Thursday, December 5, 2013 at 6 p.m. at the GoggleWorks for an open mic night of Poetry

Join Berks Bards for a Poetry Prelude to the Holidays

Thursday, December 5th, at 6:00 pm

Mi Casa Su Casa Cafe' at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts

201 Washington St, Reading

Open Mic

Free event open to the public

Sponsored by Berks Bards with support from a grant by the PA Partners in the Arts, with annual funding
by the PA State Legislature, and administered locally by the Berks Arts Council.  Additional support
from the Friends of the Berks County Libraries, and from members and volunteers of Berks Bards.

Liz Stanley
~Berks Bards
zilabets@hotmail.com

Thursday, Nov. 7, 2013 at 6 p.m. in the Mi Casa Cafe at the GoggleWorks presenting poets J. Love Kearse and Maria James-Thiaw

Join Berks Bards for First Thursday, featuring the poetry of Soul Cry and Maria James-Thiaw with an open mic to follow.

Soul Cry, who is otherwise known as J. Love Kearse, is a poet from York, PA where she resides with her spouse and four. The “love child” of a musical mother and literary father, she has been featured in numerous venues and slams across the east coast. She was awarded Poet of the Year for 2007 and 2008 at the Central PA Hip-Hop Awards. She currently has two CD’s to her credit entitled “Destiny’s Calling” and “The Love Chronicles” and released her first collection of poems entitled “Passing Bi” in July of 2013.

Ms. Kearse has an Associate’s Degree in Business Management from Yorktowne Business Institute, a Bachelor’s Degree in Organizational Leadership from Eastern University, and is a 2014 candidate to receive her Masters of Business Administration from Easter University.

Also an amateur visual artist and an accomplished vocalist and songwriter, Soul Cry lives with her family in York County, Pennsylvania

Maria James-Thiaw is the author of three poetry collections: Windows to the Soul (Shippensburg University Press, 1999), Rising Waters (Shippensburg University Press, 2003) and her latest,Talking “White” (postDada Press, 2013) In 2006, she produced an independent CD of spoken word and music entitled FREEverse. Her poetry has been published in a variety of journals including Black Magnolias, Fledgling Rag, and Love Your Rebellion.

As a performance poet, Maria gracefully bridges the gap between stage and page by delivering her well-crafted lyric poetry with the dramatic power of a seasoned spoken word artist. Since the mid-1990s, she’s been ‘blessing the mic’ at venues throughout the East Coast and in Auvillar, a village in the South of France that served as inspiration for many poems in Talking “White.”

Maria James-Thiaw is a professor of literary and cultural studies at a small private college in Pennsylvania where she co-edits an online student literary journal called The Central Pen. She holds a Master’s degree in Communications Studies from Shippensburg University (2003) and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Goddard College (2009.)

Saturday, November 16, 2013 at 5 p.m. at Clay on Main in Oley featuring Michael Czarnecki and his Poems Across America Tour

We will begin with a pot luck supper at 5:00 p.m., then we will welcome Michael Czarnecki as our featured poet, with stories from his Poems Across America Tour at 6:30 p.m.  

Poets who have been published by FootHills Publishing are asked to join us in the, "Welcome Home, Michael!" Celebration.

Publisher and Poet Michael Czarnecki is winding up his 48-state Poems Across America Tour with us at the Half-moon cafe at Clay on Main in Oley.

We'll have an open mic for any attendees to share their work.  

We're excited to see you again, Michael!

This event is sponsored by Berks Bards, and is open to the public.  

Bring a dish to share if you are joining us for supper.

Monday, October 21, 2013 at 6 p.m. at RACC in the Ravens Lounge, Student Union, for Lynn Levin and Valerie Fox

Join us for a celebration of poetry and writing at Reading Area Community College, Monday, October 21, 6:00 pm, in the Ravens Lounge in the Student Union.  Lynn Levin and Valerie Fox are featured poets for the Bruce Stanley Memorial Poetry Reading, "Poetry at Six."  The event is free and open to the public as well as RACC students.  Book signing and open mic to follow.  Sponsored by the Foundation for RACC and Berks Bards.

 

Free Workshop with Lynn Levin and Valerie Fox on Monday afternoon, 3:30 - 5:00 pm in the Ravens Lounge, with Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets.  Open invitation for students and writers in the community.  Sponsored by the Humanities Division at RACC.  For more information, call 610-207-0120.

BIOS

 

LYNN LEVIN is the author of four collections of poems: Miss Plastique (Ragged Sky Press, 2013); Fair Creatures of an Hour (Loonfeather Press, 2009), a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium (Loonfeather Press, 2005), a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award; and A Few Questions about Paradise (Loonfeather Press, 2000). She is, with Valerie Fox, the author of a craft-of-poetry book, Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013). Lynn Levin’s poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Boulevard, Washington Square Review, Verse Daily, and on Garrison Keillor’s radio show The Writer’s Almanac. She is currently involved in translating the work of Odi Gonzales, a Peruvian Andean poet. Lynn Levin teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.

 

Valerie Fox's books include The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books) and The Glass Book (Texture Press). She recently published Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press), which was co-written with Lynn Levin. Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon is a compilation written with Arlene Ang (Texture Press). She currently teaches writing at Drexel University and previously taught at Sophia University (Tokyo) and Peirce College (Philadelphia). She was a founding co-editor of 6ix magazine and Press 1. She has published work in Ping Pong, Hanging Loose, West Branch, Hamilton Stone Review, and many other journals.
 

Liz Stanley

~Berks Bards

---

 

Tonight!  Passion meets Reflection in KINETIC POETRY at the Albright College Center for the Arts, 13th & Bern St, Reading, PA, Sunday, October 6th at 6:00 pm.  Doors open at 5:30 pm.  Tickets at the Albright College Box Office, $15 in advance, $20 at the door. Students $10 with ID. 

KINETIC POETRY is a perfect fusion of dramatic spoken word poetry and acrobatic pole dancing, hooping, aerial and belly dancing.  On stage at the Albright College Theater tonight.  Get tickets now.  Join us!  Check out the photos and performers bios at www.kineticpoetrylive.com. 

Produced by Berks Bards and co-sponsored by Albright College.  Artistic Producers and Directors: Rachel Skye and Egedeme.  Call 610-921-7547 for tickets.

Thursday October 3, 2013 at 6 p.m. at the GoggleWorks with Montgomery County's 2013 Poet Laureate Glenn McLaughlin and with Patrick and Marilyn Klimcho

First Thursday with Glenn McGlaughlin, Patrick Klimcho and Marilyn Klimcho:

GLENN MCLAUGHLIN
 
Glenn McLaughlin studied chemistry, education, running and dishwashing, but not writing or poetry, at Bucknell University. Eight years ago, after nearly thirty years of laboring in the chemical and plastics industries, he was fortunate to lose his job and begin a journey that has led him, finally, to where he should have been all along, a high school chemistry classroom. He is currently a long-term substitute in chemistry at Methacton High School. While not formally trained in poetry or writing, he has published two collections of poems, Something Catches (2006) and Forms of Lectio (2008), the latter a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award in Poetry in 2009. Several of his poems have been published in the Schuylkill Valley Journal, The Mad Poets Review, Forward and Big Bridge. A volume of poems and essays, The Land I Am Given / Oops., was published in 2011. Additional honors include a Spring-Ford High School Senior Impact Award (a student nominated award for teachers who students believe make a difference) and election to the Bucknell Athletic Hall of Fame. He lives in Pottstown with his wife, Susan, and is an easy drive away from his two daughters and two granddaughters.

Patrick Klimcho enjoys writing humorous poem parodies, which he equates to solving crossword puzzles. Besides writing humor, Patrick likes to write political rants and what he refers to as 'sappy grandfather poems.' Patrick's work has been published in the Schuylkill Valley Journal and in Up and Under: the QND Review.

Marilyn Klimcho, Treasurer of Berks Bards, has been writing short stories and poems intensively for the past eight years as well as editing the work of several local authors, one of whom recently published. (Check out Lessons from the Hog House by Elizabeth Clark, American History Press.) Marilyn has had a short story published in the Schuylkill Valley Journal, for which she received a nomination for a Pushcart Prize.

For your pleasure, three poems written on the spot by children at the Berks Bards & Fightin Phils Baseball Poetry Contest Reading on August 22, 2013

On Thursday, August 22, 2013, Berks Bards hosted a mini-poetry contest for children thirteen years old or younger. Below is a sampling of some of the best entries written the evening of the baseball game and submitted in the hopes of winning a drawing for a baseball.


Way up high in the apple tree
Two little apples smiled down at me
I shook that tree as hard as I could
Down came the two little apples
MMM they were good.

by Cassie L.



Baseball is fun,
Baseball is great.
I love the feeling
Of sliding into home plate
So many happy times,
Out in the sun.
The fun doesn't end
Until the game is won.

by Alex B.



The Philies
Are awesome.
So are the fans.
I like to go and shake their hands.

by Drew S.

Monday October 21, 2013 at 6 p.m. at Reading Area Community College featuring poets Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin

Please join Berks Bards for the Bruce Stanley Memorial Poetry Reading in room 118 of the Schmidt Tech Center featuring Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin.

Valerie Fox's books include The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books) and The Glass Book (Texture Press). She recently published Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press), which was co-written with Lynn Levin. Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon is a compilation written with Arlene Ang (Texture Press). She currently teaches writing at Drexel University and previously taught at Sophia University (Tokyo) and Peirce College (Philadelphia). She was a founding co-editor of 6ix magazine and Press 1. She has published work in Ping Pong, Hanging Loose, West Branch, Hamilton Stone Review, and many other journals.

LIST OF BOOKS

1. Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013, $22, ISBN 978-0-615-78283-6)

2. The Glass Book (Texture Press, 2010, $15,  ISBN 978-0-9797573-8-9)

3.  The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books, 2006, $12, ISBN 0-9773786-4-0)

4. Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon (Texture Press, 2008, $15, ISBN978-0-9797573-1-0)
(a compilation with Arlene Ang)

LYNN LEVIN is the author of four collections of poems: Miss Plastique (Ragged Sky Press, 2013); Fair Creatures of an Hour (Loonfeather Press, 2009), a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium (Loonfeather Press, 2005), a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award; and A Few Questions about Paradise (Loonfeather Press, 2000). She is, with Valerie Fox, the author of a craft-of-poetry book, Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013). Lynn Levin’s poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Boulevard, Washington Square Review, Verse Daily, and on Garrison Keillor’s radio show The Writer’s Almanac. She is currently involved in translating the work of Odi Gonzales, a Peruvian Andean poet. Lynn Levin teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Lynn Levin: List of Books

I will bring a supply of these books to the RACC event.

1. Miss Plastique (Ragged Sky Press, 2013, $15, ISBN 978-1-933974-12-5)

2. Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013, $22, ISBN 978-0-615-78283-6)

3.  Fair Creatures of an Hour (Loonfeather Press, 2009, $12.95, ISBN 978-0-926147-28-7)

4. Imaginarium (Loonfeather Press, 2005, $12.95, ISBN 0-926147-18-8)

Berks Bards is supported in part by grants from the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts as administered through the Berks Arts Council.

Thursday, September 5, 2013, 6 p.m. at the GoggleWorks, first floor, with poets Brian Fanelli and Dawn Leas

Join Berks Bards in welcoming Dawn Leas and Brian Fanelli to First Thursday at the GoggleWorks.

Dawn Leas holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Wilkes University. In past lives she has worked as a copywriter, freelancer, director of admissions at an independent school, and middle-school English teacher. Currently, she is the associate director of the Wilkes University M.A./M.F.A. Creative Writing Program. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in San Pedro River Review, Literary Mama, Willows Wept Review, Poetry in Transit, Connecticut River Review and elsewhere. Her chapbook, I Know When to Keep Quiet, is available from Finishing Line Press.

Brian Fanelli's poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in Main Street Rag, Spillway, World Literature Today, Portland Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, and other magazines and journals. He is the author of one chapbook, Front Man (Big Table Publishing), and the full-length collection All That Remains, out this fall through Unbound Content. Brian has an M.F.A. from Wilkes University and is a Ph.D. student at SUNY Binghamton. He is currently a full-time English instructor at Lackawanna College.

An open mic follows the reading. This event is free and open to the general public.