This week, Thom Francis introduces us to poets Andy Fogle and Jil Hanifan who poems inspired artists to create visual art for the 2025 edition of Poetic License. They shared their work at the Fish Market in Troy on Monday night, September 22.

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Poets and artists gathered in Troy on an early-autumn evening to view the Poetic License art exhibit on the walls of the venue and to hear some of the poems that inspired the artists.

Dan Wilcox hosted the first Poetic License poetry reading and open mic of the year on Monday, September 22, at the Fish Market featuring some of the talented wrtiters who contributed to this years traveling exhibit. Today we are going to hear from two of those poets.

First up to the mic is Andy Fogle. He read two poems that night - “The House Up The Hill” (the poem that is in the show) and “Chameleon” by his friend poet Rachel Nix.

Andy Fogle is the author of Mother Countries, Across from Now, and seven chapbooks. A 2021 Saratoga Arts grant recipient, his work has appeared in Best New Poets 2018, Tahoma Literary Review, Potomac Review, and elsewhere. He is the poetry editor at Salvation South, and teaches English at Bethlehem Central High School.


Next up is Jil Hanifan who shared her poem “Mad Lark Laundry” that inspired a photograph by local poet and photographer Tess Lecuyer. She also read a longer poem, “The Luthier’s Lament.”

Jil Hanifan is the author of whethergirl: the wind rose, (TA'Wil Books and Documents, 1999), "hangar round," a site-specific poetry simultaneity (SIMUL TIN EITY) on permanent exhibit at the Albany International Airport. Her poems have appeared in Peer Glass, Hudson Valley Writer's Guild Anthology, The Second WordThursdays Anthology, Bright Hill Press, and Seeds. Other poems have appeared in Big Scream, Two Girlz, 13th Moon, Little Magazine, Heaven Bone, Contact II, Earth's Daughters, and Snail's Pace Review, and online at hvwg.org. She teaches undergraduate courses in writing, poetry and poetics, as well as courses in contemporary American poetry and genre studies at the University at Albany


The 2025 edition of Poetic License exhibit has moved across the river and is now on view at the Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany through November 16.

For more information on Poetic License and its upcoming events, go to poeticlicensealbany.com. And while you are there, you can read the poems and view the art that is featured in the show.