Cold! Ethan Allen tragedy remembered.
Plus: Positively Saratoga and the new poet laureate.
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Man charged in gunpoint theft
Jorge Gonzalez, 54, of Amsterdam has been arrested in connection with a gunpoint robbery on Grand Avenue in Saratoga Springs, police said Wednesday. He was charged with one count of first-degree robbery, police said. The Daily Gazette has the story. He is held on $75,000 bail, the story says.
Fed shutdown has local ripples
“In the Capital Region, many federally funded services considered essential — like mail delivery, air traffic control and weather forecasting — are expected to largely continue as normal,” the Times Union writes in a story about the federal government shut-down. Officials with the local Council of Governments says 6,870 work for the federal government in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy metropolitan statistical area.
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Positively Saratoga
Poetry as ‘urgent’ VR? Meet Saratoga’s new Poet Laureate.
Jay Rogoff is bringing a fresh vision to the role, with a nod to history and plans for a busy slate of public events.
This exciting Positively Saratoga news is brought to you by our friends at Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — Saratoga’s first-ever Poet Laureate — the great Joseph Bruchac — finishes his inaugural two-year term in January, and his successor has just been named. Jay Rogoff brings years of teaching experience and a complementary sensibility — where Bruchac’s work has long been anchored in nature, Rogoff has turned to inspirations such as baseball, immigration and classical ballet. “Joe is a deeply spiritual poet of the natural world,” Rogoff says. “I grew up in New York City, and my work tends more to be of the human-made world.”
Rogoff — whose wife, Penny Jolly is a renowned art historian — retired from Skidmore in 2018 after an incredible career teaching diverse literature and writing courses (think modern poetry, Shakespeare and film adaptation). He says he misses his college students — although in his new role, he’ll soon be working with new ones of all ages.
“Poetry is an urgent kind of virtual reality,” he says. “It puts us directly into the mind of another person through creating the impression that the human being on the page is speaking directly to us.”
The Dispatch: Tell me about your own writing.
Jay Rogoff: My first published book, The Cutoff, is set in the world of minor league baseball. Other books, or sections of books, have dealt with my family’s immigrant experience, dance as both art and metaphor, the relationship between love and mortality, and even, in a book-length sequence, Paris in 1870, the year of the Franco-Prussian War, the Siege of Paris, and the ballet Coppélia. I am also extremely interested in poetic form, and a good deal of my work attempts to negotiate between form and looser rhythms.
TD: Tell me about your origin story with poetry and how you fell in love with it.
JR: I wrote my first poem at 5, soon after my father first let me play around with his typewriter (a sturdy Smith Corona portable, with a rough, brown metal case that I loved). It was a rhyming narrative called “The Last of the Gacks”—my childish imitation of Dr. Seuss. I got serious about poetry, ironically, at the Bronx High School of Science, where my English teacher, Mr. Levy, helped instill a love of it and had us all write it. In addition to the usual classics, he introduced us to Sylvia Plath (this was only a few years after her death and the publication of Ariel), and I was knocked out by what poetry could do, the powerful emotional impact it could have.
TD: What can you share about the sorts of programs you’d like to bring in during your two years?
JR: Since the 250th anniversaries of the Declaration of Independence and the Battles of Saratoga will fall during my term, I’d love to get young people thinking about the themes of freedom and of “turning points” —since the Saratoga conflicts are often called the turning point of the American Revolution — as topics for poetry.
I will give a handful of readings throughout my term, and I hope I can find some funding for other Saratoga area poets to join in them. I’d like to institute a Favorite Poem reading during April, National Poetry Month, where people can come read a poem that has special significance for them. Several area poets are skilled translators, and I’m thinking about a presentation called Found in Translation, where they can discuss the process of translating poetry from another language and share some of their work. And in addition to conducting poetry workshops, I’m toying with holding a series of Poetry Repair Shops, where I would make myself available for people to come show me a draft of a poem and see if I can help them think of ways of improving it.
Events
Saratoga Social Cycling Oktoberfest edition
Oct. 4, 1 p.m.: Saratoga Social Cycling will be hosting their first annual Oktoberfest ride, Saturday Oct. 4, with a ride from Saratoga up to Dancing Grain Brewery. Check out this cool opportunity to celebrate Autumn! No alcohol drinking required!
Congregate at 1 p.m. Whitman Brewing Company, 20 Lake Ave. in Saratoga Springs; leave for Dancing Grain at 1:30. It’s a 27 mile round trip ride.
Find me in Franklin Square
Oct. 4, 11 a.m.: The Saratoga Preservation Foundation is presenting a special Autumn program “Find Me in Franklin Square” hosted by Patrice Mastrianni, author of children’s book Find Me in Saratoga. This program is geared towards our city’s little preservationists and their families! This walking tour - inspired by Mastrianni’s charming book - will be centered around Saratoga Spring’s oldest residential neighborhood, Franklin Square. Meet at the dining room of Franklin Square Market at 55 Railroad Place. Prior to the tour, guests are invited to enjoy lemonade and cookies, courtesy of Franklin Square Market. Children must always be accompanied by an adult during the tour. Recommended age is 6 and older.
Wealth & Wellness: Franklin Square Sunday Stroll
Oct. 5, 10:30 a.m.: Carrie Woerner, NYS Assemblywoman and former Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation Director, presents “Wealth & Wellness: Franklin Square” Sunday Stroll. Sponsored by Impressions of Saratoga, this tour will focus on the Franklin Square neighborhood of Saratoga Springs - the oldest residential neighborhood of Saratoga Springs. This tour meets at the NW corner of Division Street and Railroad Place. The Franklin Square neighborhood is characterized by beautiful Greek Revival houses, which became occupied by wealthy part-time and full-time residents of the city as the population grew.
October Career Fair continues
Check out the career-track events run by the county. Resume building and highlighting transferable skills training start today and tomorrow. The list of events continues throughout the month, click here for all the information.
Below the fold:
Ill-fated Ethan Allen tour boat disaster recalled. Taxes over 2% up in local city. Plus, Weather, traffic, stocks…
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