This Wednesday, after a day at the track, poetry returns to Saratoga Springs in its normal, first Wednesday of the month spot at Caffe Lena. This month host Carol Graser has Mark O’Brien and Ken Hada as the featured poets. As always, there is an open mic for poetry and spoken word at this fabulous, historic venue.
Caffè Lena Poetry Open Mic
Wednesday, August 1, 7pm sign up, 7:30 readings start
Featured Poets: Mark “Obee Duid” O’Brien and Ken Hada
$3
Hosted by Carol Graser
Caffè Lena, 47 Phila Street, Saratoga Springs, 518-583-0022Mark W. O’Brien, aka Obee Duid, has been a member of The Every Other Thursday Night Poetry Group since the 1990s. His poems have appeared in Tin Wreath, The Antediluvian Levee, Many Waters, Peer Glass An Anthology From Hudson Valley Peer Groups, Poetry Don’t Pump Gas, , Rootdrinker, Normanskill, and The Rootdrinker Anthology of Contemporary Poetry. His most recent collection of poems is Neo-lethean Dreams, (Benevolent Bird Press, 2009).
In addition to his scholarly work in western regionalism, ethnic literatures and ecocriticism, Ken Hada has three current collections of poetry: The Way of the Wind (Village Books Press, 2008), Spare Parts (Mongrel Empire Press, 2010) which was awarded the Western Heritage Wrangler Award for outstanding poetry from the National Western Heritage Museum and Cowboy Hall of Fame. Poems from this collection were featured four times on Garrison Keillor’s nationally syndicated program, The Writer’s Almanac. Ken’s latest work,The River White: A Confluence of Brush & Quill, is a collaboration with his brother Duane’s plein air watercolors, tracing the White River from its source in northwest Arkansas 700 miles downstream to the Mississippi River. Along with Spare Parts, The River Whitewas also a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award.
