old couch & it’s memories. Chris read a noisy poem about working in a factory, then a much quieter Chippewa lullaby. Rodney Parrott, who is usually here, read a couple pieces from an early collection of his work titled I’m Embarrassed to Say.

Ian McGrey read a poem about a hangover “Limping Home Two Days Dead. Julie Lomoe was dressed in a colorful coat & read a poem about memories associated with the Hudson River “River Reminiscences.”

This reading by a local, regional, or national writer, combined with an open mic for the locals, takes place on the 1st Wednesday of each month at historic Caffè Lena on Phila St. in Saratoga Springs, NY. Doors open at 6:30PM for sign up, the featured poet goes on promptly at 7:00 with the open mic immediately after.

Invocation of the Muse, October 3

This open mic/reading series has settled in at Lark Hall, tonight with plenty of new faces/voices. The host is poetry entrepreneur of Albany, R.M. Engelhardt, who introduced the night by reading a poem by Elliot Richman “The Death Camp at Walden Pond.”

First up in the open mic was a new face, Danni McCabe, who said “Love is my Muse” & read 2 poems about love, “Love Myself” & “The Lost Boy Kind of Love.” I was next with a poem about another kind of love, “Reading Mary Oliver while Masturbating,” then a poem for the season, “Yom Kippur 2004.” 

Another new face, Kealia Bonacci, read a poem that sounded like it came from a workshop prompt (i.e., “write a letter to your younger self…”) “A Letter to Younger Me on Much Older Men” full of advice that sounded like it came from personal experience. Pat Williams has been a regular here of late & will be the featured reader in November, he read in rhyme “Spring Rain,” & a poem about a bear “The Trapped Beast.”

Speaking of featured readers, Austin Houston was this night’s featured reader. He said that this reading was of poems that tell a story, said that he started writing about 10 years ago. He has, in the intervening years, attended many of the open mic venues & was the featured poet at the Third Thursday Poetry Night when I restarted that series after the pandemic in January 2022.

He began with a beginning poem, “My First Time,” then continued through a cluster of poems about dealing with depression. Then on to an in-your-face poem titled “Corporate Greed” from his 2021 chapbook Existence: Chaos in Our Own Backyard, then more recent poems, “We All Bleed Red,” “Golden Years,” “The Other Side” (visited by a spirit), & ended appropriately enough with a poem titled “If I Had Another Chance.”

After a short break, our host, R.M. Engelhardt, returned with a couple of his own poems, both sort of preachy, “The World Doesn’t Stop” (i.e., it goes on without you), & one introduced as “Here’s a poem about shit …” Josh the Poet recited his poem “Goddess of the World” dedicated “to the ladies” (I didn’t see any here). The next reader signed up as Irby Poetry, said he was “a man of faith” (whatever that means), & did an appropriately energetic performance of a poem titled “Caffeine.” 

Vanessa Bilanceni read 2 untitled poems, one about waking up in a tent in the dark, the other a love poem. John Decelles seemed very self-conscious or simply shy, or perhaps his on-stage persona, read a poem titled “Neglect,” then another titled “This is Not a Poem About Walking Outdoors.” Dan Williams began with an untitled love poem, then one contrasting “left eye, right eye.”

Having reached the end of the sign-up sheet, Rob opened up the chance for late arrivals to join in & got 2 takers. Alex said he was here for the 1st time (as were quite a few tonight), read from his phone a piece titled “Norma Jean” like a letter addressed to a “you,” as was his next poem “Dreaming of a Head-On Collision.” & the final reader was Lucious (? spelling) with 2 poems of teen age angst, born sad.

You can find this open mic each (most) 1st Mondays at Lark Hall, on the corner of Lark St., & Hudson Ave., (enter on Hudson Ave.), Albany, NY — $5.00, brings a couple poems to read.

Poetic License - Albany Reading #2, September 28

This was the 2nd reading by poets whose work was on display at the Art Associates Gallery in Albany, NY along with the art work that it inspired. The first was held on September 14. There were more poets this night so it was a full program, as well as an open mic.

Megeen Mulholland started with a Haiku, then read her poem, “Mourning,” that is in the show. She also read 3 poems from her first collection Orbit (Finishing Line Press, 2018), “Laundry Day” & “My Mother’s Signals” (both about her mother), & one about herself as a mother “First Illness.” & a poem from her new collection Crossing the Divide (Finishing Line Press, 2022) “Wind Chill.”

Charlie Rossiter made the drive over from Bennington, VT, began, since he was in an art gallery, with “That Art-Induced Altered State,” & on to his poem in the show, “The Diner Never Closed.” Then on to poems “Listen,” “All the Beauty I Could Comprehend,” & one about poetry “Deep Understanding” that begins with a quote from William Carlos Williams.

Poet & musician Jennifee, who had read at the earlier reading, read a poem about the Knorr factory in Johnstown, NY “The House that Gelatin Built,” then her poem in the show “Hidden City.” 

Jill Crammond’s “October Sonnet” which is in the exhibit is about her father; her other poems had interesting titles, she seems to put as much effort into titling them as she does in writing them, “I Want to Call You,” “The 1st Grade Mistake,” “How to Swing a Hammer, “ “The House that Jane Built,” “You Can Star at Your Own Cautionary Tale,”& “On the Impossibility of Everlasting Love.”

Cheryl A. Rice’s poem “Fishing Both Sides of the River” is in the show; she also read a descriptive piece about the ocean “Pacifica,” & one about the Hudson River “Death Has a Way.”

Barbara Ungar (l.), Deborah Adams

Barbara Ungar’s poem in the show, “Wild Life” is also in her recent chapbook of eco-poems Edge; she also read from that book “The Last Jaguar,” & “Weight” (which was published in Scientific American). She also read the poems “How to Age Gracefully” (on sweater sets), “Resolutions for 2023,” & “Call Me Eve.”

Tom Corrado has the distinction of being the one poet who painted a work based on his own poem “Walking the Cat,” which he read then one of his over 600 “Screen Dumps,” explaining to an audience who may not be familiar with this series that in these poems he channels the poet John Ashbery, & characteristically addresses the poems to “you.”

Brian Liston had read at the last Poetic License - Albany event, & was back again to read his cinquain in the show “Rounds,” then on to a tribute poem to Woodstock poet Phillip Levine “The Role We Play,” a few other cinquains, then his “signature poem” titled “The Autistic Super Kid; others included “Shattered Peace,” “Cities Still Standing” (a 9/11 poem), & ended with a tribute to a librarian at SUNY Ulster.

I had been the host for the first part of the program & Mary Panza took over for the open mic portion.

Paul Amidon read a poem titled “Proposal” from his new book from Troy Book Makers, Relatives and Other Characters. Since we were surrounded by paintings, I read a poem about a painting in the Cape Ann Museum, “Marsden Hartley’s Eyes.”

Anthony Bernini’s poem “Turtle Eggs” was a descriptive eco-poem. Tom Bonville met a wolf when out for a walk & wrote about it as “An Existential Situation.”

Jackie Craven tried out a new experimental piece in which she interacted with her cell phone, “This is Sirius.” Randall Sutter had also read at the previous Poetic License - Albany event, read his poem that is in the show on the intersection of introspection, respect & love, “Please Wait.”

You can read the poems & see the art work in the show at the website https://www.poeticlicensealbany.com

The event was sponsored by the Upstate Artists Guild & the Hudson Valley Writers Guild.

Gloucester Writers Center — Jana Orlová, September 23

Back to Cape Ann for a few days for the sea, salt air — & the GWC. The evening’s writer was Czech poet & performance artist Jana Orlová, introduced by Bob Whalen. I had met Bob this past April when I came over for the one-day Rockport Poetry Festival, which included a Zoom event with poets from all over the world. I don’t know if Orlová was in the mix that day, but it is easy to see how he would know about her. 

Tonight she read poems from her three books of poems inspired by Czech underground writers & by Haiku, the poems short, some read in both English & Czech, erotic themes, overt & sometimes just oblique undertones. Some satire based on a Communist TV program. It was fascinating work that I was able to later explore online.

Her reading inspired a discussion among the audience & Orlová about the nature of translation, the ongoing debate about “exact” translation versus re-creating the original poem as a good poem in the other language, perhaps the act of translation spawning new work in a different language. It was a good audience for that discussion — literate, some with multiple languages. It was one of those un-expected joys of just attending without knowing anything about the presenting writer beforehand. 

Jana Orlová is on Facebook & her work can be found on YouTube &, of course, on her website.

Albany Book Festival, September 17

Phew! 21 literary events spread out from 10:30AM through 4:40PM — panel discussions, conversations with authors, featured authors, “open mics,” even a “tribute,” including a local author marketplace & exhibitors filling 2 locations, even children’s literary activities spread throughout the Campus Center complex of the University at Albany Uptown Campus. How much can an aging, mortal bibliophile local poet attend? As much as I could, including schmoozing & wandering through the great hall of exhibitors, & generally hanging out.

This was the 5th annual event, & I’d missed a few, so I’d made a commitment to myself to be there throughout the day. Like I said, “Phew!”

I started off the morning with “Conversation with Robert Pinsky & Robert Boyers,” around Pinksy’s new book Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet, a memoir of growing up in Long Branch New Jersey, a work which he described as about the anti-intellectualism of American culture. As a conversation it leapt & weaved between a variety of topics & themes. At one point Pinsky described improvisation as America’s great gift to the art world, starting with the improvisation inherent in jazz music, inspiring improvisation in writing & the visual arts. Touching on culture in general he said that culture is appropriation, that culture, citing James Baldwin, is every child’s birthright.

Asked about his teaching poetry, he said that 1 thing he asks students to do is to make their own anthology of poems they have liked, not to be graded, but to be used for discussions about poetry. He also suggests to his students (& others, like us) to look up literary journals for the year of your birth to see who the poets were that were being published then.

📚

I skipped the next round of panels to wander the vast Campus Center Ballroom filled with tables of authors & their books & the browsing public, & I couldn’t walk but 10 feet before talking to someone, either book sellers, or other browsers — it was like “Walmart on the weekend.” I came away with 4 books from writer friends, Across the River Jordan: The Journey to Bring My Son Home, a memoir by Holly Planells McKenna; Murder in the Gilded City, novel by Angela Kaufman; One Branch, Haiku by Stuart Bartow; & a lovingly hand-stitched Edge, eco-poems by Barbara Ungar.

📚

I spent the rest of afternoon interlude before the final panel at — surprise! — “Open Mic Readings,” both held at The Orb Stage on the ground level of the Campus Center.

Alex

First it was the Albany Student Open Mic Reading, featuring students from ARCH the undergrad online literary journal & from the Young Writer’s Project program. The co-hosts were Sarah Rucker & Eric Turner. I hung out with Jil Hanifan, much like we used to hang out at the QE2 when she was a student here herself, now Jil is a faculty advisor to these young writers. There were 15 readers, a variety of topics, but, of course, a number of love/relationship poems, descriptive pieces, even a sestina. Troy read a stunning introspective prose piece about being in the Army, built around a psychiatric interview. Juan’s piece “I Used to Believe” was a rap rant complete with stylized Slam gestures, & Alex’s tender piece “The Letter I Never Sent to my Mom” I remember hearing at a recent open mic in the community.

📚

Christy O’Callaghan-Leue, editor of Barzakh Magazine, introduced the Capital Region Poetry Workshop group that began with support of the NYS Writers Institute. Each of the readers introduced the next reader, beginning with Elizabeth Grisau who said she likes rhyme & meter, even included a Sestina in the poems she read, &, among others, a poem with a great title “A Guide to Parisian Elevators.

Caroline Grondahl began with a poem like a letter, & one on a topic familiar to lots of students, “A Poem About Credit Card Debt,” & a cluster of others. One of Melissa Hurt’s poems, “Dissonance in New York” was in the voice of a woman in a Hopper painting.

Jonathan Lloyd was the most animated performer of the lot, with a fairy tale of dragons, & the humor of “The Truth About My Underwear” & “The Man in the Saliva Suit.” Marilyn Paarlberg began with a sound poem composed of funny words, a couple poems on the sacred in the ordinary, & poems about things owned by her grandmother & by her mother.

Unlike others in this group, Ellen White Rook has been at the occasional open mic in the area; she also had a poem/letter, & a poem on Demeter, titled “After Harvest” & I was worried when she read her poem titled “Musica Humana” (the sounds of the human body), but it was a tender piece about her husband snoring — he was in the audience & seemed to take it well. 

Sue Whitaker’s poem “Dying in Pet Smart” was about going to the pet store with her mother before she died, also some descriptive nature poems, such as “Yoga Light” about a river & how things change (do I sense the influence of Mary Oliver among a number of these poets?). Gary Maggio, who was the original creator of this group, read just one poem, “Time Out” on the dead.

The group meets twice monthly & is now managed by Marilyn Paarlbert & Ellen White Rook.

📚

The final event of the night was the Hunter S. Thompson Tribute & it was quite a show. The panel consisted of Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University, the Presidential Historian at CNN, &, as the literary executor of the Hunter S. Thompson estate, editor of two books of HST’s letters; William Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist & the founder & executive director of the NYS Writers Institute, Kennedy’s friendship with HST began in the 1950s when Kennedy was running a new English-language newspaper in Puerto Rico & HST applied for a job there (he didn’t get it); & Garry Trudeau, the creator of the comic strip Doonesbury, & one of his best-loved characters is “Uncle Duke,” an unauthorized caricature of Gonzo journalist HST. It was a spirited exchange among 3 literate raconteurs, moderated by Mark Koplik, NYSWI Assistant Director.

The conversation was full of anecdotes, some quite outrageous, particularly about what HST would've like to do to Garry Trudeau, for example HST once sent sent thru the mail a package containing used toilet paper to Trudeau, because of the cartoon character "Uncle Duke." Trudeau said that he first encountered HST’s work when he read HST's book on the Hells Angels for a college class, didn’t like it, but he became a huge fan later on, & later HST told an interviewer he had “made peace” with “Uncle Duke.

Douglas Brinkley commented on how well read HST was, on the popularity of his work now, & Brinkley compared the “acerbic wit” in HST’s work to the demeanor one sees frequently on social media today.

William Kennedy described HST as soft spoken in person, & very smart, & talked of his long friendship with him. There is an hysterical account by Kennedy, "A Box of Books: An Exchange, on Matters Literary and Postal, with Hunter S. Thompson" in Bootlegger of the Soul: The Literary Legacy of William Kennedy, edited by Suzanne Lance & Paul Grondahl (State University of New York Press, 2018). As part of the event they showed a brief clip of a conversation between HST & Kennedy from June 13, 2018, which one can find on YouTube. Kennedy said the whole Gonzo approach to writing & life was something new in the world. 

Someone pointed out that this was the first time these 3 writers were on the same stage together.

& I guess this is what this annual event has become, not just a gathering of community & academic poets & writers, but the celebration of everyone who loves literature, books or just a good tale. See you there next year.

Spoken Word out of Bennington, September 13

It was good to be “back in Bennington again” — even though this is on Zoom, it still feels like a “place,” not just my house. Still, I got there late while Sheryll was reading, & caught only a snippet of what sounded like a fascinating poem.

Charlie Rossiter, the host of this monthly event, read an “Homage to the Capri Motel,” a place he has stayed in Canada. 

I read 2 Haiku I have collectively titled “Cape Ann Haiku,” one for Rockport, MA, the other for Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester.

Charlie liked to do a 2nd round of one poem each, which is good because I got to hear Jim Madigan (from Oak Park Illinois), whom I missed in the 1st round before I got “there/here”; he read part of longer poem, started with a girl in a tee shirt with a picture of Geronimo, that moved on to a VN vet/Black Panther taking that name.

Tom Nicotera, read about a trip to Roswell, NM 2 short descriptive Haiku-like poems.

Charlie talked about tweaking his old poems & read one for his old buddy, Craig, “In The Days of Old.” 

& I got to go again, this time with another Cape Ann-based poem, this inspired by a painting in the Cape Ann Museum, “Marsden Hartley’s Eyes.”

It’s always a friendly, poetic group each 2nd Wednesday on Zoom, from Bennington, VT. If you are not already on Charlie’s list you can join us by sending him an email at charliemrossiter@gmail.com & ask him for the link.

Third Thursday Poetry Night, September 15

This was another night of wonderfully varied open mic poets & a fabulous featured poet, Sally Rhoades. As always, I invoked the Muse, a gone poet whom we miss, tonight the local writer Sharon Stenson, who left us in December, 2021; I read her poem “High-Heeled Blue Shoes.”

It was great to see Alan Catlin back here again, he always has new work to read, tonight a political piece “Yucatan Medusa,” the title poem of a forthcoming collection of poems. Tom Bonville read about an old character drawing trees in the forest who, perhaps becomes one. 

Sara Wiest was not scared away by last month’s crowd here & returned to read a sonnet, of which she has been writing many lately, “Tedi Makes Paper Shoes.” The next poet was certainly the youngest in the room, Joshua the Poet, to read a poem for all the poets, like the rest of us, on the power of poems. Tom Corrado read from his ongoing poetic series, “Screen Dumps,” this one #647(!), channeling John Ashbery. 

Sally Rhoades has been involved in the poetry scene here since its early days at the open mics at the QE2 rock club, just down the street from the Social Justice Center. She is also a dancer, performance artist & playwright. Her chapbook, Greeted by Wildflowers (A.P.D., 2022), was published in conjunction with her reading this past April at the annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. 

She started at her beginning with a note dated 9/2/77 from the 1st of her many journals, then talked about being inspired by Mark Nepo when he taught at the University at Albany, & by the poet Stanley Kunitz to whom she wrote a tribute titled “Non-Pareil;” other tributes she read were the praise poem “My Mother’s Daughter,” then “My Mother Was a Waitress” which was published in conjunction with the Woody Guthrie festival in Okemah, Oklahoma at which she read the poem, then a poem for her father, “My Father’s Slippers.” Her autobiographical poem “Letting Go a Little bit of My Youth” is in Greeted by Wildflowers, & “Riding Shotgun” is familiar to many of us who have heard it & others about Sally’s nonagenarian Aunt Polly. The next poem was about being molested as a youth & was written responding to the prompt “That is the End of my Happiness.”  “Death Hangs on our House Tonight” was for a relative in Cyprus who had died, & she ended on a triumphal note with “Don’t Put Plastic Flowers on my Grave.”

Back to the open mic I read a poem from my stack of “poem cards,” “A Prayer for Superheroes.” Joe Krausman was last month’s featured poet & tonight read the title poem from his next book “My Heart is an Onion.” Joan Goodman read the latest revision of a poem she started in April 2021 titled “Easy to Say No.”

Then the battery in my little recorder ran out & I did’t notice until I got home so I didn’t take any notes about the poems read by the rest of the poets. I apologize for this lacuna to the remaining 4 readers, & to the historian/Grad student of the future reviewing the archives.

For the record, those readers were Catherine Dickert, Sylvia Barnard, Valerie Temple (here for the first time), & Desmond Gonzalez who played his electric guitar 

We continue to be here at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY on the third Thursday of each month, starting at 7:30PM with a featured poet & an open mic for the rest of us — your $5.00 donation supports poetry events in the area, & the work of the Social Justice Center. Join us & bring a poem to read.