Gathered in the living room of the Pride Center we awaited the arrival of the featured poet, who didn’t show, but our host, Don Levy was patient & there were plenty of poets so we did a round-robin style of reading by those of us who were there.
Alan Casline started the clockwise circle with what he described as “a prize-losing poem” (I got a million of ’em myself) about a place to buy drugs, “Meet at the Tree.” Robin Mendoza was a new face & voice & his first poem was “Temptations” looking for alternatives. I followed with a new poem, “The Leprechaun’s Cottage.” Sally Rhoades was here with her husband after a dinner date for Valentine’s Day & read a love poem celebrating the everyday, “Love’s Attitude.” Don Levy completed the circle with an elegy, “A Poem for Harvey Milk.”
The 2nd round, quite by chance (“synchronicity”?), seemed to focus on specific, unique experiences, 1st Alan with “A Walk at NIght.” Then Robin combined a famous painting & a personal experience into his poem “Christ in the Wilderness.” At my turn in the circle I read my new “Birthday Poem 2013.” Sally read from her notebook about an experience at an Indian sweat lodge. & Don‘s poem “All I Wanted Were Eggs” took place at a Stewart’s on Super Bowl Sunday.
For the final go-around, Alan began with “A Theory of Numbers.” Robin‘s poem was a descriptive piece “In the House of His Parents.” My poem, “Reading Kant in China,” was prompted by a daily horoscope, with assitsance from my daughter Madeleine. Sally’s poem “Love In the Ease of his Person…” was to her father. & our host, Don Levy, finished off the night with the outrageous mashing together of “The NRA Pride March” — oh, if Life were only like that! But then, Thanks to Don for imagining it!
LIfe, imagined or real, gets read about each 2nd Wednesday at Live from the Living Room at the Pride Center of the Capital Region at 332 Hudson Ave., Albany, NY, 7:00 PM sign-up, 7:30 for the featured poet to start. Always straight-friendly.
