Otto Bruno is a very talented broadcaster, writer and historian. And he’s not, shall we say, a big fan of poetry. Thus is was with some fear and trepidation that I read his review of my recent reading in Rochester. See for yourself:
Otto also inspired one of the poems in my new book, Unexpected Sunlight. That poem isn’t online, so you’ll have to buy the book to read it.
And his despite his low opinion of the (non-)rhyming arts, some of Otto’s own verses have appeared on this very blog. Enjoy!
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Sure, reading poetry to a room full of people is fun, and I’ll do it whenever the opportunity presents itself. But on Thursday, May 6, I had a chance to experience poetry in a totally different way – by talking about it in two classes at Monroe Community College (MCC) in Rochester.
I traveled to the Rochester, NY, area this week for a series of poetry events. On Wednesday, May 5, I made my first stop in Avon, NY, about 30 minutes from Rochester. I joined Alan Casline, John Roche, Paulette Swartzfager, Stephen Lewandowski, Dwain Wilder and Ken Warren for an afternoon of poetry beside the cannons in the park. The park is in the middle of a traffic circle in downtown Avon, so our reading was accompanied by the slow circling of cars and trucks and the occasional, slightly confused pedestrian.
Alan Casline [pictured at left] brought ambrosia with mead to share with the group. It was a gorgeous afternoon, so we sprawled out on the grass to listen and to soak up the sun. Alan read several poems, including one about a hike he and Steve Lewandowski went on that included a line about Steve sliding down a snow-covered bank “like a third grader on a lunch tray.”
John Roche [pictured at left] paid homage to the location of the reading will several poems about Avon, the town where he makes his home. One of his pieces was a protest poem about the closing of a local watering hole. I enjoyed John’s intensely specific words of protest — it’s important to be reminded that protest poems can be very, very local.
Stephen Lewandowski, [pictured at left] a longtime chronicler of — and advocate for — the Finger Lakes region, ended his set of poems with one that took me completely by surprise. It was a poem about the increase of the signal strength of Jazz90.1 (WGMC) and Steve’s resulting ability to hear Oscar Peterson and other jazz greats at his Finger Lakes home. What made this poem so surprising for me is that boosting the station’s power was a project I oversaw as station manager of Jazz90.1 from 2002-2004. What was even more surprising was that it was a complete coincidence that Steve read the piece — he didn’t realize my connection to the station. I was very moved to hear someone who so appreciated the results of all those thousands of hours of fundraising and advocacy.
Unfortunately, I had to leave right before Dwain Wilder [pictured at left] and — I assume — Paulette Swartzfager read (sorry!), so that I could make it to my own reading that night at St. John Fisher. But I thoroughly enjoyed spending an afternoon in the company of such insightful people. I hope the “poetry at the cannons” reading will be just the first in a long series of such events in Avon.
Born and raised in Canandaigua, NY, Matt Smythe is a Creative Supervisor/Producer at Jay Advertising in Rochester. After serving 8 years in the U.S. Army he returned home to complete his A.S. in Biology at Finger Lakes Community College and his B.A. in English from SUNY Brockport. He received his M.A. in Literature from George Mason University, in Fairfax, VA. An avid outdoorsman, Matt writes poetry and non-fiction for his blog, 
