Gone was the poetic dirge from Kitty Jospé’s refreshing reading Wednesday night before a standing room only gathering at the Just Poets Featured Reader series at the Before Your Quiet Eyes bookstore. Jospé passionately and joyously delivered in her animated optimistic fashion, hands shooting to the ceiling, fingers counting syllables, the mountainous up and down range of her attention-getting voice. Good? Very good. A key to good stuff is originality (and passion) and Jospé always delivers: a poem that transforms the word “green” for “greed” ; a poem that takes an unwanted piano and speaks of the homeless (“free doesn’t matter when things are broke…”); a poem about rock climbing in red high heels…. And Jospé, a Memorial Art Gallery docent, is an excellent ekphrastic poet who can take the reader/listener through a painting better than the artist as she did with her poem on Edward Hopper’s 1939 “New York Movie.” Simply beautiful.

The open mic portion brought 17 readers to the front: Maril Nowak, Andy Hariraj (first time reader who shows potential for sure); Jim Jordan, Janet Nemetz, Gracen Lynch, Breven Bell, Charles Banks, Claudia Stanek reading a Donna Marbach poem, Laura Klinkon, Gene Stelzig, Dream, David Michael Nixon, Bart White, Jennifer Maloney, Doug Curry, Dwayne Wilder and evening host and emcee David Yokel.

You know, as poetry goes ( in Rochester), last night’s reading and open mic was definitely the place to be.

David James Delaney