Yes, people of the Internets. The Shoutin' Rosebuds of Saint Rose will make their downtown Albany debut this Thursday night. These dynamos of performance poetry are, in fact, the students of my English 218: The Oral Interpretation of Literature Class, and for their final project, they will have a public performance at Dan Wilcox's Third Thursday Poetry Night as the featured reader/act.

For those New Yorkers out there, Dan Wilcox is sort of the Jackie Sheeler of Albany (she of Poetz.com and New York City Poetry Calendar fame) one of those tireless literary boosters and performers who, in a perfect world, would get six-figure grants for being such an arts entrepreneur. As it stands, he's one of those people who builds the fields, gets phone calls from poets for gigs, hosts them, and lets people do their thing. At any reading in the greater Capital District, you're bound to see Wilcox, flash camera in hand, handing out his quarter-page flyers for his events.

The students themselves act like they're nervous, but they shouldn't be. They've put together a total of five group poetry pieces--a little like a team slam poetry pieces--and they've gotten some coaching from Shappy and Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz two weeks ago. Some old students will be coming, reading and supporting, and I will read some things as well. We're basically going to raise the roof. Did I really just type that?

Labels: Albany, Poems, Saint Rose, Shameless self-promotion, teaching