John-Michael Albert explains life as a Seacoast poet

Anyone familiar with the Seacoast poetry scene probably knows John-Michael Albert. Since he moved to New Hampshire in 1999, Albert has been a staple of poetry events throughout the Seacoast. In 2007, he edited “The 2008 Poet’s Guide to New Hampshire,” a compendium of everything related to the Granite State in verse form. Last month, he served as general MC of the fourth annual Jazzmouth festival in Portsmouth, introducing readers and musicians during four days of poetry and jazz. He remains active in a number of area open mike readings, helping ensure that Seacoast poets will be able to voice their verse this summer.  

Albert’s earliest exposure to poetry came through his parents, who were required to memorize poems when they were in school. Albert, too, was forced to memorize poems while in grammar school. “We had poetry flowing into our heads all the time. It was a habit,” he said.

In the 1960s, poetry flowed to him in the form of folk music by Bob Dylan and others. But it wasn’t until he was introduced to the poetry of Walt Whitman that he became hooked on the form.

“I love the democracy and the wide openness of it. If I had a tattoo, it would be Walt Whitman,” Albert said.

In college, Albert studied music, eventually earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. While in his 20s, he concentrated on writing short stories, while poetry lingered in the background. He lived in Houston for 30 years before moving to the Seacoast on Groundhog Day, 1999. He came in order to be closer to his brother, but he soon found another reason to call the area home.

In late 1999, Albert was eating breakfast at the Friendly Toast when he read in the newspaper that the Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program was starting a “Hoot Night” for poetry. Half expecting to see “blue haired ladies reading about flowers,”

Albert attended the first hoot. “I thought, at the very worst, I will have wasted a couple of hours,” he said. But what he found was captivating enough to keep him coming back for the next eight years. He was impressed by “how aggressive it was, how open it was, how very different it was from my encounters with New Englanders. It was bare-naked honest and these people got it,” he said.

Soon after, Albert signed up with the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. “Almost immediately after that, I was elected to the board,” Albert said. At the time, the president of the board was considering putting together an anthology of New Hampshire poetry. Albert became involved in the endeavor, spending several years researching the anthologies of other states. The question was, “How can you do this different? How can you do this in an interesting, provocative way,” he said.

Albert found inspiration in “The Insider’s Guide to New Hampshire,” a guidebook that contains articles on every aspect of the Granite State. “Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a sort of tour guide of New Hampshire where all the entries are written by poets?” Albert thought. He sent out a notice in November 2006, asking people to submit poems about some aspect of New Hampshire.

“The call was disseminated across the nation,” Albert said. He received poems from people who live in New Hampshire and people who have just visited. He had submissions from teenagers and retirees, rich people and poor. He had invited all the past Poet Laureates of New Hampshire and Portsmouth to submit, and they did. He also gathered poems about New Hampshire from other anthologies and from seven years of local open mikes.

“The 2008 Poet’s Guide to New Hampshire” came out in August 2007, with profits going to the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. It contained 219 poems by 181 poets, 130 of whom are still alive.

Meanwhile, Albert continued attending poetry readings. He hosted the Hoot Night in Portsmouth for five consecutive years. He refers to the event, which takes place the first Wednesday of each month at Café Espresso, as the granddaddy of Seacoast poetry happenings.

Soon after Hoot Night began, guitarist Larry Simon founded Beat Night at The Press Room in Portsmouth. The event, which takes place on the third Thursday of each month, pairs poetry readings with live jazz.

Hoot Night and Beat Night spawned a number of other poetry happenings throughout the Seacoast. Albert now counts 29 monthly events in New Hampshire, with 11 on the Seacoast. Although he no longer hosts Hoot Night in Portsmouth, he now presides over Dover Mic! at Café on the Corner, which takes place on the fourth Wednesday of every month from 7 to 9 p.m. in Dover.

Other area events include Stone Pigeon’s readings on the second Monday of every month at Breaking New Grounds in Portsmouth, featuring two invited readers followed by an open mike, from 7 to 9 p.m. Crackskull’s in Newmarket hosts an open mike on the second Thursday of each month from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Plaistow Hoot takes place from 7 to 9 p.m. at Plaistow Public Library on the third Monday of the month, with one featured reader and an open mike.

According to Albert, Hoot Night in Portsmouth usually draws about 30 readers. “We pack that place out. The same thing goes for Beat Night,” he said. The Hoot Night in Portsmouth has a different atmosphere than an event in Dover. “So far, each one has managed to have its own character and attract its own crowds,” Albert said.

Part of the formula for a successful poetry reading is having a good, gregarious host—a real people person—according to Albert. The host’s purpose is to give people permission, psychologically, to be themselves. “To me, I feel it’s about giving people a voice in a really supportive environment. Nobody gets shouted down,” he said. 

Albert remembers seeing writers—now very mature in their craft—when they were just starting out. “I’ve seen so many poets grow up in this environment very quickly,” he said.

Albert’s own writing has also developed, and he has published poems in a number of national magazines. In April 2007, Sheltering Pines Press out of Kennebunk, Maine, collected 50 of Albert’s published poems and put them into a single book, called “Two-ply and Extra Sensitive,” which is available at RiverRun Bookstore.

Albert will soon send out a call for submissions to the 2010 Poet’s Guide, which he hopes will fill gaps left by the 2008 edition. Until then, there will be plenty of spring and summer open mikes to keep Seacoast poets sated with verse.   

For more information on poetry events on the Seacoast, visit www.pplp.org, www.stonepigeon.com or www.nhwritersproject.org.