Michael Eck Featured Artist At UAG "WTF?" Show

Musician and multi-tasker Michael Eck is the featured artist for Upstate Artists Guild’s third national exhibit, “WTF? What The Folk”

Michael Eck’s visual representations of seminal American folk, blues and jazz musicians have been featured nationally at venues such as The Lisle Station Museum (Illinois), The Outsiders Art (Connecticut), Inside/Out Gallery (Minnesota), Fairleigh Dickinson University (New

Jersey) and Synagogue for the Arts (New York). Regionally Eck has been a featured artist at Albany Center Galleries, Fulton Street Gallery, Firlefanz Gallery and the Arts Center of the Capital Region.

Using donated paint and power tools, Eck makes his works from recycled material, including desk drawers, shelving, wooden boxes, farm equipment, door panels, demolished stage sets and discarded construction materials.

The paintings are a direct outgrowth of his fascination with the ever-flowing river of American music.

Eck’s portion of the exhibit will contain over 50 works. Fully half of the works have never been shown; the remainder is a retrospective of musician portraits from the last five years.

Many of the new works come from a multi-media work-in-progress, “The Anthology Alive!: One Man’s View of The Anthology of American Folk Music.”

Eck – a member of Ramblin Jug Stompers and The Gospel Train, as well as an acclaimed songwriter -- will also perform a few songs at the opening and engage in a question/answer session with patrons.

Eck dedicates this show to the memory of Rochelle Brener, a great artist and a great inspiration.

http://michaeleck.com/megal.htm

WTF? What The Folk
April 4-25
Opening 6-9 pm, Friday, April 4
Upstate Artists Guild, 247 Lark Street, Albany NY

Michael Eck - mandhand@aol.com - www.michaeleck.com - www.jugstompers.com

Caffe Lena Open Mic And Chapbook Release

Two Caffe Lena posts in one day...

The first Wednesday of every month Caffe Lena presents
CAFFE LENA POETRY OPEN MIC on Wednesday, April 2.  Doors open at 7:00PM, reading starts at 7:30. $3.00 admission. 

This months featured poets are contributors from Caffe Lena's first poetry publication, EVERY DROP OF WATER: VOICES FROM CAFFE LENA POETRY STAGE with short readings from A.C. Everson, Barbara Ungar, Francelise Dawkins, Rob Faivre, Therese Broderick, Bob Sharkey, Dan Wilcox, Barbara Garro, Sue Jefts, Kristen Day and Sarah Craig.

Please joins us to celebrate the official release of Every Drop of Water:Voices From Caffe Lena Poetry Stage. In the summer of 2003, Carol Graser stepped forward to revive Caffe Lena's long neglected poetry program. Since then Caffe Lena has enjoyed monthly poetry open mics, each highlighting a featured poet. This chapbook, the first ever released by the coffeehouse , contains poems written by features form the open mic's first two years. some authors will be present to read their work throughout the evening and the chapbook will be available for sale for the first time.

This month is sponsored by: Saratoga Poetry Festival, Dedicated to Poetry in Public.

Caffe Lena Celebrates National Poetry Month

On Sunday, April 6th, 2:00PM at Caffe Lena (47 Phila Street, Saratoga Springs, NY), in celebration of National Poetry Month, Caffè Lena offers a program of poetry written by and about women. Five award-winning poets will read their works: Barbara Ungar, Nancy White, Elaine Handley, Marilyn McCabe and Mary Sanders Shartle.

In addition, Handley, McCabe and Shartle will be joined by Lauren Vanko and Caroline Seligman in reading from Emma Saves Her Life, a book of poems based on the letters of author Naton Leslie's grandmother. Born in the mountains of Appalachia in 1907, Emma tells stories about her life which reverberate with wisdom, humor and pathos.

Don't miss this unique event at Lena's.  Cost is $5. 

For more information contact Mary Sanders Shartle at sar-poetryzone@sals.edu.

2008 Albany Word Fest

It is that time of year again...Albany Word Fest! 

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Albany Poets is proud to present the 2008 Albany Word Fest featuring the poetry, spoken word, and music of upstate New York.  This year’s event will take place on Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19, 2008.

The 2008 Albany Word Fest will start off on Friday night with a cocktail party at Tess’ Lark Tavern (453 Madison Ave.) at 5:00PM.  This is a chance for all of the poets and performers to get together, network, and reconnect with each other before the event begins. This is open to all ages.  Must be 21 or older to drink. 

At 7:00PM, the poetry and spoken word begins at the Friday Night Open Mic at the UAG Gallery (247 Lark Street).  

Poets who wish to participate in the open mic can sign up online by going to the Albany Word Fest website. Performers will also have a limited opportunity to sign up at the event itself.  Each poet will have three minutes to share their work.  The open mic is open to all poets and spoken word artists with no style or content restrictions.  Admission is based on donation.

On Saturday, day two of the 2008 Albany Word Fest brings the annual Psycho Cluster F*#k featuring music and spoken word from The Johnny Bravehearts (Mary Panza, John Weiler, Monica Roach), The House Band of the Apocalypse (Thom Francis, K.J. Spencer, Aaron Christiansen), and more to be announced.  Admission for this event is $5.00.  This event is open to all ages. 

Also, throughout the 2008 Albany Word Fest, Albany Poets will release OTHER:NINE, the long awaited new issue of Albany Poets’ literary magazine as well as the launch of many new features to the Albany Poets website including an online open mic, new poetry from local poets, updated photo galleries, performance videos, and more.

The 2008 Albany Word Fest is sponsored by Albany Poets, Tess’ Lark Tavern, UAG Gallery, and the very generous donations of supporters of the arts in upstate New York.  For more information, up-to-date event news, open mic sign up, and more, go to www.albanywordfest.com

Reading From The Anthology "Post Traumatic Press 2007: poems by veterans"

On Thursday, April 3, 6:45 - 8:45 pm at the Bethlehem Public Library (451 Delaware Ave, Delmar ) Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, Veterans For Peace & Post Traumatic Press presents a reading from the anthology "Post Traumatic Press 2007: poems by veterans", edited by Dayl Wise. The featured readers will  include Dayl Wise, Jim Murphy, Thomas Brinson and Dan Wilcox. 

"Post Traumatic Press 2007: poems by veterans" was put together to tell the stories of veterans with direct  experience of the military.  For some, the intense experience of war can only be expressed in poetry, while others are driven by the need to say something openly political. The contributors includes veterans from World War II, the Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam War, peace time and the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Copies of the anthology will be available and proceeds supports Veterans For Peace.

This event  free and open to the  public and will include an open mic for community poets.  For more information, call 518-391-2830. 

 

Horowitz, Seaton, and Hirsch at the Bowery Poetry Club

Horowitz, Seaton, and Hirsch in one show at the Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery, New York, NY (@ Bleecker just north of Houston) on Sunday March 30 at 3:00PM.

Mikhail Horowitz is a widely excoriated performance poet who has perpetrated his literary lampoons, impenetrable parodies and metaphysically unfit riffs at the Taos World Heavyweight Poetry  Championship, Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival, the annual convention of the UAW, St. Peter's "Jazz Church" and at clubs, coffeehouses, correctional facilities, and all-night laundromats all over the country. 

The author of Big League Poets (City Lights), The Opus of Everything in Nothing Flat (Outloud/Red Hill), and Rafting Into the Afterlife (Codhill Press, 2007), Horowitz has been featured for his performance work on a dozen CDs, including The Blues of the Birth (Sundazed Records), a collection of his jazz fables, and two albums with guitarist and fellow clochard Gilles Malkine: Live, Jive & Over 45 and Poor, On Tour,  & Over 54.

In the tradition of Ezra Pound, Kenneth Rexroth and Paul Blackburn, Bill Seaton’s work mixes avant-garde maneuvers with classical tradition.  Balancing sound, sense, and image in poetry (and some remarkable rich and riffing prose), he constructs texts in which the colloquial and the everyday jostle myth and science and rhetoric.

Associated with the Cloud House poets of San Francisco during the Seventies, Seaton has been active in poetry performance throughout his career, having participated in numerous artistic and performance events, including what were
called "happenings" in the Sixties, co-produced the radio series Poetry for
the People and directed the television series Words in the Air and.  For over
fourteen years he has produced the Poetry on the Loose Reading/Performance
series in Middletown, New York.  He will read from Tourist Snapshots (CC Marimbo,
Berkeley, CA, ‘07) and the recently published Spoor of Desire: Selected Poems
(FootHills Publishing, Kanona, NY).

Poet Steve Hirsch is the publisher/editor of the long running and widely influential Heaven Bone press and magazine.  Through savvy distributorship, psychedelic cover art and genre-defying literature, he networked a national audience along his own interests in surrealist art and Eastern meditation.  A musician and founding member of the drum circle Spirithawk, he studied writing and drama at Naropa Institute in Boulder where he was a student and apprentice of Allen Ginsberg and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. 

A hard-driving, Harley riding, stream-of-consciousness poet, his work has appeared in Hunger, Napalm Health Spa Report, For Immediate Release, Pudding, Big Scream, Hazmat Review, Muse Apprentice Guild, and Etcetera. In addition, he is the author of Ramapo 500 Affirmations (Flower Thief, 1998).

A Program of Poetry at the North Chatham Free Library

In honor of National Poetry Month, the North Chatham Free Library is pleased to present Dr. Jeannine Johnson with a program entitled: "Why Read Poems? Why Do People Write Poems?"

Jeannine Johnson graduated with a BA from Haverford College, and a PhD from Yale,  Dr.  Johnson went on to teach at Yale, Wake Forest, and Harvard.   Currently, she is  a visiting Assistant Professor in Writing and English at Wellesley Her first book, “Why Write Poetry?  Modern Poets Defending Their Art,” was published in 2007.

At the library, on Sunday, April 13,  Dr. Johnson will be talking about modern poets and why they defend the value of poetry in their own poems. This is a relatively widespread and strange  phenomenon in modern poetry, which today enjoys a popularity that is unparalleled in our country's history.  Why do poets need to defend their poetry?   Dr. Johnson will share some of her ideas about the impulse to preach to the choir, as it were, and about some of the effects of doing so on poets, poetry, and readers.

The library chose this topic especially, to encourage people who are leery of poetry.  Because Dr. Johnson has special expertise, we invited her to this series even though she is not a resident of Columbia County.  The program begins at 3:00 pm.  It is free and open to the public. For any questions, please call the library at 518-766.3211.
This series is made possible with public funds from the Decentralization Program of the NYS Council on the Arts, administered in Columbia County by the Columbia County Council on the Arts through the Twin Counties Cultural Fund.

Additional funds are provided by the Town of Chatham and donations to the library.

Any Questions?  Please contact Vicki Kurashige at 518-766-3211 or Julie Kabat, Executive/Artistic Director, Concerted Effort, Inc., PO Box 407, North Chatham, NY 12132

Powell to Read at Poetry on the Loose

Shirley Powell (who was one of our features at the 2006 Albany Word Fest) will read her work at the next program in the Poetry on the Loose Reading/Performance Series.  The event will be held at the Baby Grand Bookshop at 7 West Street in Warwick at 4:00 p.m. on April 5.  Following the featured poet, others are welcome to read original work on any theme.  Admission is free.

A volume of Powell's selected works, Other Rooms (Poet's Press), was published in 1998.  Her poetry is also available in The Adventures of Margaret, Villages and Towns, Rooms, Rooms Two, Parachutes, and Alternate Lives.  Womansong (Poets Press), an anthology she edited, was one of the first literary products of the Women's Movement in the 1970s.  Her novel, Running Wild, was published in 1981 by Avon Books.  In addition, she has worked as a journalist for such newspapers as The Kingston Freeman and The Times Herald-Record.

With Alan Silverman, she started the Stone Ridge Poetry Society readings at the Stone Ridge Library and remained a leader in the organization, editing its magazine, Oxalis, throughout its twenty-three issues over six years of publication.  She has taught writing workshops and literature at Marist College in Poughkeepsie and for Poets in the Schools, now called Poets in Public Places.  She is a past-President of the Dutchess-Ulster Chapter of the National League of American Pen Women.

Robert Waugh will be featured on May 3.

For further information, contact: William Seaton and Poetry on the Loose, Inc. by phone at 845-294-8085 or email seaton@frontiernet.net

Poetry at the UAG

This Friday poetry returns to the UAG Gallery with poets Jacqueline Jones LaMon and Carol Graser. 

Jacqueline Jones LaMon is the Associate Director of the Indiana University Writers' Conference. A Chancellor's University Fellow and an associate poetry editor of the Indiana Review, she is in her third year of her MFA studies in poetry at Indiana University Bloomington. Her poetry has appeared/will appear in Crab Orchard Review, Natural Bridge, Fugue, and WarpLand among other journals. Her first novel, In the Arms of One Who Loves Me, was published by One World/Ballantine Books in 2002. (2005)

Carol Graser hosts a monthly poetry series at Saratoga Springs legendary Caffe Lena and has performed her work at various events and venues around New York. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals. Foothills Publishing has just published her first book of poetry, The Wild Twist of Their Stems.

Albany Poets and Jawbone Productions Reading series present Poetry @ the UAG on the second and fourth Friday's of each month starting at 7:00PM.  This series is sponsored by Scratch Bakery Cafe.

Poets Speak Loud Featuring John Raymond

The next Poets Speak Loud will be on Monday, March 31 at Tess' Lark Tavern with featured poet John Raymond followed by an open mic for poetry and spoken word.

John Raymond is a local rapscallion who is coming out of seclusion to take part in Albany's open mic poetry scene.  He enjoys music, backpacking, and smoked meats.

We will also have the sign up sheet for the 2008 Albany Word Fest Friday Night Open Mic for all of those poets and spoken word artists that have not had a chance to sign up for upstate New York's largest open mic

Poets Speak Loud is a monthly open mic for poetry and spoken word with a featured poet. This mic is hosted by Mary Panza and held at the Lark Tavern (453 Madison Ave., Albany) on the last Monday of each month. Sign-up for the open mic is 7:00pm, start time is 7:30pm.

Call for Entries - Written Works for Visual Art Show at ASK

Hudson Valley writers are invited to submit short works for possible use in collaborations with visual artists for "VisuaLit", an innovative, July 2008, exhibition at the Arts Society of Kingston.

A writer may submit one to three works that are each no more than one page in length. Works may be on any subject and may include poetry, short fiction, drama, essays, or memoirs. Submitted works must be typed or word-processed, with no name or identifying information on the page. A coversheet must accompany the submitted works, with your name, address, phone number, and email address.

Mail all submissions, postmarked no later than April 19th, to VisuaLit Submissions, ASK, 97  Broadway, Kingston NY 12401. Electronic submission will not be considered.

By submitting works, the writer agrees to the following conditions:

1. The writer affirms that submitted works are entirely his or her own work.
2. The decision to use a work as the basis or inspiration for a visual-arts work—painting, drawing, collage, or a multimedia or 3-dimensional work—will be made solely by the visual-artist member of ASK.
3. The visual artist may use some or all of the text in the visual work.
4. Writers will be contacted only if their work is selected for the exhibition.
5. The writers of a selected work must provide an electronic version of the text for use in the exhibition or in related publications.
6. All other rights to the text remain the property of the writer.
7. If a visual-art work based on the writer's work is sold, the writer will receive 10 percent of the gross proceeds.

For further information, see "Call for Entries" on the ASK website at www.askforarts.org.

ASK quickens the cultural pulse of the Hudson Valley by providing a nexus for the visual, performing, literary arts and education. Founded in 1995, ASK today has grown to become a not-for-profit membership organization with over six hundred members. Ask hosts on average twenty-four visual arts shows and over two hundred events from at least ten different programs of dance, theater, music, writing & education each year. In addition, ASK produces ArtWorks, a monthly publication distributed by the Kingston Freeman, which includes the Kingston Gallery guide, highlighting the current exhibitions in some thirty art venues in Kingston and many others throughout the Hudson Valley.

For more information, contact Emily Flynn, Arts Society of Kingston, by phone at 845-338-0331 or email communications@askforarts.org.

Poetry in Athens in April

Two widely regarded Hudson Valley poets, William Seaton and Susan Sindall, will be the featured poets when Poetry at the Hudson meets at the Athens Cultural Center, 24 Second Street, on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 2 p.m.  An open mike will be part of the occasion.

Seaton, who for 14 years has produced the "Poetry on the Loose" reading/performance series in Middletown and now Warwick, has been active in poetry performance throughout his career, including happenings in the '60s, street readings in the '70s, and a 2006 show in Budapest with a hurdy-gurdy player as the opening act.  He has taught in a wide variety of settings, including the Nigerian bush and a New York State prison, as well as at Long Island University and Adelphi.  His most recent publications are Spoor of Desire: Selected Poems (FootHills Publishing) and Tourist Snapshots (CC Marimbo).  His poetry and translations have appeared in such journals as Chelsea, Wordsmith, Mad Blood, Home Planet News, Copulation, and Heaven Bone, as well as in four anthologies (including the recent Riverine from Codhill Press), and his scholarly studies have appeared in Mystics Quarterly, the Iowa Journal of Literary Studies, and in several volumes of Bruccoli Clark's Dictionary of Literary Biography series.

Sindall, who has been the managing editor of Heliotrope, a journal of poetry, since its inception in 1998, has had roles in both writing and dance.  With a diploma in dance from the Julliard School of Music and an MFA in writing from Warren Wilson College, she has been associated with the 92nd St. YM-YMHA Dance Center, been a Teaching Artist in NewYork City schools for the Lincoln Center Institute, taught movement education at Manhattanville College, and taught poetry for Poets in Public Service and for Poets House, in New York City.  Currently living in Shady, she also teaches a writing workshop in nearby Kingston at the Universalist Unitarian Church of the Catskills.  She has read her poetry at various venues in New York City and the Hudson Valley, been featured in a poetry/music performance at the 92nd St. Y with Peter Schickele, and has read at both the Woodstock Poetry Festival and the Chattaqua Institute.  Sindall's poetry has appeared in such publications as The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, The Seattle Review, Negative Capability, Pivot, Salamander, and the California State Quarterly, and she will be published shortly in the  Hawai'i Pacific Review.

The readings will be hosted by area poet Bob Wright.  There is a suggested donation of $3.  To reach the Cultural Center, proceed on NY 385 into the village of Athens and turn west onto Second Street; it is the second building on the right.  For additional information, call 518-444-4561.

Chris Brabham Live From The Living Room

Live From The Living Room, a featured reading series with an open mic afterwards is held on the second Wednesday of every month at the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Center, 332 Hudson Avenue, Albany, NY.  The next reading is March 12th with Chris Brabham.

Chris has read in many venues in the region including The Lark Tavern, The Night Sky Cafe, Washington Park and 2007 Larkfest.  He is also the winner of Albany Poet's first ever bad lyric reading competition with his rendition of the classic "Fishheads".

Sign up for the open mic is at 7:00pm with 7:30pm start time with host Don Levy.  There is a $2.00 suggested donation for this reading.  For more info call (518) 462-6138.  This is a straight-friendly reading.

Press Conference on March 10 to Mark Publication of Memoir by Albany Sting Case Defendant

We usually do not post stories and articles that are of a political nature on the Albany Poets blog, but we thought that this was an important issue since it took place right in our backyard.  The following is the press release regarding a press conference marking the publication of the memoir of Yassin Aref, one of the two men convicted an FBI sting operation in Albany.

Albany, New York. –– “My dear friends––I would like to remind you about a few things, which I believe it is my duty to say from the deepest part of my heart and from the love and respect and concern that I hold for you and for all the people in this country. As God is my witness, I assure you and all of the American people that I did nothing against them, and I had no will or intention to harm them in any way. I came to this country only for my children’s future…God bless you all, and God bless this country.”

With these words, Yassin Aref, a Muslim imam and one of the two men convicted in the FBI’s 2006 “sting” operation in Albany, ends his compelling new memoir, Son of Mountains, My Life as a Kurd and a Terror Suspect. To mark its publication, the Muslim Solidarity Committee will hold a press conference on Monday, March 10 at 1:30 p.m. in the Masjid As-Salam mosque, 278 Central Ave., Albany, to answer questions about the book and its author, who is currently incarcerated in the Communication Management Unit of the federal prison at Terre Haute, Indiana. Brief excerpts from Son of Mountains will be read at the press conference.

Son of Mountains will be available for sale, or can be ordered online, after March 10 at Book House in Albany; Market Block Books in Troy; The Book Loft in Great Barrington, MA; and Open Door Bookstore in Schenectady (in-store sales only). It can also be ordered online through The Troy Book Makers, the on-demand printing company in Troy that designed and printed it.

Publication of Son of Mountains is a non-profit venture. After expenses, all proceeds from sales will go to the Aref Children’s Fund to benefit Yassin Aref’s four young children.

Aref wrote Son of Mountains in five months in the Rensselaer County Jail in Troy, between his conviction in October 2006 and his sentencing one year ago, on March 8, 2007. Because English is his third language, two members of his legal team, Stephen Downs and Kathy Manley, and a professional editor, Jeanne Finley, worked with Aref over the past year to edit and assemble the book.

It tells a story in prose and poetry that is much more than just “his side” of his arrest and conviction. It’s the story of a UN refugee who sought peace and freedom for himself and his family in America, and found just the opposite. It’s the story of a two-time immigrant who has struggled all his life just to survive. And it’s the autobiography of an Iraqi Kurd –– a “son of mountains” –– from a well-known religious family who grew up in poverty under the rule of Saddam Hussein, and who writes that “I have the whole of Kurdistan and all of my people with me in my tiny cell at the jail.”

The narrative, divided into five parts, begins in Iraqi Kurdistan, and recounts Aref’s family, childhood, young adulthood, and marriage against the backdrop of the oppression of the dictator’s regime. Aref describes surviving the Anfal operation (the Kurdish genocide) in 1988–1989; fleeing with other Kurds to Iran in 1991 when the Iraqi army once again pursued them; and witnessing Kurdistan’s subsequent economic, political, and social ruin.

The story then moves to Syria, where Aref immigrated and subsequently worked, went to college, and began a family; to America and Albany, where the Aref family was sent as refugees by the UN in 1999 and where, after 9/11, “the walls could see and hear”; to the Rensselaer County Jail, where Aref lived for eighteen months and wrote “Jail Stories” about his experiences and his fellow inmates; to “Beyond the Walls,” a short compilation on such topics as the teachings of Islam, human rights, Martin Luther King, social justice, the tragedy of Iraq, the dream of Kurdish independence, and the rule of law in America.

The book ends with an outspoken essay by volunteer lawyer Stephen Downs that details how the government’s case against Aref was not a sting but a frame-up, with lives, families, and Constitutional rights sacrificed to America’s post-9/11 climate of fear.

Coincidentally, the United States will mark the fifth anniversary of its invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2008.

Aref, 37, was the imam (prayer leader) at the Masjid As-Salam in Albany from 2000 until the FBI executed its “sting” in 2004, raided and ransacked the mosque, and arrested both Aref and Mohammed Hossain, a pizza store owner and mosque member, on charges of aiding terrorism and money laundering. The fictional sting operation was designed to entrap the two Muslims by means of a paid informant/convicted felon and an imaginary plot to assassinate the Pakistani ambassador in New York City. At the end of the controversial 2006 trial in Albany, in which illegal and still-secret NSA wiretapping cast a penumbra of doubt on the evidence, the verdicts, and the constitutionality of the entire trial, Aref and Hossain were sentenced to fifteen years each in federal prison. Their sentences were reduced from the recommended thirty years by the trial judge because of the outpouring of community support for both men.

Aref’s appeal will be heard by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City on March 24.

The Muslim Solidarity Committee was formed in October 2006 to help support the two defendants and their families and the Muslim community in the Capital District. The committee and supporters maintain two websites for public information on the cases:
nepajac.org/Aref&Hossain.htm , which features news of committee activities and efforts on behalf of Yassin Aref, Mohammed Hossain, and their families; and
www.yassinaref.com , “Justice for Yassin,” which features updated information on Aref’s case and a growing online collection of his new writing from prison.

Son of Mountains, My Life as a Kurd and a Terror Suspect by Yassin Aref
ISBN: 978-1-933994-30-7
$27.  2008, paperback, 544 pages, photographs and photo insert.  First edition of 750 copies printed by The Troy Book Makers

A review copy is available to media that can promise publication of a review or an article.   Contact Kathy Manley, (518) 434-1493, e-mail: mkathy1@hotmail.com

For more information on the press conference please contact: Maureen Aumand, cell (518) 301-9065, (518) 462-4531 x 301, (518) 869-6674 or Cathy Callan, cell (518) 577-6436, e-mail: callanca@gmail.com

Caffe Lena Open Mic Featuring Jan Marin Tramontano

The first Wednesday of every month Caffe Lena presents Caffe Lena Poetry Open Mic on Wednesday March 5. Doors open at 7:00PM, reading starts at 7:30PM. This months featured poet is Jan Marin Tramontano. This reading is hosted by Carol Graser and there is a $3.00 admission.  This month has been sponsored by Coral Crosman

Caffe Lena is located at 47 Phila St. Saratoga Springs. For more information contact 518-583-0022 or go to their website, www.caffelena.org

Jan Marin Tramontano’s poems and stories have appeared most recently in: Poets Canvas, Women’s Synergy, Byline, Knock, Chronogram, American Intercultural Magazine, New Verse News, Mom’s Literary Magazine, Ophelia’s Mom, and Surviving Ophelia. She has also written a poetry chapbook, Floating Islands, her father’s memoir, I am a Fortunate Man, and she is a contributor to the Times Union’s Book Section. She is on the advisory board of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild.

Urban Renewal

I was downtown looking at an apartment
in a building once elegant, now shabby.
The brown stones marred, exposed
to the harsh air, weathered like the face of
an aging starlet.

There was a crack in the glass door
and a can rolled down the stairs
bouncing down each step
its rhythm even and steady.

I stopped it with my foot,
picked it up and started slowly
up the wide, creaky stairs
ready to see if charm was enough.

I pushed hard on the door
swelled in a frame that opened reluctantly
into a room filled with pitiless light
and a tattered, familiar couch.

I ran my hand over the scarlet fabric
now worn and stained and sat down,
feeling at home in a place
once grand, now merely dependable.

Woodstock Poetry Society

Woodstock Poetry Society & Festival as part of the Woodstock Arts Consortium is sponsoring the following poetry event as part of the Woodstock "Second Saturdays" Art Events. For a full listing of "Second Saturday" events, go to their website at:  www.woodstockartsconsortium.org.

Poets Barbara Louise Ungar, Sparrow, and Sylvia Mae Gorelick will be the featured readers when the Woodstock Poetry Society & Festival meets at the Woodstock Town Hall, 76 Tinker Street, on Saturday, March 8th at 2pm. Note: WPS&F meetings are held the 2nd Saturday of every month.

The readings will be hosted by Woodstock area poet Phillip Levine. All meetings are free, open to the public, and include an open mike.

Barbara Louise Ungar - Barbara Louise Ungar won the 2006 Gival Press Poetry Award for her collection entitled The Origin of the Milky Way, which appeared from Gival Press in December of 2007. She is also the author of Thrift, and the chapbooks Sequel and Neoclassical Barbra, as well as the essay Haiku In English, forthcoming in Simply Haiku. An associate professor of English at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, she lives in Saratoga Springs with her son Izaak.

Sparrow - Sparrow divides his time between studying French, doing Sudoku, and running for President of the United States.  (Look for his campaign literature on http://www.groundreport.com/sparrow.)  Sparrow plays ocarina and mop handle in the band Foamola.  (See them on YouTube.)  He owns one (pink) watch, which he bought at a 99¢ store, and which is 2 hours and 36 minutes slow.

Sylvia Mae Gorelick - Sylvia Mae Gorelick is sixteen years old. She began writing poems in September and has put together one book of poems called (bank of america) (in parentheses). She does not go to school and lives in Phoenicia with reluctance.

Also, why not become a 2008 Member of the Woodstock Poetry Society & Festival?
Membership is a nominal $15 a year. (To join, send your check to the Woodstock Poetry Society, P.O. Box 531, Woodstock, NY 12498. Include your email address as well as your mailing address and phone number.)  Your membership helps pay for hall rental, post-office-box rental, the WPS website, and costs associated with publicizing the monthly events. One benefit of membership is the opportunity to have a brief biography and several of your poems appear on this website.

For more information contact Phillip Levine at pprod@mindspring.com