David Kramer, Central Library Bookstore. Photo: Ron Freitag, library staff. 8/6/19
In RUNDELANIA publishes “A Phone Call to Manhattan”, we were pleased to publicize Rundelania.com The Digital Literary Journal at the Rochester Public Library.
In an age when print publications are disappearing, we have good news. Under the management of Andrew Coyle, Literature Librarian at the Central Branch, this month Rundelania launched its first print edition (in which appears one of my poems, below).
Many of the authors are well known within the Rochester artistic community. At the same time, a striking feature is the number of high quality pieces from people in a wide variety of fields: a pastor, a Toastmaster, a microbiologist, two attorneys and a PhD in Electrical Engineering. The eclectic mixture of backgrounds reminds us how surrounded we are by rich and varied poetic and literary activity.Rundelania is available in the library bookstore. The bookstore is located on the 1st floor of the Bausch and Lomb building of the Rochester Public Library, 115 South Avenue, Rochester. The hours differ from the library. Their website : Bookstore and their number: 585-428-8181. The issue is currently $2.00 and funds go to the Library Foundation, helping with outreach, programming, material budget and many other things.

Rundelania 2019 [Held at and scanned courtesy of the Central Branch of the Rochester Public Library.]

A Phone Call to Manhattan: The Pictorialized Version
We had made love in a Narragansett beach house as the Beavertail Lighthouse
Sent continual beacons of light through the window whose rhythm matched our own.
And the call was never made.
At three in the morning, pushing me down into wood chips
Scattered about the Children’s Garden
In Peace Dale.
And the call was never made.

Poetic License: the “Children’s Garden in Peace Dale” is actually the Gladys Potter Garden near Wayland Square on the East Side of Providence.
A red sweater on a cool Fall evening in Providence
In whose cuteness I saw
Grandchildren at my feet at eighty.
And the single phone call to Manhattan
That it would have taken
Was never made.
SEE ALSO ON RUNDEL
Art of the Book and Nighan’s “The Accordion Book of Short Stories” in Harold Hacker Hall
Kitty Jospé provides noon nourishment for the mind at Rundel.
Providing hope for the homeless in the back alcove of Rundel Library
On a Cal Ripken signed 1989 glove, prized possessions, and the Rundel Library