St. Rocco's Poetry Collective

Kiddie Pool in Albany is celebrating their first anniversary with a masquerade party on Friday night. Come by! It will be fun and informative! Historian Peter Gabak will give a lecture at 7:30pm and Nina Isabel will perform around 9pm. @nadalex is making a playlist for the dance party after Nina's performance.

Transit of Venus Anniversary Masquerade 💫 Friday, December 6 - 7-12pm

At Kiddie Pool on Grand Street in Albany.

It's really a masquerade. Come with a mask, or pay $7 for a Venus-theme mask. You can probably get in wearing just your N95 face mask.

WHY ARE WE CELEBRATING

It's our anniversary too! St. Rocco's organized two readings at Kiddie Pool in their first season, including the very first Kiddie Pool salon - "My Life in Art" with Michael Oatman and Rebecca Schiff. We followed up with "Generative Texts" with Kite, Christopher Funkhauser, and Brian McCorkle in November 2023. See all of Kiddie Pool's past events here. Listen to highlights from Generative Texts here.

We won't be organizing future events there, but @nadalex is currently plotting Kiddie Pool's music and literary programs for 2025 with Karley.

Also, Kite is performing at EMPAC in Troy on December 6th at 7pm. Go see Kite and then come to Kiddie Pool for after-party.

More details from Kiddie Pool:

2024 is a moment of transformation for St. Rocco's and we invite your input and participation in the future of our organization. If you would like to get involved, or just want to share your thoughts about our future directions, please fill in this form, or send us a message here.

We welcome new members or occasional collaborators who would like to

Organize Readings

Host Readings

Photo/Video at Readings

Participate in Workshops

Interview Visiting Poets

Write Blog Posts

Design Flyers

Produce Radio Shows

Arrange Audio Archives

Rebroadcasting our 2020 Indigenous People's Day episode plus 13 minutes of Kite and up to date "Upcoming Show Announcements" for Albany / Troy.

With Kite, Brian McCorkle, Alexis Bhagat and more. Chatbots and Python outputs, and also cut-ups and surrealist games. We are presenting a variety of approaches to generative texts, grounding the current hype for AI/LLM/chatbots in deeper literary histories. The critique of AI has a long tradition; conversely, literary experiments with more than human writing have long traditions, too.

We are finalizing a few reader invitiations and will post the official announcement on Saturday. DM us here on on Instagram if you would be interested in reading or in sharing a text based game (paper, tabletop, or online) in the game room.

It's the middle of a roller coaster week that started in an oddly sweet nadir. We hosted the meeting of two Seattle writers - Bill Carty and Paul Hlava Ceballos with Zoe Tuck from Northampton. There were four people in the audience--two members of St. Roccos, our friend Dan, and the owner of the bookshop where our reading took place. At 5pm, we decided to wait an extra 5 minutes in case anyone sauntered in late. Bill gave us a scene report from Seattle. "The pandemic has given people permission to stay home, and they are taking it." And so the show went on for our small audience... and what a beautiful reading! The readers brought their books to life, reading for the birds and the bricks. I was grateful for these visitors, embarrassed for Albany, and promised that we would make sure not to hold another reading with only visiting out of town poets without any local readers to bring in their friends.

Yesterday, my faith in Albany was redeemed, to see the packed hall that came out to see Pierre Joris read at U-Albany campus! He spoke about cormorants and about his "infinite debt" to Paul Celan. He read from "The Book of U" as well as some translations of Celan. The room was crowded with undergraduate students, who asked earnest questions about the writing life.

Pierre read from The Book of U at St. Rocco's back in 2019. We have never played it on the radio because of room noise... I will clean up the recording and put it on the broadcast in the coming weeks. If you would like to hear Pierre read, @pennsoundradio-blog has a whole page of recordings! https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Joris.php

New Show up on Audioport. St. Rocco's Broadcast for September 13, 2023. Continuing to just explore the Segue Series at Zinc Collection at Penn Sound... last week we played Michael Basinski from September 2012... this week, Natalie Zina Walshots from October 2012.

Listen to all of the recordings from the Segue Series at Zinc Bar at Penn Sound.

Our Upcoming Readings announcement this week reminds you to register for Tracie Morris and Tongo Eisen-Martin in conversation at Flow Chart Foundation on September 22. It is a free event but space is limited so register on Eventbrite to secure your spot.

September 9: River Poems at Herman Melville House in Troy

September 12: 2nd Tuesday Open Mic in Bennington

September 15: Open Mic Slam at Cafe Euphoria in Troy

September 16: Verbatim Text Sound Festival (Book Fair with readings and performances all day!) at Open 40 in Saugerties

September 16: Zoe Tuck, Bill Carty, and Paul Hlava Ceballos at Urban Aftermath in Albany

September 19: Pierre Joris at NYS Writers Institute in Albany

September 21: 3rd Thursday Poetry Open Mic at Social Justice Center in Albany

September 22: Tracie Morris and Tongo Eisen-Martin at Flow Chart Foundation in Hudson

September 23: Martin Espada at Caffe Lena in Saratoga

September 28: Stephanie Burt at NYS Writers Institute in Albany

Further Afield:

September 26: Ross Gay at Smith College

Literary Adjacent:

September 4 thru October 14: Text - an exhibition at joyce goldstein gallery, chatham ny

I am looking for poems about Cluster Bombs to play on this week’s radio show. Do you have any suggestions? Or if you have written one, use our “submissions” button and send a recording.

Summer is here. People are planning summer or just reading on the lawn or beach.  Here are two readings in the Hudson Valley you don’t want to miss this weekend.

Friday, June 23 at 5:30: Cat’s Meow Reading Series in Hudson, NY Todd Colby & Bianca Stone

Saturday, June 24 at 7pm: Salon Salvage in Troy, NY With Alexis Bhagat, Thea Brown, + Michael Flatt

April 23: Earth Day Show - John Trudell’s “Take Back the Earth” on air April 30: Poetry CDs from Douglas's House May 7: Beat Saints May 13: Sound Poetry Spotlight May 20: Douglas Rothschild special May 27: Memorial Day - Bernadette Mayer special

St. Rocco’s is pleased to invite you to join us at the College of Saint Rose, indoors again for our Readings for the Dispossessed!

Local poets Amie Zimmerman and Danni Beltran will share new work with us. And Alexis Bhagat will read from, and invite others to read from, older work by Douglas Rothschild.

Feb 11. 4pm to 6pm At Albertus Hall, 432 Western Ave, Albany, NY

Gather at 4pm Reading begins at 4:30pm. Enter Albertus Hall on Western Ave. There will be signage to direct you to room 105.

Co-sponsored by Pine Hills Review and Barzakh Magazine.

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Amie Zimmerman organizes unions, cuts hair, and writes poems. Find her chaptbooks from Essay Press, Reality Beach, and Ursus Americanus.