Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Bob Stanley and Dane Cervine with Open Mic

Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Bob Stanley and Dane Cervine. 

Date: Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center

Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event.  Hosted by Modesto poet laureate emeritus & author Gillian Wegener. 

BOB STANLEY

Bob Stanley studied poetry at Caltech and UCLA, and he taught English and Creative Writing at Solano College, Sac City College, and Sac State before retiring in 2021. Sacramento’s Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2012, Bob has organized poetry events in California for many years. His collections include Walt Whitman Orders a Cheeseburger (2009), Miracle Shine (2013), and Language Barrier (2024). Bob and his wife Joyce live in Sacramento and organize online poetry seminars that help support nonprofit organizations.

Bob’s most recent collection, Language Barrier, which is published by CW Books, is available on the Random Lane Press website: randomlanepress.com

ABOUT LANGUAGE BARRIER

“Language is no barrier to our enjoyment of the experiences Bob Stanley has distilled and decanted in these poems. His keen eye for detail takes us first on a passionate tour of China and then on a reminiscent journey through America, described through the prism of many poetic forms. As he says, ‘I could write with both care and abandon,’ and he has done just that. Here you will find tragedies in miniature, but also wonder at nature and the past. Through it all runs Stanley’s raconteurial charm, a Poundian respect for the world of the senses, and a tireless yearning for song: ‘keep the discord in the chord, / sing what’s hard to sound soft.’ The result, in Stanley’s own words, is ‘peach-perfect.’”—Brad Buchanan

DANE CERVINE

Dane Cervine’s recent books of poetry include DEEP TRAVEL – At Home in the [Burning] World (Saddle Road Press), The World Is God’s Language (Sixteen Rivers Press), Earth Is a Fickle Dancer (Main Street Rag), and The Gateless Gate – Polishing the Moon Sword (Saddle Road Press). Dane’s poems have won awards from Adrienne Rich, Tony Hoagland, the Atlanta Review, Caesura, and been nominated for multiple Pushcarts. His work appears in The SUN, the Hudson Review, TriQuarterly, Poetry Flash, Catamaran, Miramar, Rattle, Sycamore Review, Pedestal Magazine, among others. Dane lives in Santa Cruz, California. Visit his website at: https://danecervine.typepad.com/

ABOUT DEEP TRAVEL 

“I love the way [Dane has] taken the haibun back to its origins with Bashō—what a brilliant and perfectly executed form for [his] observations and musings. It’s such a rich book. Some of [the] haiku are so beautifully apt, little marvels, and one of my favorites is the one inspired by Ocean Vuong:

      I am a book—of bone,

   raft and river

 That seems to me emblematic of the entire book and [Dane’s] intents—to offer insights and responses without any trace of self-importance, and then to return to shore.   –Lynne Knight