Poetry Month 2019- Part Two!

My last blog post, purporting to be about the first half of my National Poetry Month, seems to have skipped about from event to event, without rhyme or reason, so to speak. This entry will attempt to fill in some of the blanks, and restore some sense of chronological sensibility to the goings on.

Before there was Albany, there was Teresa Costa’s monthly Word of Mouth Poetry Series, held at the elegant ARTBAR on Broadway in Kingston. A combination art gallery and wine & beer bar, the show changes every month, and is skillfully curated by Allie Constant, and now her young assistant, Beckett Constant, born in March and already an important member of the Constant team. Dad Andrew has assumed many of the barista duties now, too.

Teresa’s features on April 11 were Alison Koffler-Wise and Dayl Wise, founders of Post Traumatic Press. Based in Woodstock, PTP was originally created by Dayl to provide a place for the writings of veterans he was encountering at Veterans for Peace and other activist events. The press has broadened its mission to include environmental and historically-based collections, and even the work of just plain poets like myself. Full Disclosure: Post Traumatic Press published My Minnesota Boyhood chapbook in 2012, and mine and Guy Reed’s Until the Words Came this past spring.

They are a terrific duo, in life as well as in poetry, and complement each other well when they co-feature. Alison specializes in poems about natural and animals. She’s recordings the goings on for years of the family’s two beautiful dogs, so much so that I feel I know them better than I do. Dayl’s work directly sprung out of his experiences in Vietnam, direct and honest recollections, but has evolved to include childhood and politics, too. I highly recommend reading their work, or better yet, hearing them read the next time you get a chance.

 The Starr Library in Rhinebeck decided to continue the Poetry Month recognition they started in 2018. thirty-four readers came on the evening of April 13 to read work the library had been displaying, framed on their walls, for the previous few weeks. About fifty in all attended, including my Handler, and I ran into an old acquaintance who, to my regret, remembered me far better from the old days of the Woodstock Poetry Society under Bob Wright's gentle whip than I her. But I hope to see Ann Braybrooks again soon. Refreshments were served, and considering the positive response, I'm sure that Nan Jackson and the rest of the crew will throw a similar bash in 2020. 

Stayed tuned for Part III, and the Woodstock Library event that there's no room for suddenly here!!

Donald Lev, NYC Poetry Legend, Dies

Donald Lev and I weren’t close, but we were familiar. To tell the truth, he and his late wife, Enid Dame, always intimidated me. They brought out the shy in me that I’ve worked hard to overcome. It certainly wasn’t because they were unapproachable. I’d seen them at readings around the Hudson Valley for years before I dared to speak to them, complementing them on their work. I probably first saw them at Bob Wright’s version of the Woodstock Poetry Society back in the late ‘90s or early ‘00s, maybe earlier. 

They were anything but aloof. However, their work was so finely honed, each word carrying so much meaning, I could not believe that I’d have anything to talk about with writers of this caliber. I was wrong of course, yet, I never quite got over that sense of awe. I would eventually come to greet them both at readings, swallowing my fear. I even participated in a private poetry workshop with Enid, just three of us in the group, and I still have my notes from that. Midrashic themes were her specialty, and Lilith was her favorite character. When she died in 2003, Hudson Valley poetry was devastated by her loss. None, however, more so than Donald. 

Donald was accomplished in his own right, yet seemed to hover a bit in Enid’s shadow, or as much of a shadow as poets can muster. His themes were more broad ranging than hers, and his work after her death reflects this especially. He was frequently introduced as one of the “stars” of the underground classic Putney Swope, and late in life, he wrote a series of poems based on the movies he saw at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck, a local art house cinema. He wrote about politics, religion, family, and Enid. He frequently read her work as often as his, keeping it alive for all of us, knowing poetry lives best when spoken aloud.

More recently, he lost the ability to drive and depended upon the kindness of other poets for transportation. He was often assisted up to the mic as our own Elder Statesman. His final illness was relatively brief, punctuated by a short rally in rehab where Donald pined for pen and paper. But in the end, the body was ready, and in truth, the spirit seems to have been ready for much longer. Nevertheless, we will miss that funny, gloomy fellow with the glass of red wine at the end of the bar. As much of a Brooklynite as he was, film “star”, literary hero, and member of a swiftly departing posse of ‘60s Lefties whose wisdom we sorely need about now, he became a part of this Hudson Valley. May his memory be a blessing, and a light.

**Open Mics of Yore**

    

     New dad and longtime Albany Poets leader, "El Presidente" Thom Job, recently asked a few of us old timers on the Hudson Valley poetry scene for our lists of five open mics from the past that are no longer with us, but that we miss. Here's what I came up with:



Number One has to be the QE2 [in Albany], and the late, great Tom Natell, darting back and forth between the mic and the list, cramming in announcements about other events between readers. He kept everything going at a breakneck pace, yet the readers were honored and supported. I dare say it's almost the perfect format for a reading. I caught it at the tail end of its long run, and often joke that the $7K I spent on grad school would have been better spent on Rolling Rocks at the Q on open mic nights...

Number Two would have to be the Tinker Street Cafe' in Woodstock, hosted for years by Dean Shambach. What a scene!! Poets on the makeshift stage pontificating before a "velvet Elvis" towel thumbtacked to the wall, non-poets yelling expletive-heavy reviews from the bar.... It was an amazing experience, and I always give myself credit for having read there despite my youth and shyness (at the time!)...

Number Three is Bob Wright's version of the Woodstock Poetry Society, a monthly open mic then held in the community center. Bob ruled with an iron fist, but the room was always packed, everyone got their five minutes of Woodstock fame, and no one commandeered the mic for their own selfish purposes!

Uneven but always an adventure, Philip Levine's Monday night series at the Colony Cafe' was for years a dependable place to hobnob with fellow Ulster County poets and other sordid types. Philip is indulgent to a fault, and anyone with $3 to hand his wonderful mother Betty at the door could get up and do their thing-- truly the spirit of Woodstock incarnate!

Unaccustomed as I am to blowing my own horn, I have to admit to sometimes missing my own annual open mic in Kingston, the Sylvia Plath Bake-Off. Held at various locations throughout the city, including the Unitarian church and the defunct Flying Saucer uptown, I liked it best when fifty-plus poets, singers, dancers and performers crammed into the AIR Studio in midtown. Jim Marzano was our gracious host. During the AIR years, the Bake-Off expanded to included an actual baked goods competition as well as an open mic! I will forever have raisin bread nooses and marzipan embryos dancing, dancing in my brain>



OK, so the bit about blowing my own horn is a lot of crap, but besides that.... Can any of you add to this list? Question my choices? Leave me a comment and let me know. I'd love to hear more...

*To Read or Not To Read*

     I have recently made myself pretty scarce at most of the open poetry mics in the Hudson Valley area, for a variety of personal reasons. Essentially it came down to two things: there were people I didn't wish to see, and poets I didn't wish to hear. Hibernating for a while seemed to be my best option. It was after all Winter (then Spring, then Summer...), and I was unemployed and money was tight and it was just easier to stay home and zone out to the most recent Netflix for the evening with my Beloved Roommate at my side.

     This Spring, I started to do some substitute teaching again, something I've done on and off for many years, basically since I graduated from SUNY New Paltz with teaching certification, English 7-12. One school district in particular welcomed me with open, eager arms, and I logged many hours in there, on both the elementary and secondary levels. I needed the challenge and I needed to get out of the house, and all in all, it was a good choice. I will probably continue subbing in the Fall, expanding into one or two more districts so that when my unemployment benefits are finally discontinued, I will still have some money coming in.

     A sub's day begins at 5:30 am, and often leaves me exhausted by dinnertime. Another good reason to stay home. I made a few exceptions to my abstinence, like the wonderful reading series that occur all over the Capitol District, but for the most part, I kept in touch with the poetry world online. Summer has allowed me more time to write, to continue to search for a full-time job, and to contemplate my future.

     The desire to write has never left me, and I suspect never will. I am well into the second draft of a first novel. I'm not sure it'll be anything special, but I am committed to finishing more projects these days. Is reading at local open mics really a necessary part of the writing process? Of being a writer? I have been attending these events steadily for the better part of twenty-five years now, and many of the regular faces are familiar. Many are good writers. Some are good writers who found some theme, some style that they were comfortable with and never left it. Others are horrendous writers who are indulged by generous-to-a-fault hosts who are afraid of offending attendees, to the point of rewarding them with features that their work doesn't currently warrant, in my my opinion, and may never warrant.

     I don't believe there's any great secret to increasing attendance at readings. Publicity is key, of course. In this day of the Great and Powerful Internet, there's no excuse. Send out an email once a month to the hundreds of email addresses you should be acquiring at your events when readers are signing up. More important, however, is the quality of the features. If a nonpoet should wander in to one of these events and hear one of the Ramblers, the Theatrical Declaimers, the Nonsensical Masturbators at the mic, I don't blame them for not returning. Or telling their friends to avoid it as well.

     People still refer to the poet Bob Wright, the faithful compiler of the Poetz.com calendar for Hudson Valley readings, as the "Poetry Nazi," from his days as the leader of the Woodstock Poetry Society. However, everyone got a chance, no one abused their time at the mic, and features were selected based on the quality of their work, not because they were 'frequent flyers'. Granted, it helps if you become a familiar face around the venues. It's not a black & white world, this World of Arts & Literature. But for the most part, Bob selected quality readers from the Hudson Valley area to stretch their wings over a thirty minute period, giving listeners a bigger sampling of their work than in the open. And it was good.

     What do you think? About any of this? It certainly could be the Change of Life talking today. Could be the Still Unemployed Poet with too many bills and not enough skills to compete in today's hellish job market. But I can't be the only one. It would be nice to go to a reading where the variety,  the originality was honored with attentive listeners who came to listen, and not just to hear themselves talk. Not a perfect world, certainly. But, it could be better.