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.