May 10

Oakdale High’s Zoe Byron Selected as 2024-25 Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate

We’re excited to share that Zoe Byron of Oakdale has been selected as our next youth laureate.

Zoe Byron with her dog

Zoe Byron,  a sophomore at Oakdale High School, was selected as the Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate for 2024-2025. She will serve a one-year term, participate in several engagements throughout the year, and receive a $500 honorarium. Cameron Cendejo, a junior at Pitman High School, was a finalist. 

“Congratulations to Zoe Byron, the newest Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate. I know that she’ll carry the poetry torch high, continuing the excellent work that inaugural Youth Poet Laureate, Faith Delgado, began this past year. Thank you to program coordinator Stella Beratlis and to all the judges for their work on this, and congratulations again to Zoe,” shared Gillian Wegener, MoSt Poetry Center president. The Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate is a program of the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt Poetry), in partnership with Stanislaus County Office of Education, Stanislaus County Library,  Modesto Junior College’s School of Language Arts and Education, and Stanislaus Library Foundation. 

For more information about the program, please visit the Youth Poet Laureate program page.

Aileen Jaffa Contest Awards Ceremony

Join us at the Carnegie Arts Center on Saturday, May 11 at 2:00 pm to celebrate our youth contest winners! Presented by the North American League of American Pen Women, Modesto Branch, in partnership with MoSt Poetry.

 

Aileen Jaffa Young Poets Contest: Reception and Reading

Come join the winners of the Aileen Jaffa Young Poets Contest on Saturday, May 11 at 2:00 pm at the Carnegie Arts Center, 250 N. Broadway, Turlock CA.

Presented by National League of American Pen Women – Modesto Branch and Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center.

City of Modesto Poets’ Corner Reading & Reception

Join us at the McHenry Museum for a reception and reading for the annual Poets’ Corner contest.

When: Sunday, May 19, 2024
Where: McHenry Museum
Time: 1:00 pm

A copy of the Poets’ Corner anthology will be available to contributors.

Presented by the City of Modesto with assistance from the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center

 

 

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Fresno poets Michael Meyerhofer and Angela Chaidez Vincent

MoSt Poetry welcomes featured poets Michael Meyerhofer and Angela Chaidez Vincent for its May  Second Tuesday Poetry series–this month at Bookish–Modesto’s very own, very new, and very exciting bookstore! 

Where: Bookish Bookstore, 811 W. Roseburg Avenue, Modesto CA 95350
When: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 at 7:00 pm

Hosted by Modesto poet laureate emeritus Gillian Wegener;  open mic follows featured poets. Please sign up at event. 

Michael Meyerhofer

 

Headshot of Michael Meyerhofer in a black short-sleeved t-shirt, standing in front of foggy-topped mountains in the distance with golden grass in the immediate background.

 

Michael Meyerhofer is the author of five books of poetry—including What To Do If You’re Buried Alive (free from Doubleback Books). His work has appeared in The Sun, Missouri Review, Southern Review, Brevity, Rattle, and other journals. He’s also the author of a fantasy series and Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. For more info and an embarrassing childhood photo, visit troublewithhammers.com.

About WHAT TO DO IF YOU’RE BURIED ALIVE

The poems in What To Do If You’re Buried Alive are tenderly masculine, self-deprecating and humorous. They are the poems of an adult male poet looking back at childhood and puberty with anything  but rose-colored glasses. He shows us how we see ourselves often through time—with a mixture of cringe and understanding.

Mary Biddinger, author of A Sunny Place with Adequate Water, writes, “With a compassionate eye, and his trademark sense of humor that hooks readers from the very first page, Meyerhofer sends us back to our earliest memories, and shows us a world of heartbreak and wonder.” And Jon Tribble, author of Natural State, adds “Through pain and loss, Meyerhofer’s poems are harrowing prayers searching for ‘the charms of language’ that might lead to forgiveness, to redemption, to love.”

Angela Chaidez Vincent

Headshot of poet Angela Chaidez Vincent, wearing teal-colored velvet blazer and white blouse against a solid dark background

Image credit: © Adrianne Mathiowetz Photography

Angela Chaidez Vincent writes poetry and fiction and has a background of livelihoods in engineering, mathematics, and programming. Her debut poetry collection ARENA GLOW (April 2024, Tourane Press) features poems about women with a daredevil oblique. Angela’s work has appeared in Oxford Review of Books, North American Review, 32 Poems, Atticus Review, and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. She lives in Fresno, California and is online at angelachaidezvincent.com.