Let's start this post with a Poetry Friday poem by Erren Geraud Kelly, who will be one of the poets at Saturday's event.
Building a Snowman
By Erren Geraud Kelly
Kid, you build a snowman by taking the best parts of winter And mixing it with some Ella Fitzgerald and Sara Bareiles Take the best parts of fall and add some summer to It, you can give frosty a broomstick for his scepter, and he’ll be Eager to rule, as the King Of Winter; make his eyes have soul
Make them dark and soulful, like a Trane riff, Ultimately, the jazz will sprout in his steps Like an Art Blakey Riff, he’ll be soulful like Love, like you, his body will copy yours Evolving into the shape of Jazz, your coal-dark eyes True with magic, holly and ivy, dance with him Take him in your arms, as Ella take you both, home
Erren Geraud Kelly will join other poets at a Hudson Valley Writers Guild event a special night of poetry and spoken word at The Linda, featuring writers from Trailer Park Quarterly & Hobo Camp Review.
8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 5
The Linda - WAMC's Performing Arts Studio
339 Central Ave., Albany, NY 12206
Rebecca Schumejda is the author of several full-length collections, including Falling Forward (sunnyoutside press), Cadillac Men (NYQ Books), Waiting at the Dead End Diner (Bottom Dog Press), Our One-Way Street (NYQ Books) Something Like Forgiveness, a single epic poem accompanied by collage art by Hosho McCreesh (Stubborn Mule Press) and Sentenced (NYQ Books). Her new poetry/photography collaboration with Jason Baldinger is forthcoming from Kung Fu Treachery Press. She is the co-editor at Trailer Park Quarterly. She received her MA in Poetics from San Francisco State University and her BA from SUNY New Paltz. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. You can find her online at: rebecca-schumejda.com.
Kenning JP García is the author of Suffused, With, OF (What Place Meant) and other books, has been published in various journals and anthologies and speaks regularly at writing conferences around the country, and is an editor at Rigorous and Dream Pop Press as well as a co-organizer of the St. Rocco’s Reading Series in Albany.
Alina Pleskova is a poet, editor, and Moscow-born immigrant turned proud Philadelphian. Her first full-length collection, Toska, is newly out from Deep Vellum. She co-edits bedfellows magazine and is a 2020 and 2022 Leeway Foundation grant awardee, as well as the author of the chapbook, What Urge Will Save Us (Spooky Girlfriend Press, 2017.) Her writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, swamp pink, Peach Mag, the tiny, and elsewhere.
Erren Geraud Kelly has been writing for 32 years. His works appear currently in Nebo Literary journal and in Aura Literary Journal. Mr. Kelly has a B.A. English-Creative Writing degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and resides in Lynn, Massachusetts.
Stephanie Kaylor is a Brooklyn-based writer and the recipient of fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and UC Santa Barbara, where they are currently completing their PhD in Feminist Studies. Their writing can be found, or is forthcoming, in numerous publications including the Oxford Encyclopedia of US History, Salamander Magazine, Split Lip Magazine, and Protean Magazine. Their debut poetry collection is forthcoming with CLASH Books in 2024.
Making his home in Albany, NY, Victorio Reyes Asili has a PhD from the University at Albany, where he completed his dissertation entitled "Mic Check—Finding Hip Hop’s Place in the Literary Milieu." He holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetry from The Vermont College of Fine Arts. His poems have appeared in many literary journals including The Acentos Review, Word Riot, Pilgrimage Magazine and Obsidian, and his work has been anthologized in Chorus: A Literary Mixtape, It Was Written—Poetry Inspired by Hip Hop, Black Lives Have Always Mattered, and Erase the Patriarchy. In addition to his work as a scholar and poet, Reyes Asili has been a lifelong activist and served as the executive director for the Social Justice Center of Albany for 11 years.
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