This is the week we have all been waiting for all year. The 2011 Albany Word Fest is taking place this coming Saturday at The Linda. The 12-Hour Open Mic has a couple of open spots left and the nighttime show is packed with the best poets and musicians Albany has to offer.
Some of the names that are already signed up for our biggest Word Fest Open Mic to date are a “who’s who” of regional poetry icons. These are the poets that have kept numerous open mic, poetry readings, and events like the Word Fest happening for all these years and without their support of the art, this very scene and community that we love so much would not exist as it does. Poets like Dan Wilcox, Therese L. Broderick, Karin Maag-Tanchak, Joe Krausman, A.C. Everson, Ronald D. Whiteurs, Bob Sharkey, Alan Catlin, Donald Lev, Ken Salzmann, Joan Pavlinsky, Don Levy, Judith Prest, Carol Graser, Jan Tramontano, Carolee Sherwood, Tess Lecuyer, Cheryl A. Rice, Mojavi, Shannon Shoemaker, Bless, Jacqueline Ahl, and Mike Jurkovic are what the local poetry community is all about and it is because of all of their continuous hard work that we say thank you.
If any poets still wish to signup, go to www.albanywordfest.com and click on “Signup”. There are only a few morning spots left.
The nighttime show, the Pycho Cluster F#*k ‘11, is again a great combination of music and spoken word with the talents of David Fey, Olivia Quillio, Avery, Daniel Nester, Poetyc Vyzyonz, Mother Judge’s Open Mic Showcase, Metroland’s Best Poets of 2011: Mary Panza, R.M. Engelhardt, and KC Orcutt. All of these performers are long-time supporters of not just poetry and spoken word, but all of the arts in the Capital Region.
Tickets for the entire day starting at 7:00AM are only $10 and are available online and at the door.
This is by far our biggest Word Fest yet, from the venue to the talent. We are celebrating 10 years of the Albany Word Fest and we could not have gotten here without the wonderful support of everyone in the poetry and arts community.
Below is the press release that we have been sending out regarding the event. We hope to see everyone out there for this celebration of the poetry, music, and spoken word of upstate New York.
In celebration of National Poetry Month, Albany Poets is proud to present the 2011 Albany Word Fest featuring the poetry, spoken word, and music of upstate New York. This year’s event will take place on Saturday, April 16, 2011 at The Linda (339 Central Ave., Albany).
This year's event is the 10th anniversary of the Albany Word Fest and with that in mind, Albany Poets is promising big things.
Thom Francis, Albany Poets President, says, "When we started this event ten years ago on a Saturday afternoon in Thatcher Park, we never thought it would become one of the biggest 'mark-your-calendar' events of each and every year. We are very proud of how we have been able to continue hosting one of the biggest poetry open mics in upstate New York for ten years."
The 2011 Albany Word Fest will kick-off with the 12-Hour Open Mic at 7:00AM at The Linda. Albany Poets Vice President Mary Panza says, “After the success of the last two 12-hour open mics, we have decided to do it again, but this time, during the day. This will give poets a better opportunity to share their work and also give the audience more time to appreciate the talent in the poetry and spoken word community.” This open mic for poetry and spoken word will be held from 7:00AM – 7:00PM.
Poets who wish to participate in the open mic can sign up online by going to the Albany Word Fest website, www.albanywordfest.com until 5:00pm on Friday, April 15. Performers will also have a limited opportunity to sign up at the event itself. Each poet will have 10 -15 minutes to share their work. The open mic is open to all poets and spoken word artists with no style or content restrictions.
After the Open Mic, starting at 7:00PM, the 2011 Albany Word Fest brings the annual Psycho Cluster F*#k to the The Linda featuring poetry, music and spoken word from upstate New York artistsDavid Fey, Olivia Quillio, Avery, Daniel Nester, Poetyc Vyzyonz, Mother Judge’s Open Mic Showcase, Metroland’s Best Poets of 2011: Mary Panza, R.M. Engelhardt, and KC Orcutt, and much more.
Admission for this event is $10.00. Tickets will be available for purchase on The Linda's website and at the door on the day of the event. This event is open to all ages ( 21+ with a picture ID required to drink).
The 2011 Albany Word Fest is sponsored by Albany Poets, McGeary's, The Linda, and the very generous donations of supporters of the arts in upstate New York.
National Poetry Month is starting off strong with another busy week of poetry and spoken word here in the area leading up to the Word Fest on April 16th.
Tomorrow night at Valentines (17 New Scotland Ave., Albany) Albany Poets Presents returns for another open mic night. This is one of the longest-running open mics for poetry and spoken word in the Albany area. Come out and join Thom and Keith for a couple of drinks, some conversation, and a little bit of poetry. We will also have the signup sheet for the 2011 Word Fest Open Mic with us for everyone who has not yet signed up online.
Wednesday night is the first Wednesday of the month, which means only one thing…The Caffe Lena Poetry Open Mic! This is truly one of the greatest poetry open mics in the area held in one of this countries most historic venues. This month host Carol Graser will have David Kaczynski as the featured poet. Here is the information from Carol:
the first Wednesday of every month Caffè Lena presents:
Caffè LenaPoetry Open Mic Wednesday, April 6 7pm sign up, 7:30 readings start Featured Poet: David Kaczynski $3 Hosted by Carol Graser Caffè Lena, 47 Phila Street, Saratoga Springs www.caffelena.org 583-0022
David Kaczynski has published poetry, short fiction, opinion pieces, and a personal narrative on growing up with his brother Ted Kaczynski, the so-called "Unabomber." Since 2001, he has worked as executive director of New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Prior to that, he was assistant director of Equinox Youth Shelter in Albany. In 2010, David published a 36-poem chapbook, "A Dream Named You," which he describes as an attempt to trace a spiritual journey from loss to affirmation. The 36 poems reflect various themes: the desert landscape in West Texas where David lived during the 1980's; his memories of his troubled brother, Ted; his love for Linda Patrik, whom he met in the 7th grade; and his understanding of art as a transformative process.
For the rest of the poetry events going on this week be sure to check out the Events Calendar.
Saratoga’s Caffe Lena is hosting a fantastic weekend of poetry, workshops, and spoken word coming up next month. Here is the info from Carol Graser:
For the second year running Caffe Lena will devote a weekend to the art of the spoken word, with more than a dozen accomplished poets offering words of freedom, beauty, challenge, and revelation. The festival will open on Friday evening with a full-length performance by renowned NYC slam poet Taylor Mali, and will continue on Saturday with workshops and readings throughout the afternoon and evening with poets Don Levy, Naton Leslie, Christine Gelineau, Lyn Lifshin, Frannie Lindsay, Susan Deer Cloud, Paul Pines, Joseph Bruchac, Diane Lockward, Lucyna Prostko, Daniel Nester and Barbara Ungar & Nancy White performing From Eve to Barbie: women in myth and history…
Taylor Mali Friday, Jun. 4 • 8 PM $15 advance / $17 at the door www.taylormali.com
Saturday, June 5 Workshop Schedule: 12:30 – 1:30 Diane Lockward Weird Is Good 12:30 – 1:30 Lucyna Prostko Writing the Deepest Self 1:45 – 2:45 Christina Gelineau Exploring Beyond the I 1:45 – 2:45 Naton Leslie Writing Linked Poems 3:00 – 4:00 Frannie Lindsay Writing the Ugly Truth 3:00 – 4:00 Daniel Nester Poetry Workshop with Daniel Nester
Each workshop is $10. Workshop descriptions are on the website. We’ll have phone reservations for the workshops set up at 583-0022 in the near future. In the meantime, you can contact cgraser@nycap.rr.com to reserve your spot.
This coming Wednesday, May 5, Jared Smith will be the featured poet at the monthly Caffe Lena Poetry Open Mic. Always a great reading up in Saratoga at the historic Caffe Lena with a fantastic host, Carol Graser.
The first Wednesday of every month Caffè Lena presents: Caffè Lena Poetry Open Mic Wednesday, May 5 7pm sign up, 7:30 readings start Featured Poet: Jared Smith $3 Hosted by Carol Graser -and the Caffè Lena poetry fest is coming up June 4 & 5!
Jared Smith’s seventh volume of poetry, The Graves Grow Bigger Between Generations, was released by Higganum Hill Books in the spring of 2008 and was nominated for a Tufts Award. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee (2007 and 2008). In addition his book Where Images Become Imbued With Time was nominated for The National Book Award in 2007 His second CD, Controlled By Ghosts, was released by Practical Music Studio in combination with CD Baby in October 07, with music by alternative jazz composer Lem Roby. He has had hundreds of publications in literary journals across the nation over the past 30 years, in addition to several foreign countries. He has published reviews of the works of such major contemporary poets as Ted Kooser, C.K. Williams, and W.S. Merwin. He has also been on National Public Radio and Pacifica. He has given readings, workshops, and classes at colleges, schools, libraries, and coffee houses around the country.
Albany Poets is very proud to be a part of this event to bring awareness to the closing of Thacher Park. We have a long history with the park as the first two Albany Word Fest’s were held there in 2001 and 2002. We are teaming with 518Fever.com to bring artists, musicians, and poets together for this great day of entertainment in Schenectady. Local poets Don Levy, Dan Wilcox, A.C. Everson, Cara Benson, and Carol Graser will be performing at the Robb Alley stage from 6pm-8pm Saturday evening.
Here is the info from our friends at 518Fever.com:
UNITED 4 THACHER: A CELEBRATION OF THACHER PARK
518Fever.com is working with Proctor's Theatre to put on a Support Event for Thacher Park.
This Friday poetry returns to the UAG Gallery with poets Jacqueline Jones LaMon and Carol Graser.
Jacqueline Jones LaMonis 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.
Upcoming Featured Poets at Poetry at the Hudson at the Athens Cultural Center (24 Second St., Athens, NY) every 3rd Saturday at 2 p.m. in the even-numbered months (except June this year, when it meets on the 2d Saturday).
April 19, 2008 - Bill Seaton and Susan Sindall June 14, 2008 - Eddie Bell and Carol Graser August 16, 2008 - T.G. Vanini and Susan Hoover Ocotber 18, 2008 - Lei Isaacs and Phillip Levine December 20, 2008 - Thom Francis and Bob Sharkey
For more information on this poetry and spoken word series at the Athens Cultural Center, email host Bob Wright at hudsonvalleybob@yahoo.com
In celebration of her new book of poetry, The Wild Twist of Their Stems, Carol Graser will be performing at Caffe Lena Sunday, November 25 at 7pm. She'll be joined by jazz musician Elisabeth Woodbury and percussionist Chrys Ballerano. Opening for her will be comedian Marly Halpern-Graser. For reservations call 583-0022.
Praise for The Wild Twist of Their Stems:
These poems are smartly lyrical & welcome to my consciousness. It's a great pleasure to have Carol Graser's poems. -Bernadette Mayer
Generations are woven together in these poems of Carol Grazer's with an ease as natural as the wind twining grasses. Her reflections on motherhood and relationships, and the small anxious dramas of everyday life are as memorable and true as any I've read, tempered by hope and humor, self-aware, yet never self-centered. It's a journey worth taking. -Joseph Bruchac
At once shocking and then calming, Graser’s words take you on the ever-winding journey of being a mother. Deep and profound, her words and images will remain long after you have closed the book. -Debra Wetzel, MotherVerse Magazine
An exploration of the awe, strife, and joys of motherhood, Saratoga Springs poet Carol Graser’s first book focuses on the movement of small moments in the context of larger meaning. Her verse emphasizes repetition and enjambment to create memorable images. -Carolyn Niehaus, Chronogram
Carol Graser hosts the first Wednesday of the month poetry series at Caffe Lena. She has read her poetry at many community events including fund-raisers, anti-war rallies and as a featured reader at poetry events around New York. Her poetry has appeared in regional journals such as Screed, Salvage and Metroland as well as in numerous national publications like Lullwater Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, The Worcester Review, The MacGuffin and Eureka Literary Magazine.
Marly Halpern-Graser is a recent graduate of Emerson College’s film program. He has performed stand up comedy in Boston and Cambridge, as well as Woodstock and Saratoga Springs, NY. His comedic short films and animations have been screened in numerous film festivals internationally, and he has won many awards, including Best Short Documentary at the Lake Placid Film Festival. He's currently working in LA as a comedy writer.
Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius is the composer-arranger-pianist for HEARD, a modern chamber ensemble, where she brings a wide array of styles --jazz, classical and world music-- into her captivating soundscape. Her inspirations come from her diverse experiences and interests and are often drawn from the raw and powerful sources that nature provides.
The Caffe Lena Poetry Open Mic returns on the Wednesday, November 7 (sign-up at 7:00, reading starts at 7:30PM) with featured poet Tim Verhaegen.
Tim Verhaegen has been living in the Capital District for almost thirty years and is a regular at this and many other local poetry events. His work has been published in the anthology Poetry Don't Pump Gas. Tim’s poetry often targets the intimate stories of his own life and the stories of the people closest to him. He's a collector of toy cars, toy animals and other figurines and has been accused of being a "people collector".
The Caffe Lena Open Mic takes place on the first Wednesday of each month hosted by Carol Graser. Admission is $2.00 . Caffe Lena is located at 47 Phila St. Saratoga Springs. For more information call 518-583-0022 or go to www.caffelena.org
After the Banned Books event at the library, be sure to head down to Madison Ave and check out what is looking like a great poetry reading at the CDFI.
Behind the Egg: A Reading Series at The Capital District Federation of Ideas, 383.5 Madison Avenue, Albany returns on Saturday, October 6 at 4:00PM with Cara Benson, Carol Graser, and Randall Horton. This series is curated by Daniel Nester and Erik Sweet.
Cara Benson currently believes in the accessibility of the inaccessible poem. Her work has, is, or will appear in 88, pom2, HOW2, EOAGH, Sentence, and BoogCity. Her wee-e-chapbook "Bound" is forthcoming from Dusie. She is editing a collection of writing for Chain Magazine, and her "Quantum Chaos and Poems: A Manifest(o)ation" is forthcoming from BookThug. Benson makes poems every Tuesday afternoon with male inmates at Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility in upstate NY.
Carol Graserhosts a monthly poetry series at Saratoga Spring's legendary Caffe Lena and has performed her work at various events and venues around NYS. Her work has been published in many literary journals including Chaffin, artisan, Berkeley Poetry Review and Grasslands.She is the author of The Wild Twist of Their Stems (Foothills Publishing 2007). Find her blogging at MotherVerse.
Randall Horton,originally from Birmingham, Alabama, resides in Albany, New York. He is a former editor of Warpland: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas (Fall 2005) and co-editor of Fingernails Across the Chalkboard (Third World Press, 2006). He received his undergraduate education at both Howard University and The University of the District of Columbia (B.A. English). He has a MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis in Poetry from Chicago State University, and is now a doctoral student at SUNY Albany. He received an Archie D. and Bertha H. Walker Foundation Summer Scholarship to attend Fine Arts Workcenter at Provincetown in 2005. He is also a Cave Canem fellow.
FootHills Publishing is pleased to announce the release of The Wild Twist of Their Stems a collection of poems by Carol Graser.
"As a longtime home schooling parent of three, this work is inspired and informed by the many mothers I've spent afternoons with, talking about and observing the incredible strength and creativity it takes to remain allies to our children. These are ecphrastic poems; attempts to describe the absolute artistry of raising children well. This collection is also a rough chronicle of the birth of my fourth child, from just before pregnancy, through birth and toddlerhood and, finally, to a young boy protesting the invasion of Iraq. "
Carol Graser is an alumnus of Binghamton University where she studied under Milton Kessler. Her poetry has appeared in many literary, parenting and locals arts publications. She organizes and hosts a monthly poetry reading series at Saratoga Springs' historic Caffe Lena. Begun in 2003, these popular readings have featured an exciting range of poets from across the country. She performs her work at many poetry venues around the state as well as at anti-war rallies and other community events. Originally from Plattsburgh, NY, she now lives with her family at the southern end of the Adirondacks in Galway.
THE WILD TWIST OF THEIR STEMS
Like two fresh Buddhas they sit on the top bunk, conspiring play two Believers two Thin Air Breathers scalps closer to roof tops than mine ever is
She bubbles in like a bent-leg dancer a flesh splasher I'm the never-let-you-go catcher but I always let her go
He's the larger and climbs on his own down to the rough rug, plant of our feet He's the bold spirited leaper I apprenticed with
I live like a gardener doggedly tending the wild twist of their stems fending off what I can of disease It is impossible work rooted where they are and though their beauty demands more strength than I lately possess still I persist in refusing to abandon the effort
The Wild Twist of Their Stems is a 68 page hand-sewn book with spine - $14.00 For more information, a picture of the book or to order on-line go to: http://www.foothillspublishing.com/2007/id177.htm
To order through mail send total price plus $1.75 Shipping and Handling ($2.25 in Canada; $3.25 other countries) for each address sent to. NYS Residents please add $1.12 Sales Tax per book. Send orders to: FootHills Publishing, PO Box 68, Kanona, NY 14856.
In celebration of National Poetry Month, Albany Poets is proud to present the 2011 Albany Word Fest featuring the poetry, spoken word, and music of upstate New York. This year’s event will take place on Saturday, April 16, 2011 at The Linda (339 Central Ave., Albany).
National Poetry Month is starting off strong with another busy week of poetry and spoken word here in the area leading up to the 
Saratoga’s Caffe Lena is hosting a fantastic weekend of poetry, workshops, and spoken word coming up next month. Here is the info from 
This coming Wednesday, May 5, 
Albany Poets is very proud to be a part of this event to bring awareness to the closing of Thacher Park. We have a long history with the park as the first two Albany Word Fest’s were held there in 2001 and 2002. We are teaming with 
This Friday poetry returns to the UAG Gallery with poets Jacqueline Jones LaMon and Carol Graser. 
Upcoming Featured Poets at Poetry at the Hudson at the 
In celebration of her new book of poetry, The Wild Twist of Their Stems, Carol Graser will be performing at 
The Caffe Lena Poetry Open Mic returns on the Wednesday, November 7 (sign-up at 7:00, reading starts at 7:30PM) with featured poet Tim Verhaegen. 
After the 
FootHills Publishing is pleased to announce the release of The Wild Twist of Their Stems a collection of poems by