Busy Week of Poetry in the Area

A busy week here in the upstate poetry and spoken word community.  Here is some information on two of the readings coming up.   For a complete list of events, go to the Events Calendar.

Wednesday, November 18
7:00PM
Cock N Bull Restaurant
Parkis Mills Rd, Galway, NY 12074

You very well may have heard about the Open Mic to be held at the Cock n Bull Wed., Nov. 18 at 7pm-9pm.  I am writing to ask you all to come and share in this fun event.  This isn't your usual open mic.  We are expecting a host of performing artists -- readers, singers, musicians from the community of Galway and beyond.  If you want to share your talent, sign up is at 6:30.  If you want to just enjoy the events, the fun begtins at 7.  Or you can come earlier and have a bite to eat.  The bar will be open for those who wish to have a drink.

This event is sponsored by the Galway Public Library, the biggest little library in the state.  Please come and support the library and have a good time.  It's free, though a small donation will be welcomed.  Oh, and there's free refreshments, compliments of the Cock n Bull. What more could you ask?

Thursday, November 19
7:00PM
Third Thursday Poetry Night
Social Justice Center
33 Central Ave., Albany, NY

Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, NY on Thursday, November 19 with a 7:00 sign up; 7:30 start

Featured Poet: Barbara Adams -- with an open mic for community poets before & after the feature: $3.00 donation, suggested; more if you got it, less if you can’t.

Your turkey host: Dan Wilcox

Barbara Adams is the author of two books of poems, and a book of literary criticism on Laura Riding. She is a retired Professor of English at Pace University. Born in Manhattan, she has lived in the mid-Hudson valley most of her life. Her poems appear in the two anthologies of Hudson River writers, "Riverine" and "WaterWrites."

21st Annual Day of the Poet Contest on Thanksgiving Saturday, Nov 28

After the Thanksgiving holiday and all the Black Friday madness, be sure to go over the Colonie Library and check out this great annual poetry and spoken word event.

POETS' CORNER at the COLONIE TOWN LIBRARY and the SPC present the 21st Annual DAY OF THE POET --a poetry reading contest

Saturday, November 28, 2009 at the Colonie Town Library (William K.Sanford Library), 629 Albany Shaker Road, Loundonville, NY (near the Times Union Building off the Northway)

Reading starts at 10:00AM. Entrance fee: $3.00

Day of the Poet also features open stage readings by past champions and other local poets not competing.

How it works:
Competing poets are given three rounds. Poets present their original work only. Rounds are timed at two, three and four minutes respectively.

Poets are judged based on:
1. timing( get it close to the mark.)
2. presentation
3. content( profanity is discouraged unless used well. It is a library.)

Note: No artificial timing devices (watches, timers, alarm clocks, folks in the audience waving hands) are allowed. Timing is a unique feature of this contest. Poets have to depend on their own internal clocks. Preparation ahead of time to stay close to the time targets is recommended.

Prize amounts:
$200 First Prize
$50 Second prize
Third place prize is based on Entrance fees

To register or for more information call Timothy Lake at 518-274-0131.

Past First Place Winners:
1989- J.J. Clarke
1990-Roberta Waugh
1991- Paul Genega
1992- Judith saunders
1993-Frank Murphy
1994- Kym Flemming
1995-James Patrick Casey
1996- Sylvia Barnard
1997- Laura Minita( age 8)
1998-Anne Goodwin
1999-Viktor Batorsky
2000-Edward Sherlock
2001-Margaret Black
2002-Therese Broderick
2003-Todd Broomhead
2004-Serafina Whelen
2005-Kathy O'Brien
2006-Timothy Lake
2007-Alan Casline
2008-Miriam Axel-Lute
2009- who knows? Maybe you will take this spot in an auspicious list of competitors.

Poetry at the UAG Gallery This Friday, Nov 13

Albany Poets and Jawbone are once again combining forces to bring poetry to the UAG Gallery.  This Friday Jawbone will present a reading with James Belflower and Lucyna Prostko followed by our monthly open mic for poetry and spoken word.

Here is the information from the good folks at Jawbone:

Jawbone is pleased to host a first book release party/reading this Friday, November 13th at 6:30pm in the United Artists Guild Gallery (247 Lark Street). Please come early and enjoy a refreshment/chat with the authors.

An open mic hosted by Albany Poets will follow at 8pm.

We hope that you will attend and support two very talented poets and PhD Candidates.

COMMUTER by James Belflower: Modeling the courage of the witness as a compelling poetic subjectivity, COMMUTER attempts to encourage response by negotiating notions of the self. Juliana Spahr calls COMMUTER "a painfully beautiful and transformatively aestheticized book."

James Belflower is the author of Commuter (Instance Press) and And Also a Fountain, (NeOpepper Press) a collaborative echap with Anne Heide and J. Michael Martinez. He won the 2007 Juked Magazine poetry prize and his work  appears, or is forthcoming in: Jacket, EOAGH, Denver Quarterly, Apostrophe Cast, First Intensity, Reconfigurations, Konundrum Engine and O&S, among others. He curates PotLatchpoetry.org, a website dedicated to the gifting and exchange of poetry resources.

Infinite Beginnnings—Lucyna Prostko's fierce, quiet book shines like the
wooden boat in "Homecoming" that "beckons the winds with all its power."  Prostko makes poetic speech feel somehow inevitable, yet unexpected and fresh; there is nothing self-conscious, no straining for high art, in her mastery. "The human stories in her poems haunt me. . . . Clear-eyed and steadfast in her honesty, Prostko doesn't pretend to easy understanding of the mystery she touches at the deep heart of our being, but her love for the world is palpable in every poem"--Joan Larkin, Judge, Bright Hill Poetry Book Competition.

Lucyna Prostko was born in 1971 in Poland, where she grew up in a small village of Solistowka in Mazury. From an early age, she has been immersed in the stories of her grandparents' lives who have been tragically affected by the outbreak of World War II. She came to New York City at the age of 19. She received her BA degree in English from Hunter College and MFA in poetry from New York University, where she was awarded The New York Times Fellowship. She has been writing poetry in both Polish and English, and her work has been influenced by both Polish and American poets, in particular Boleslaw Lesmian, Czeslaw Milosz, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Wislawa Szymborska as well as Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Sharon Olds, and Louise Gluck. Her poetry has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Fugue, Washington Square, Painted Bride Quarterly, Ellipsis, Quiddity, Five Points, and other literary magazines and in her collection, Infinite Beginnings, judged winner of the Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Competition by Joan Larkin and published by Bright Hill in 2009. She has been teaching literature and creative writing for the past ten years. She currently teaches at Queensbury High School in upstate New York and pursues Ph.D. in English at SUNY Albany. She lives on Hunt Lake in the Adirondacks with her husband, Mirko.

The evening starts at 6:30PM with the “No Gimmicks Open Mic” hosted by Mary Panza will begin after the two featured poets at 8:00PM.  Sign up for the open mic will be available throughout the night. 

Spoken Word and Hip Hop at Valentines Tonight

Poetry, spoken word, music, hip hop and more is happening tonight at Valentines as The Intangible Collective is coming into town for what is sure to be a great show.  If you remember, these guys were a big part of the Psycho Cluster F*#k at the 2006 Albany Word Fest (Download Albany Poets Podcast #13 mp3).

Here is the info from Dan Stalter:

Static After The Storm
Friday 11/6 // Valentines 9PM // $5 Cover // 18+

The world ends often. Every moment offers the opportunity of new beginnings, as our past becomes engulfed in the apocalypse of our future. If you survive, the choice becomes yours: wallow in despair or effect change upon circumstance. 28 of us chose creation. This is Intangible. This is Collective. This is the Static After the Storm.

The Intangible Collective will kick off the evening with a full set of spoken word poetry at 9pm. A handful of local Albany Poets [editors note: Murrow and Dan Wilcox, among others] will also read. Following the poetry we will shift gears and bring Hip Hop to the stage. Headling the set will be Xkwisit, Killa Kev, Absolute, & DJ SG. Representing the Intangible Hip Hop faction will be Fascious, Bamboo MC, & B.Nice

For more information: http://www.intangiblecollective.com and http://www.valentinesalbany.com

Home Planet News Benefit and Reading This Sunday

The Bohemian Book Bin is proud to welcome Donald Lev, one of the founders of The Home Planet News (an Independent Literary Review that includes Poetry, Fiction, and Theater) for a gala poetry event and to celebrate the emergence of Home Planet News issue #63

The following poets will be reading their work which is featured in The Home Planet News Issue #63: Andy Clausen, Teresa Marta Costa, Justin Parrinello, Michael Platsky, Judith Saunders & R. Dionysus Whiteurs.

Suggested Donation $5.00 includes refreshments & free copy of HPN, plus face to face with Donald Lev

Donald Lev and his reclusive cat Kit Smart live in High Falls, NY, where he spends most of his time publishing the literary tabloid Home Planet News, which he and his late wife Enid Dame founded in 1979 in NYC.

Donald Lev was born in New York City in 1936. He attended Hunter College, worked in the wire rooms of the Daily News and New York Times, and drove a taxi cab for 20 years (with a 6-year hiatus in which he ran messages for, and contributed poetry to, The Village Voice and operated the Home Planet Bookshop on the Lower East Side). His earliest poems appeared in print in 1958 and he started his first small press magazine, HYN Anthology, in 1969. He has published fourteen collections of poetry, including: Yesterday's News in 2002 by Red Hill Outloudbooks in Claryville, NY. His brief underground film-acting career pinnacled with his portrayal (he
wrote his own lines) of "The Poet" in Robert Downey Sr.'s 1969 classic Putney Swope.  Don has just released a new collection: The Darkness Above.

So come by Sunday, November 8th from 4pm - 6pm, with some poems of your own to read & support an amazing publication, now in its 30th year Home Planet News at the Bohemian Book Bin, Largest Used Bookstore in Ulster County.  Now located in Lake Katrine, .02 mi North of Adams, off 9W right behind G & G Leather Sign. 85 Carle Terrace, Lake Katrine, 845-336-6450  bohemianbookbin.com

Poetry in Kingston This Saturday Featuring Alan Catlin, Dan Crocker, Tim Gager, Nathan Graziano and Rebecca Schumejda

Alan Catlin, Dan Crocker, Tim Gager, Nathan Graziano and Rebecca Schumejda will read at Half Moon Books, 35 North Front Street, Kingston, NY 6:30pm on Saturday, November 7th

Alan Catlin retired after thirty-four years of working in his unchosen profession as a barman. His latest collections include “Only the Dead Know Albany" from sunnyoutisde and a companion piece from March Street Press, “Near Death in the Afternoon on Becker Street.”

Daniel Crocker is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, a collection of short stories and the novel, The Cornstalk Man. He is the former editor of Controlled Burn and former assistant editor of Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley.

Timothy Gager is the author of seven books of short fiction and poetry. The poetry chapbooks, These Poems are not Pink Clouds (Propaganda Press) and this is where you go when you are gone (Cerena Barva Press) were released in 2008. He hosts the Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts every month and is the co-founder of Somerville News Writers Festival. Timothy is the current Fiction Editor of The Wilderness House Literary Review, the founding co-editor of The Heat City Literary Review and has edited the book, Out of the Blue Writers Unite: A Book of Poetry and Prose from the Out of the Blue Art Gallery. He has had over 150 works of fiction and poetry published since 2007 and of which five have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Nathan Graziano lives in Manchester, New Hampshire with his wife and two children. He is the author of Teaching Metaphors (sunnyoutside, 2007), Not So Profound (Green Bean Press, 2004), Frostbite (GBP, 2002) and seven chapbooks of poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in Rattle, Night Train, Freight Stories, The Coe Review, The Owen Wister Review, and others. His third book of poetry, After the Honeymoon, was published in September by sunnyoutside press. For more information, visit his website: www.nathangraziano.com

Rebecca Schumejda’s new collection, The Map of Our Garden will be release November 1st from verve bath press. Her full length collection, Falling Forward, was published by sunnyoutside press in February. They are also the publishers of her second collection, Dream Big, Work Harder, which appeared in 2006. She is a graduate of San Francisco State University, with an MA in Poetics. Schumejda currently teaches English at an alternative high school in Hudson. You can find out more at her website at www.rebeccaschumejda.com

Half Moon Books is located at 35 North Front St., in the uptown section of Kingston. Light refreshments will be served, and there is no cover charge. For more information, contact Half Moon Books at 845-331-5439, or contact Schumejda at rshume@hotmail.com.