Berks Bards First Thursday Poetry Reading July Featured Poet Sharice Towles

  

Join Us July 7th, 2022,  6-7:45 pm for 1st Thursday Poetry   In-person at Goggleworks Center for the Arts 201 Washington St., Reading  (First floor cafe area.)    Featured Poet Sharice Towles Followed by an open mic berksbards@gmail.com         https://berksbards.blogspot.com/

Reading librarian Sharice Towles will read from her debut book of poetry titled “While I Was Watching The Sun” at Berks Bards First Thursday Reading on July 6 at 6 p.m. in Goggleworks’ cafe space on the main floor. 

While I Was Watching The Sun is Towles’ first book, published by independent publisher, SDJ Press. The collection features twenty-three original poems about life, love and rebirth.  Towles has been working at the Reading Public Library for 9 years, currently working as the interlibrary loan coordinator.  

With a passion for writing, Towles says she uses poetry as an outlet to help her get through tough times. “When the pandemic hit, so many people were protesting, artists were creating and talking about local news, police victimizing black people. That, in addition with my own personal struggles, I felt strongly enough to put all of my pieces together and speak to others” said Towles. 

Years in the making, Towles began writing poems in 2015, but it wasn’t until 2020 that she decided a book would be the best format to convey her message. “Many of the pieces were written over the past few years, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that I really focused on writing” Towles said. 

Founder of SDJ Press, David Nazario, said he and Towles started the publishing process in August with formatting, photos, and cover artwork. In the spirit of local collaboration, the book’s cover design and interior graphics were created by Kutztown University student and Reading Senior High School alumna, Idalmi Rivera.  

Excited about the launch of her first book, Towles hopes it can inspire others. “I just hope everybody, even if it doesn’t relate to exactly what your going through, just feels the courage to share what’s in their heart.” 

While I Was Watching The Sun is available to borrow at the Reading Public Library, Reading Branch, or for purchase by contacting Sharice Towles by email: lyricalreese@gmail.com or on Instagram at @whileiwaswatchingwhesun. 

Community Poetry Open Mic — First Thursdays in January, February, and March 2022.

 

For the months of January, February, and March in 2022, Berks Bards will not be hosting any features poets. Instead, we will offer 100% open mic nights on First Thursdays so that more of those who are interested across communities locally, regionally, and out of state, who appreciate our nonprofit's focus, can use this as an opportunity to read their poetry during our events.

With this in mind, we encourage any writers who are interested to find old poems they'd like to share, to use this as a chance to work on new poetry to prepare and share, and to spread word about this to friends you may know who you think would appreciate the chance to read during our open mics. You are welcome to share this news onward, if you know anyone who might like to hear of this opportunity.

Below are the dates for these First Thursday events with Berks Bards, for reference.

When—
Thursday, January 6, 2022 @ 6 pm EST
Thursday, February 3, 2022 @ 6 pm EST
Thursday, March 3, 2022 @ 6 pm EST

Anyone who would like to sign up for these open mics can do so on Zoom via chat during the evenings of these events. We may change the parameters of sign-ups to be earlier and advance in the future, so please always check back for updates.

Where—TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom

Bring your poems. Bring your friends. Tell your friends to bring their poems. We look forwarding to seeing you where poetry moves across screens, one voice at a time.

Upcoming Optional Poetry Themes—
January = Change; New
February = Black History
March = Women
April = Poetry
May = Summer

We will likely bring back featured poet reading + shorter open mics in April 2022, once National Poetry Month is here. Stay tuned for more news closer to then. And as always, onward with poetry.

Tyler Barton on Zoom—Thursday, December 2nd, 2021, at 6 pm EST.

Join Tyler Barton on Zoom!


When: Thursday, December 2nd, 2021, at 6 pm EST


Where: TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom

And below is a sample piece from our featured poet:

 

Eternal Night at the Nature Museum, a Half-Hour Downriver from Three Mile Island

On the roof grows a tree Facilities kills every summer. Killed, rather. As the men from Facilities are gone. As everyone—staff, faculty, public—is gone, gone for what Harrisburg still calls temporary. The museum belongs to no one now. Or rather, belongs to that tree, or to the animals and their chewed-through glass, or to the time we lost a snake, every time we lost a snake we couldn’t find for days and stayed open for visitors anyway. What I mean is the museum belongs to, I don’t know, some kid? The one I sensed hiding in every building I ever closed down for the night. The same kid I imagined stowing away inside the tree trunk, or the shark’s mouth, or the trash tote in the mop closet—this milk-mouthed kid with nothing to lose, too spooked to say uncle after having chosen hiding, now living out what was never a Disneyland fantasy but rather the lesser of two let-downs. Life, alone in a building full of owl eggs, appeal letters, revisionist archeology, and arctic wolves who leap like puppies, glass eyes gleaming through their taxidermy. The building belongs to, yes, this starved sapling of a person. And the minute the kid finishes the fish food, cracks two teeth on hematite, retches up the crickets, licks all the pollen from the dead bees legs—the climbing begins. Up stairs. Up stories. Learning from the lizards who clawed away their cages, this kid will bore with whittled obsidian and patience a hole through the 3rd floor utility door. Behind which lies the ladder, and so, the roof. And so, the tree. And so, the fruit.

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Below is a video of poems written by residents of the Hamilton Arms Long Term Care Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Tyler ran a 12-week workshop with these late 2019 and early 2020, and together, he helped them to make a chapbook of their work. Many residents died from COVID-19 just before the project was completed.

 

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POETRY OPEN MIC!

There will be an open mic segment following the featured poet; those who are interested in participating in the open mic can sign up for it in the chat on Zoom, once the main monthly event starts.

Enzo Silon Surin on Zoom—Thursday, November 4th, 2021, at 6 pm EST.

Join Enzo Silon Surin on Zoom!


When: Thursday, November 4th, 2021, at 6 pm EST


Where: TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom

And below is a sample poem from our featured poet:

 

Birth of A Clinched Fist

Born in epidemic—circa 1986 Jamaica,
Queens—when tiny white caps filled—
modern-day cotton—moored most under

a parking lot's dim cone of light—when
paraded in chambers of those born to triggers
was that sin which weaned father

from son; tricked out the best in us—
a resilient few kept from boxes,
though what was left was worsted in haze

on those horrid nights—when what was
promissory was plight was norm,
and what was dealt—mnemonic so strong

I kept it in my mind like one rehearsing
lines in an orograph for pain—
a pain, like bait, that turned gain

into the cleanest demise—when I stood
to cleave it, the fight empty as cavity,
the strife—marked by omission. Everything

I saw was enemy—even this face, fair game.


Enzo Silon Surin, "Birth of A Clinched Fist" from When My Body Was A Clinched Fist.  Copyright © 2020 by Enzo Silon Surin. Source: When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence Press, 2020)

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Enjoy these poetry samplings by Enzo Silon Surin via the video below.

 

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POETRY OPEN MIC!

There will be an open mic segment following the featured poet; those who are interested in participating in the open mic can sign up for it in the chat on Zoom, once the main monthly event starts.

Anne Harding Woodworth on Zoom—Thursday, October 7th, 2021, at 6 pm EST.

Join Anne Harding Woodworth on Zoom!


When: Thursday, October 7th, 2021, at 6 pm EST


Where: TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom

And below is a sample poem from our featured poet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Parking At Any Time

 

I emerged from a womb
drugged with sodium pentothal.
Everything in slow motion:
slap, cry, fingers.
One. Five. Ten.
In no time, slow quickens.
I'm breathing
and speeding on my own road.
Twenty-five at first. Fifty-five.
Ninety. Ninety-five.
A hundred and ten--
to get there as fast as possible.
At any time, forgive my memories.
There are so many now.
I leave the rules to you.
I know I can't stay here.

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Enjoy this additional poem by Anne via the video below.

 

 

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POETRY OPEN MIC!

There will be an open mic segment following the featured poet; those who are interested in participating in the open mic can sign up for it in the chat on Zoom, once the main monthly event starts.

Patti Ross on Zoom—Thursday, September 2nd, 2021, at 6 pm EST.

Join Patti Ross on Zoom!


When: Thursday, September 2nd, 2021, at 6 pm EST


Where: TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom


If required, please enter the Meeting ID 759 062 6042

 

And below is a sample poem from our featured poet:

 

The Deposer

I was raped 36 years ago.
It is not on tape, no.
I do not want to remember,
But my limbs still go limp
When I hear that voice
That “yes” to my “no.”

My pleas went to deaf ears as
I lay there in tears stolen,
my girlish charm realizing
I could be harmed by a boy
I said no to. I said no!
Yeah, it happened to me too.


I tried deep inside to
Hide what had happen
I did not want to relive that.
It was hard enough to remember alone
Now the whole world would know.

My limbs still go limp when
I hear that voice that said “yes” to my “no.”
He said yes; I said no.

I am standing here in tears
Realizing my greatest fear:
That my pleas land on deaf ears.
I was raped 36 years ago.

It is not on tape. No!

 

This poem is dedicated to Christine Margaret Blasey Ford, Professor at Stanford University, who testified against Brett Michael Kavanaugh, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

 

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Enjoy this additional poem by Patti via the video below.

 

 

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POETRY OPEN MIC!

There will be an open mic segment following the featured poet; those who are interested in participating in the open mic can sign up for it in the chat on Zoom, once the main monthly event starts.

Join Rick Lupert on Zoom—Thursday, August 5th, 2021, at 6 pm EST / 3 pm PST.

Join Rick Lupert on Zoom!


When: Thursday, August 5th, 2021, at 6 pm EST / 3 pm PST


Where: TinyURL.com/VirtualBard to reach us on Zoom


If required, please enter the Meeting ID 759 062 6042

 

Rick will be joining us virtually from California. We are so thankful for this opportunity, in us working from Pennsylvania, in sharing poetry across the country.


And below is a sample poem from our featured poet:

 

Hey Jude

  

Whenever I ask the question

do you know who’s singing this song

to my ten year old in the back seat

 

of the car, invariably he answers

The Beatles. And he is correct as I only

ask him this question when they come on.

 

He’s been dealing with this since

he was in the womb when his pregnant parents

(hi) saw the film Across the Universe

 

on the couch one evening and, in a fit

of revelation, knew exactly what we would

be calling this impending, permanent visitor.

 

Whenever someone meets him and learns his name

it’s impossible for them to not cry out Hey Jude!

It’s like a hiccup, involuntary, can’t be stopped.

 

He used to tell everyone he hated The Beatles

and then, at a certain point, it all clicked

and he started demanding their voices

 

on the car stereo. Who wouldn’t want

anthems sung to them while being chauffeured

to and from houses of fundamental learning,

 

religious institutions, and the occasional

pizza parlor? He knows who he is and the

expectations people have when they sing his name.

 

He knows what it means and how they used to

label people with his name on yellow stars

decades before men from Liverpool would

 

front thousands of people, their hands

hoisted in the air, na-na-ing like there

never was another song.

 

We put every weight on what we called him.

He crosses the universe, making our songs

better.

 

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Below, hear Rick read a poem about rain in Tokyo.

 

 

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POETRY OPEN MIC UPDATE!

There will be an open mic segment following the featured poet; those who are interested in participating in the open mic can sign up for it in the chat on Zoom, once the main monthly event starts.

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Meet Brenardo Taylor

Brenardo Taylor is our latest Zoom host for poetry readings and open mics and began assisting Berks Bards with this last month. Please welcome him!

Brenardo Taylor is a poet and songwriter who is a resident of Prince George’s County, Maryland. He has been writing for over five decades, and his written words have been featured in countless newspapers, magazines, and poetry anthologies, including his own chapbook, “Bridge Over Trouble.”

An alumnus of the Anointed P.E.N.S. of Ebenezer AME Church, the “Poets In Progress” under the direction of the Late Dolores Kendrick, Poet Laureate of Washington D. C., he is also currently a member of “Collective Voices.”  In 2020, he was selected as one of the Poets of Excellence for Prince George’s County of Maryland.

As a spoken word artist, he has performed in venues alongside Gayle Danley, Saul Williams, Sonya Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, The Last Poets, and as a host of other renowned writers and performers.

In addition to stage credits, Brenardo has appeared on a variety of Radio and Television shows, including “Sojourn With Words,” “Griots Story Telling Circle,” “Spoken Word @ Joe’s Place,” “The Poet And The Poem,” and “Pat Thornton’s Business Hour.”

Brenardo is a writer of vision who is inspired to cover all aspects of the human condition in his work.