Join us for Open Mics in 2024!

Join us for First Thursday Poetry Readings - Open Mic edition - 

on January 4th and February 1st at the GoggleWorks in Reading, PA. 

 

If Only by Joseph Ross

 

December's Featured Poet is

Joseph Ross

If Only

 

For Elijah McClain, 1996-2019. Killed by police in Aurora, Colorado,

he was known as a gentle soul, who played his violin to soothe anxious

animals in shelters.

 

 

If only a violin could redeem

the world.

 

Your skin, glowing like the violin’s wood,

might still sing its humble lament.

 

Your fingers,

the supple dancers they were,

 

could skim across the violin’s

neck, could light each trembling

 

string. Your gentle

neck could guard the violin’s

 

shivering body, cradling its curves,

a lover.

 

If only we might be transformed,

to delight

 

in smallness, might cherish

a boy, a man, as whole as you.

Joseph Ross is December's Featured Poet

 

December's Featured Poet is

Joseph Ross

Joseph Ross is the author of five books of poetry: Crushed & Crowned (forthcoming, 2023), Raising King (2020), Ache (2017), Gospel of Dust (2013) and Meeting Bone Man (2012). His poems appear in many publications including, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Poet Lore, The Langston Hughes Review, and the 2022 anthology, WHERE WE STAND: Poems of Black Resilience. He has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations and won the 2012 Pratt Library / Little Patuxent

Review Poetry Prize for his poem “If Mamie Till Was the Mother of God.” Recently, Ross served as judge for the 2021 Ken Ebert Poetry Prize from Iris G. Press. He currently serves on the Poetry Board at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. where he teaches English and Creative Writing. Ross writes regularly at www.JosephRoss.net

Lisa DeVuono is Featured Poet for November 2nd First Thursday Poetry Reading

 

Join us for First Thursday Poetry 
Thursday, November 2nd 
from 6-8:00 p.m. for
1st Thursday Poetry Open Mic 
In Room Y117 at YOCUM LIBRARY 
Reading Area Community College  
berksbards@gmail.com         https://berksbards.blogspot.com/

November's Featured Poet is
Lisa DeVuono

Feast by Jane Edna Mohler

 

October's Featured Poet is Jane Edna Mohler Feast   I love the fat of summer, flabby green weeks when weeds lap   over the vague rims of back roads, just as batter overtakes   a griddle. Poplar leaves wave wide as cows’ tongues slurping   syrup-thick air. Here, summer spits when it talks, gulps cold milk   and wipes a hand across its mouth. I want to stuff myself full   with warm fields, hills tender and round as yeast rolls bathed   in butter. Oh to scoop the ooze of June’s soft eggs, consume   this season, lick its juices, chew salty bacon days.     One Art: A Journal of Poetry first publication September 3, 2023 Jane Edna Mohler  |   jane.e.mohler@gmail.com  |  www.janeednamohler.com

Jane Edna Mohler is Featured Poet for First Thursday Poetry

 

Join us for First Thursday Poetry 
Thursday, October 5th 
from 6:00 - 7:45 p.m. for
1st Thursday Poetry Open Mic 
at Goggleworks Center for the Arts
201 Washington St., Reading 
 Meeting Place: Studio 238   
berksbards@gmail.com         https://berksbards.blogspot.com/

October's Featured Poet is
Jane Edna Mohler

Jane Edna Mohler is a Bucks County Poet Laureate Emeritus. She is the 2016 winner of Main Street Voices, a finalist in the Robert Fraser Competition, and second place winner in the 2023 Crossroads Poetry Contest. Recent publications include Gyroscope, Gargoyle, River Heron Review, One Art, and New Verse News. Her collection Broken Umbrellas was published by Kelsay. She is the Poetry Editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. www.janeednamohler.com  

You by Aries Franklin Ortiz

September's Featured Poet is

Aries Franklin Ortiz

You

I love the process of getting to know you.
The ins and outs and all the pieces
that come together to form your beautiful mind.
You have always wanted to be understood
So allow me to know the answers to the questions
that unlock your heart without scaring you.
Sometimes love that feels too good;
feels like a setup boo
And we all have small triggers
and it’s inevitable that I might be the cause
of one of these at some point.
Especially when it’s that one thing,
that reminds you of that one time,
that has etched itself inside your mind
and makes you shudder at the thought.
But together we can create a new version of love’s art.
So let’s communicate through it
and place brushes to canvas
to paint the beauty of forever
give Van Gogh a run for his money
help you forget everything you learned over time that love is not.
….

 By Aries Franklin Ortiz

Aries Franklin Ortiz is Featured Poet for September's First Thursday Poetry

 

September's Featured Poet is

Aries Franklin Ortiz

Aries Franklin Ortiz is a National Slam Poet and writer from Reading, PA. 

She started her journey as a Poet in 2005 at West Chester University. She’s had multiple articles published in various newspapers and magazines across the country and currently writes for The Drum newspaper. Her stage name “Smiley” is most accurate description of Aries, because when you meet her or when she’s on stage, that’s what she’s always doing! After a short hiatus, in the beginning of 2023, Aries dove back onto the poetry scene and hasn’t stopped since. Currently she’s working on her first published book of Poems and short stories, you can expect this before the end of the year. (and just in case you’re wondering, she’s a Virgo.).

Join us at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading, PA 
for First Thursday Poetry on September 7th from 6-7:45 p.m.

Heather Thomas is Featured Poet for First Thursday Poetry Reading August 3rd

 

August's Featured Poet is Heather Thomas

Heather H. Thomas is the author of Vortex Street (FutureCycle Press), Blue Ruby (FootHills Publishing), Resurrection Papers (Chax Press), and Practicing Amnesia (Singing Horse Press), twice a National Poetry Series finalist. She has poems forthcoming in Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts and the Keystone Poets Anthology. Among the journals publishing her work are About Place, Barrow Street, Interim, Pedestal Magazine, Persimmon Tree, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and anthologies including Welcome to the Resistance: Poetry as Protest. Her poems are translated and published in Albanian, Arabic, Italian, Lithuanian, Spanish, and Swedish. For many years Heather co-edited the literary journal 6ix with five Philadelphia poets, and she recently edited an international portfolio for Persimmon Tree. She lives along the Schuylkill River with her cat, Lily Briscoe. 

DOUBLE HELIX

As if heart and lungs flatten back to ribs

           a clearing inside the body. As if there is

no use in a center, you can live

           hollowed out, away from one taking the place

of a mountain, you whose bluff body

          has the power to part water,

to spin parallel wakes, to stand in the way

         of wind’s blunt edge, diagonal to the flow.

As if standing at the crossroad

         buttoning your coat, wind-whipped,

the coat scissoring into tatters and you

         spiraling into cloudscript,

a double helix across the sky, the future plunging

          to the past, where friction and pressure

shed a signature

         here, now, on the body vibrating.

Heather H. Thomas, from Vortex Street (FutureCycle Press)

First published in Barrow Street

First Thursday Poetry Reading July 6th Featured Poet: Julia Blumenreich

 

July's Featured Poet is Julia Blumenreich

Poet and teacher Julia Blumenreich is a recipient of a Pennsylvania Arts Council grant for her poetry.  A finalist for the Brittany Noakes Poetry Award, she is a founding member of 6ix, a literary journal devoted to cutting-edge poetry, edited by six Philadelphia-area women poets. Blumenreich has read her work in various venues including the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, and Muse House in Philadelphia. She collaborated with the visual artist Wendy Osterweil on Reforesting: An Homage to Gil Ott, a poetry/sculptural installation/print show at The Painted Bride Art Center. Four of her poems have been set to music composed by Kyle Smith and were performed as part of Lyric Fest. Her work has appeared in journals including The Whirlwind Review and Philadelphia Stories, and in An Anthology of Philadelphia Poets, edited by Valerie Fox and translated into Romanian by Daniel Dragomirescu.  She has published four chapbooks: Meeting Tessie (Singing Horse Press), Artificial Memory (Leave Books), Blue Angel of a Day (Moonstone Press) and The What of Underfoot (Finishing Line Press).  

Julia Blumenreich, from The What of Underfoot

Now

-1-

We really do need to know what we want

the situation in this country

after all untenable, which we try to hold.

-2-

It turns out that hunger isn’t the only reason that life breaks apart

the petals on the lilies too long in the vase

but odd now to know such a thing.

-3-

How can I tell which of us is absent?

A set of streetlamps extinguished by one

what our responses should be or are.

-4-

Reacting with shock my mind went on and said too much

I cannot see to see

but such happens to me.

-5-

When can we disregard the course of these events?

maybe a long time

I’ve been all wrapped up in my bits and pieces.

-6-

This is an instance of the world

meaning to leave myself open

a moth in a jar, once caterpillar

Open Mic to follow the poetry reading.

First Thursday Poetry June 1st - Featured Poet: Robin Gow

 

June's Featured Poet is Robin Gow

Robin Gow (fae/ it/ he) is a trans witch and poet from rural Pennsylvania. Fae is the author of several poetry books and chapbooks as well as an essay collection and Young Adult and Middle Grade novels in verse, including A Million Quiet Revolutions and Dear Mothman. It works at Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center as the Director of the Education Institute.

INVASIVE

When I opened my cyclops, I remembered the sun.

Another mouth forms the phrase “wrong body”

and I correct them and say you mean “wrong context.”

I am thankful to not be male. Instead, I am a blade of butter.

A shoe’s worth of land. They measure their worth

in acres. Invent tools to peer out at the hills

and break them into parcels. As a game, I decide

to travel as far as I can in this life. Could I arrive

where I’m told I belong? Would I even want to.

Something I love about my exile is the color of stoplights.

How their red challenges mine like a game.

When it returns like a gifted and un-gifted ring.

I too am like that pattern. Unwanted and admittedly

beautiful. Moths tattoos themselves on the street lamps.

A remnant is towed away. This is my blue September city.

 Image: Robin Gow's most recent book cover

Open Mic to follow the poetry reading.

Ann E. Michael is Featured Poet for First Thursday Poetry May 4th

Thursday, May 4th
from 6:00 - 7:45 p.m. for
1st Thursday Poetry Open Mic 
at Goggleworks Center for the Arts
201 Washington St., Reading 
 Meeting Place: GoggleWorks Cafe 
berksbards@gmail.com         https://berksbards.blogspot.com/

 May's Featured Poet is Ann E. Michael 

Ann E. Michael is the author of six chapbooks of poetry and one full-length collection, Water-Rites. Her next collection, The Red Queen Hypothesis, won the Prairie State Poetry Prize and will be published later in 2023. She lives in Emmaus, PA. Her website is www.annemichael.blog.

  

Excerpt from “Surveying”

 

…

I love the kingbirds, compact, elegant,

their dark heads poised. They don’t

tussle in cornstalks like finches,

shake the barley, rend the blossoms.

 

Their pale chests shine on rainy

summer days when the world tightens

every brilliant nerve in my spine

and won’t release. Kingbird alights—

 

where’s the terror in letting go?

 

Image: Cover photo of the collection Strange Ladies, a chapbook by Ann E. Michael, published by Moonstone Poetry Aug. 2022.

Open Mic to follow the poetry reading.

Featured Poet: Vernita Hall April 6th at the GoggleWorks

April's Featured Poet is Vernita Hall 

Vernita Hall is the author of Where William Walked: Poems About Philadelphia and Its People of Color, winner of the Willow Books Grand Prize and of the Robert Creeley Prize from Marsh Hawk Press; and The Hitchhiking Robot Learns About Philadelphians, winner of the Moonstone Press Chapbook Contest. She has been a finalist in the Salem College Rita Dove Poetry Award, Paumanok Poetry Award, New Letters Patricia Cleary Miller Award, Bellingham Review 49^th Parallel Award, Witness Literary Award, Furious Flower Poetry Prize, and Arts & Letters Rumi Prize. 

Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, American Poetry Review, African American Review, Barrow Street, Solstice, The Common, River Styx, The Hopkins Review, Arts & Letters, and Obsidian, as well as other journals and anthologies. 

With fellowships from Ucross and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Hall holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Rosemont College, a B.A. from La Salle University, and serves on the poetry review board of Philadelphia Stories. 

Chauvet Cave: Divination 

If God is the skull of a bear 

on a rockpile altar 

then you can be Buddha 

in half a million years 

for evolution charts in mortality 

the path of least resilience 

for the slow learner. 

Ask the auroch (an erstwhile steer), 

the mammoth, the woolly rhino, 

ask the cave bear Godhead 

the secret of longevity. 

Their laughing scattered bones here 

echoing to dust will whisper: 

Brevity 

Vernita Hall
The Common Online
April 2021


Open Mic to follow the reading.

 

Now Accepting One-Minute Poem Submissions!

 Berks Bards is welcoming submissions for One Minute Poems that will air on BCTV during National Poetry Month in April.

There are three options for recording a one-minute poem:
1. Zoom
2. Submitting a self-produced video
3. Recording a poem in-person at Berks Community Television's studio, 401 Penn Street Reading, PA 19601 on Wednesday afternoons, March 1 or 8, 2023. (Validated parking is available at the Chiarelli Plaza Garage at 3rd and Washington.)

Whichever option you choose, please schedule with Marilyn Klimcho at:
klimcho@msn.com

First Thursday Poetry Reading with Brandon Krieg

 

Join us Thursday, March 2nd
from 6:00 - 7:45 p.m. for
1st Thursday Poetry 
    at Goggleworks Center for the Arts
201 Washington St., Reading 
 Meeting Place: GoggleWorks Cafe   
berksbards@gmail.com         https://berksbards.blogspot.com/

We welcome Featured Poet Brandon Krieg and Kutztown University student writers for First Thursday Poetry on Thursday, March 2nd. 

The Featured Poet for March is
Brandon Krieg with KU Students

Brandon Krieg's most recent collection of poems is Magnifier, winner of the 2019 Colorado Prize for Poetry, chosen by Kazim Ali, and a finalist for the 2022 ASLE Book Award in Environmental Creative Writing. He lives in Kutztown, PA, and teaches at Kutztown University. 

- Sieve -

Stolen selahs and orchard  

steeps, hourless flowers  

of our grafted speech, this rest  

before the branch becomes  

instrument is infinite  

decimals to reach one reached  

in one nakedness, is the you not yours  

to give you give  

as hail-dimpled sand  

vanishes through a starry sieve  

Open Mic to follow the Poetry Reading!

February's First Thursday Poetry Open Mic!

 

Join us Thursday, February 2nd
from 6:00 - 7:45 p.m. for
1st Thursday Poetry Open Mic 
at Goggleworks Center for the Arts
201 Washington St., Reading 
 Meeting Place: GoggleWorks Cafe |  Masks optional.  
berksbards@gmail.com         https://berksbards.blogspot.com/

UPDATE: February's First Thursday Poetry Open Mic

You are invited to First Thursday Poetry Open Mic hosted by Berks Bards on Thursday, February 2nd. We'll meet in the Café area at the GoggleWorks to share space as a poetry community. Prep your poems and bring a friend!

Please note: February's Featured Poet, Lisa Alletson, will be rescheduled for another date. Stay tuned!

. . .