First Thursday, December 2, 2015 at 6 p.m. at the GoggleWorks featuring poet Criag Czury

Join Berks Bards in welcoming Craig Czury to First Thurday.



Czury published his first book of poetry entitled Janus Peeking in 1980. The
book received the 1980 First Book Award from the Montana Arts Council. From there,
Czury went on to publish 15 more collections of poetry. Czury’s work
illustrates the pain and emptiness of the depression-stricken Pennsylvania
coal-mining region. The following is an excerpt from his poem entitled,
“Coalscape:”



all this black dust / black cinder and glass ground up / in the spine of
a torn-out trainbed / smoke rising out of birch on the culm bank / when it
begins to rain





One of his most notable collections is God’s Shiny
Glass Eye, published in 1987. This collection revolved around Czury’s vision of
the coal country where he grew up. Critic Michael
Basinski is quoted on the FootHills Publishing site as saying, “The poet’s
imagination and the anthracite world intimately merge to produce a poetry that
is poignantly barren and stripped of any artificial embellishment. It is an
angry poetry, but its passion is restrained and boils beneath the structure of
the book.”



An open mic follows.



This event is free and open to the public. 



It is sponsored in part by the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts, and supported through the Berks Arts Council, which administers funding locally.

November 5, 2015 6-8 p.m. at the GoggleWorks with poet Edwin Romond and an open mic

Please join Berks Bards in welcoming Edwin Romond back to the GoggleWorks for a poetry reading.

Edwin Romond is the author of eight collections of poetry
and has been awarded fellowships from
the National Endowment for the Arts and from both the New Jersey and
Pennsylvania State Councils on the Arts. His work has twice been featured on
NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac and he is the recipient of the 2013 New
Jersey Poetry Prize for his poem, “Champion.” He wrote the book, music, and
lyrics for two musical plays, Robin Hood and A Family Life, that were
produced at New Jersey community theaters and Spitball Magazine
recently published his first short story. His new poetry collection, Home
Team: Poems about Baseball, will be released in spring of 2016.

He was a public school teacher and counselor for 32 years
and now works in the poetry program of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Edwin
Romond lives in Wind Gap, PA with his wife, Mary, their son, Liam, and their
dog, “Oscar.”

This event is free and open to the public. It is supported in part by the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts through a grant that is administered locally by the Berks Arts Council.