MoSt Board Meeting

Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, January 9th, at 6:30 pm at the house of one of our members. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

MoSt Board Meeting

Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, February 6th, at 6:30 pm at the house of one of our members. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

Poetry Festival Contest Deadline

Today’s the postmark deadline for the poetry contest held at our annual Modesto Poetry Festival! For more information, take a look at the main event page.

8th Annual Modesto Poetry Festival

We are thrilled to announce the details of our 8th Annual Modesto Poetry Festival, coming up on February 1st, 2020!

Each year in February we organize and hold an all-day poetry festival featuring workshops, readings, and a featured poet. This year, we are proud to welcome Lee Herrick and Camille Norton as our guest poets and workshop leaders.

Join us on Saturday, February 1st, 2020 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Modesto for a day of poetry, learning, and inspiration! Click on the image at right to download the PDF flyer, and you can click here to download the registration form (which also has details about this year’s festival poetry contest).

Themes for this year’s contest are 1. The Graceful Stumble; 2. Handling Earth with Care; 3. Notre Dame; 4. Following a Thread. Submissions to the poetry contest must be postmarked by the CONTEST DEADLINE: JANUARY 11, 2020. Please see the form for more information.


Lee Herrick has authored three poetry books, Scar and Flower, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and This
Many Miles from Desire. His poems have also appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. He is co-editor of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (forthcoming in Spring, 2020 from Orison Books). Born in Daejeon, Korea, Lee served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, and teaches at Sierra Nevada College and Fresno City College.

Camille Norton’s first collection of poems, published by HarperPerennial, was a National Poetry Series winner in 2004. Other honors include the Grolier Prize in Poetry, accolades from the National Endowment
of the Humanities, and residencies at the MacDowell Art Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Professor of English at University of the Pacific in Stockton, Camille co-edited Resurgent: New Writing by Women, featuring experimental writing by women in literature, film, and the visual arts. Her latest poetry book is A Folio in the Dark (Sixteen Rivers).

Poetry on Sunday Series

Come join us at the Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock for the third installment of our quarterly reading series! Click the image at right to download the PDF flyer, and see below for bios of our featured readers.

Ash Young currently lives in Modesto with her husband, two sons, and two Pomeranians. She writes poetry about her life, and hopes to never be famous.

Born in Canada, and of Iraqi heritage, Zaid Shlah currently resides in Northern California with his family. His poetry has appeared in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies in both Canada and the U. S. In May of 2005, he was awarded the American Academy of Poets Award. His first book of poetry, Taqsim, was published in the US and in Canada (Frontenac House, 2006). His second book of poems and essays is entitled Clockwork (Frontenac House, 2015). He teaches composition and literature at Modesto Junior College.

Lee Herrick is the author of three books of poems: Scar and Flower, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and This Many Miles from Desire. His poems appear widely in literary magazines, textbooks, and anthologies, including Columbia Poetry Review, The Poetry Foundation, Indivisible: Poems of Social Justice and Here: Poems for the Planet, with an introduction by the Dalai Lama. He is co-editor of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (forthcoming in Spring 2020 by Orison Books). Born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted to the United States, he served as Fresno Poet Laureate (2015-2017) and teaches at Fresno City College and the MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College.