from 6:00 - 7:45 p.m. for
1st Thursday Poetry
at Goggleworks Center for the Arts
201 Washington St., Reading
Meet in the First Floor Cafe area. Masks optional.
Barbara Crooker is author of twelve chapbooks and nine full-length books of poetry. Some Glad Morning, Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Poetry Press, is her latest. Her previous collection, The Book of Kellls, won the Best Poetry Book of 2019 Award from Poetry by the Sea.
Her other awards include: Grammy Spoken Word Finalist, the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and three Pennsylvania Council fellowships in literature. Her work appears in a wide variety of literary journals and anthologies, including: Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, and The Bedford Introduction to Literature. She has been the recipient of residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Moulin à Nef in Auvillar, France, and The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, in Annamaghkerrig, Co. Monaghan, Ireland.
A recently published excerpt:
PEACHES IN AUGUST
When the rest of the world seems to be falling apart,
from the fool in the white house to the wind and water
whipped up in the gulf, the one thing that still seems solid
is these peaches, hanging fat and gold on the tree, heavy
with sun and rain. When I pull one from the branch,
my fingers brushing velvet skin, my lips puckering
as if for a kiss, I know I will bite into an ocean
of sweetness. All around me, in the late summer garden,
bees will be humming their one golden note. And
those peaches, hanging like constellations in the leafy
sky? In this darkening world, they are the only steady light.
Open Mic to follow the Poetry Reading!
