[Terese Coe]

Janet and Quincy, thanks for asking.

The Nightingale is an elegant venue: a large room with a square step-up stage in the middle, subdued lighting with a spot that the poet can use as he or she likes by moving the pages into it, a long bar facing the little stage, and couches and other seating to the sides of the stage. Excellent sound system.

A regular group shows up most weeks, and Oct. 23 was no different; we had a good responsive crowd including a number of friends as well. The hosts alternate: David Elsasser and Sue Polo, who have been doing the Saturn Series at this venue for 12 years! That's a long time by poetry reading standards, and their kind personalities give you the reason.

Here's my reading list for the night:

Nicaea (adaptation from Posidippus)
Seeing Matisse
Machu Picchu
Jaguar Hunter
Café Noir
Saint John’s Bread
The Bodhi Tree
Zhang Zhung
The Princess of Torn in Taxis Redux
Not Venting but Bitching
Circular Retreat
Film Noir
Why You Can’t Go Home Again
Pet Resume
Lullaby (translation from Rilke)
Mackie Messer (adaptation from Brecht)

The audience laughed in all the right places--which is the best kind of audience!

Wendy Sloan, Chris Potter, and Ray Pospisil read in the Open, and each of them impressed the crowd considerably I think (Ray is a regular there as well). In fact Chris Potter (head mod at the Gazebo) is going to have her own reading there in February. Her first collection, Zero Degrees at First Light is just out from David Robert Books (Kevin Walzer and Lori Jareo)—take a look, it's well worth it!

Wendy, Chris and her husband Ken, and I sat together and rolled with laughter at Douglas Collura's comical prose-poems (except for Ken—maybe it was a girl thing). For a while we could have been three teenage girls hanging out at the corner candy store.

Other news: Wendy Sloan will read for Modern Metrics in January, Kate Light in February, and Len Krisak of Powow in March!

Terese


[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited November 10, 2006).]