Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center presents Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Luke Johnson, author of Quiver, and Mariah Bosch, Fresno State MFA graduate. Hosted by Stella Beratlis

Date: Tuesday, January 9, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm PST on Zoom–RSVP required. https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqce6uqTwqHtFdKlW9fo8M7VcNJLdy8ref. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet): https://forms.gle/RnPGLFptHija15RU8

LUKE JOHNSON 

Luke Johnson is the author of Quiver (Texas Review Press), a finalist for The Jake Adam York Prize, The Levis Award, The Vassar Miller Prize and the Brittingham. His second book A Slow Indwelling, a call and response with the poet Megan Merchant, is forthcoming from Harbor Editions Fall 2024. You can find more of his work at Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative Magazine, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere. Connect on Twitter at @Lukesrant or through email: writerswharfmb@gmail.com

About Quiver

“Quiver is the most visceral, haunting book of poems I have read in years. Johnson reimagines masculinity and is unafraid to unearth its dark elements, as father, son, and witness to the brutality and beauty in and around us. He writes, ‘Listen: When/I said boys have a storm inside,/this itch that fills our teeth, I/was sharing in secret. I meant/we have mothers who gift us ghosts,/our heads upon a trigger.’ This searing debut is a world of its own, built with fearlessness, tenderness, and grace. Take notice. Luke Johnson has arrived.” —Lee Herrick, California Poet Laureate

“In Quiver, Luke Johnson’s unforgettable debut poetry collection, he invokes The Old Testament, its fires, floods, and prophecies—to reckon with ‘all the ways a child drowns, like spiders trapped in spit.’ These are harrowing poems. Yet, at the heart of Johnson’s unsparing gaze lies enormous compassion—for the ghosts that haunt him, for the child self who carried ‘scars without witness.’ Quiver is a work of glorious complexity—brutal, lyrical, shot through with images that stop you in your tracks. But more than that, these poems look deeply at the ways the sins of the father are visited on successive generations and move toward breaking the cycle.”  —Ellen Bass — Ellen Bass

MARIAH BOSCH

Mariah Bosch (she/they) is a queer Chicana poet and visual artist from Fresno, CA. She is a graduate of Fresno State’s MFA program in poetry. Her work can be found on Poets.org, Small Press Traffic, Cosmonauts Avenue, and elsewhere.