As perverse and unpoetic as it sounds, the last twelve to fifteen months has been good for CAPS. We've managed to strengthen our ties with those of you who have been with us for any stretch of the last two plus decades and through the wacky, wild west world of ZOOM we've become the international enclave we wildly once dreamed of.
Imagine featured poets and open mic'ers from France, Nepal, Australia, Brooklyn, the UK, Ireland, Costa Rica, Canada, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and other far flung global points reading with and alongside all of us here in the Hudson Valley, Albany, and NYC. No language barriers, just poetry! Give yourselves a well deserved standing O. Fuckin' eh!
CAPS Press lives! Besides the publication of our anthologies, CAPS 2015, CAPS 2020, and Mightier - Poets for Social Justice, we are days away from the publication of Larry Carr's enigmatic, full length, Paradise Loft. Pretty cool. (And thanks Larry for trusting us with your words)Now add that to the burbling idea that we're thinking of starting CAPS Chapbook Series and you begin to see just how far we've come from those days in Beacon. . .
We've expanded our traditional First Friday feature event from two poets to three to broaden the range and scope of the myriad voices we've encountered through ZOOM. We've added one featured poet to our Third Thursday Be The Feature Zoom events, while still leaving space for an expanded open mic and salon style give and take. Thanks to David Schell at Green Kill Gallery in Kingston, we've been live-streaming poetic events every Second Thursday for over a year now and will continue to do so, virus or no virus. Our membership has grown and as we begin 2022, these three events will continue on their set days, starting at 7pm. Plans are also in the works for a JazzOetry event in April and a Zoom Marathon in the spring. We hope to go live again come spring but we'll keep the live/Zoom hybrid. We know it works. Stay tuned. Join the email list. Check Facebook. Become a supporting member!
But perhaps the biggest news is we're beginning to plan a Calling All Poets online archive.Thirty plus years of Hudson Valley poetry ranging through 9/11, the '08 bust, the Arab Spring,Clinton, Bush, Obama, it who will not be named, COvid and Biden. Voices of protest, loss, victory, community. Voices of those we've lost - Don Lev, Pauline Uchmanowicz, Lynn Hoins - new voices, familiar voices. Audio, video, photos. . .the whole enchilada as they say. If you can help us find funding for this endeavor, please contact us. Any help is a great help.
The CAPS community thrives worldwide because of your words and fearlessness to have them heard against the breaking waves of alternate facts, disinformation, and flat out n out lies. I've always said CAPS has kept me honest. Let me just say that Jim, Greg, and I thank you most heartedly for yours.
