The Modesto Poets’ Corner contest deadline is coming up. Your poems must be in by March 11. Here’s a link that will take you to more info and to the entry form. (It’s at the bottom of the page.) http://www.modestogov.com/
Mar 06
Poets’ Corner Contest Deadline March 11
Second Tuesday @ Barkin’ Dog
On March 10 at the Barkin’ Dog, the MeterMaids will celebrate their 25th anniversary! This group of women has been meeting for…well, 25 years to share their work, share the writing ideas, and write new work. Come on out at 6:00 for a great night of poetry, friendship, and celebration. Our usual Most Excellent Open Mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share. A flyer is attached with more info. Please feel free to print, post, and forward to your heart’s content.
Second Tuesday Reading: Beratlis, Wickes, and Robertson
Join us for cake and poetry as we celebrate the release of three new Sixteen Rivers Press collections: Alkali Sink by Stella Beratlis, World as We Left It by Helen Wickes, and The Orbit of Known Objects by Lisa Erin Robertson.
“Stella Beratlis writes unforgettable poems that stir inside you long after you’ve finished reading them. Alkali Sink is simultaneously domestic and wild, urban and rural, full of surprises and wisdom. Your axis may shift after reading this remarkable book. Beratlis is a fierce talent whose beautiful mind encompasses the land, the open road, the kitchen window, and the heart’s inconstancies. Her first full-length collection is one of the best debuts I have read.” —Lee Herrick, author of Gardening Secrets of the Dead
“Such good poems in Helen Wickes’ new collection, poems about memory and loss that skillfully combine the startling poetic image (“off we’d go // into the cold air’s bright teeth”) and exuberant colloquial language (“everyone knows I don’t like dogs—/ the smell, the noise, and the drool”). At the heart of World as You Left It are the poems centering on the poet’s late father — both hilarious (as in “Loot,” about his old address book with its delicious list of big blonds and “sweet patooties”) and mysterious, as touching as they are enlivening.”
-Lloyd Schwartz
“In The Orbit of Known Objects, Lisa Erin Robertson explores memory and history, especially through the eyes of women and family. She is a poet intimate with loss and regret, as well as persistence and resolve. She knows, as another writer from the South put it, that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” In the universe of her poems, buried moments cast off their dirt and rise again for the consideration of her readers. Robertson is a poet of exquisite sensibilities, with a generous heart and an eye for the sadness and beauty of our brief, mysterious lives.”
—Edward Falco
Event starts at 6:30 pm (please note slight time change!) with featured readers and concludes with open mic. Please join us to help celebrate the publication of these collections, and feel free to download and share the FLYER!
Second Tuesday @ Barkin’ Dog
Join us on Jan. 13 for featured readers Soul Vang from Fresno, author of To Live Here (Imaginary Friend Press, 2014) and Yu-Han Chao from Merced, author of We Grow Old: 53 Chinese Love Poems (Backwater Press, 2009). You can read more about them on the attached flyer and at their websites: www.soulvang.com and yuhanchao.net. This will be an especially great reading because we will also be celebrating the publication of the 6th annual New Year’s Poetry Challenge booklet. See you there!
Poetry on Sunday Series @ Carnegie
Come join us at the Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock for our next installment of the quarterly Poetry on Sunday series, featuring Stella Beratlis, Brian Wright, Jessica Dickman and Linda Prather.. This event is FREE and open to the public, with an open mic following the reading. Join us in celebrating the spoken word!
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From the official press release:
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt) is pleased to announce the third in a series of quarterly poetry readings, The Poetry on Sunday Series, hosted by Carnegie Arts Center (Gemperle Gallery), 250 N. Broadway, Turlock, California on Sunday, May 31, 2015 at 2 pm. The featured readers in May for The Poetry on Sunday Series reading will be Stella Beratlis, Jessica Dickman, Brian Wright and Linda Marie Prather. The event is FREE and OPEN to the public. An Open Mic will follow the featured readers, so bring your words to share.
FEATURED READERS SHORT BIOGRAPHIES:
STELLA BERATLIS up in a Greek-American family in Northern California. Her work has appeared in Quercus Review, Penumbra, Song of the San Joaquin, California Quarterly, and other journals, as well as in the anthology The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems from the San Francisco Bay Watershed (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010). She is coeditor of the collection More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets (Quercus Review Press, 2011). Beratlis is a librarian in Modesto, where she lives with her daughter. She has just published her first collection of poems entitled Alkali Sink (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2015).
JESSICA DICKMAN is a Central Valley native, but as a child she grew up both in the heat of the Arizona desert and the iciness of New England. Returning to the Central Valley in her post-adolescent years, Dickman attended Modesto Junior College and completed her B.A. in English at CSU Stanislaus. She is a current graduate student in Rhetoric and Teaching Writing. Dickman, an avid yogi, molds young minds as a substitute teacher and tutor. Her passions lay in education and helping others attain their highest potential.
BRIAN WRIGHT is a third generation native Californian. Brian received his BA in English from California State University, Stanislaus and an MA In English and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. He has published locally since the 1970s. He is a retired high school English teacher who divides his time between the Bay Area and the Sierra Nevada.
LINDA MARIE PRATHER says much of her poetry is inspired by what Charles Wright speaks of as, “language, landscape, and the idea of God”. The image of things in landscape is often her springboard into writing. Linda has four chapbooks published, the latest Unforced Rhythms, from Finishing Line Press, which won 3rd Place award in the NLAPW 2014 Biennial Letters Competition. Her first full-length manuscript, Summer Song, is waiting to be released. She is an editor for Song of The San Joaquin, a Modesto resident and artist who belongs to the National League of American Pen Women, in Arts and Letters. Her poetry appears in More Than Soil, More Than Sky/ The Modesto Poets. She has been published widely and received prizes from Penumbra, Poets’ Dinner Contest, Ina Coolbrith Circle, the Golden Pegasus Award, and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Linda has three works of art and a poem in the Inspiring Women show at Carnegie Arts Center (2015).