Thursday October 3, 2013 at 6 p.m. at the GoggleWorks with Montgomery County's 2013 Poet Laureate Glenn McLaughlin and with Patrick and Marilyn Klimcho

First Thursday with Glenn McGlaughlin, Patrick Klimcho and Marilyn Klimcho:

GLENN MCLAUGHLIN
 
Glenn McLaughlin studied chemistry, education, running and dishwashing, but not writing or poetry, at Bucknell University. Eight years ago, after nearly thirty years of laboring in the chemical and plastics industries, he was fortunate to lose his job and begin a journey that has led him, finally, to where he should have been all along, a high school chemistry classroom. He is currently a long-term substitute in chemistry at Methacton High School. While not formally trained in poetry or writing, he has published two collections of poems, Something Catches (2006) and Forms of Lectio (2008), the latter a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award in Poetry in 2009. Several of his poems have been published in the Schuylkill Valley Journal, The Mad Poets Review, Forward and Big Bridge. A volume of poems and essays, The Land I Am Given / Oops., was published in 2011. Additional honors include a Spring-Ford High School Senior Impact Award (a student nominated award for teachers who students believe make a difference) and election to the Bucknell Athletic Hall of Fame. He lives in Pottstown with his wife, Susan, and is an easy drive away from his two daughters and two granddaughters.

Patrick Klimcho enjoys writing humorous poem parodies, which he equates to solving crossword puzzles. Besides writing humor, Patrick likes to write political rants and what he refers to as 'sappy grandfather poems.' Patrick's work has been published in the Schuylkill Valley Journal and in Up and Under: the QND Review.

Marilyn Klimcho, Treasurer of Berks Bards, has been writing short stories and poems intensively for the past eight years as well as editing the work of several local authors, one of whom recently published. (Check out Lessons from the Hog House by Elizabeth Clark, American History Press.) Marilyn has had a short story published in the Schuylkill Valley Journal, for which she received a nomination for a Pushcart Prize.

For your pleasure, three poems written on the spot by children at the Berks Bards & Fightin Phils Baseball Poetry Contest Reading on August 22, 2013

On Thursday, August 22, 2013, Berks Bards hosted a mini-poetry contest for children thirteen years old or younger. Below is a sampling of some of the best entries written the evening of the baseball game and submitted in the hopes of winning a drawing for a baseball.


Way up high in the apple tree
Two little apples smiled down at me
I shook that tree as hard as I could
Down came the two little apples
MMM they were good.

by Cassie L.



Baseball is fun,
Baseball is great.
I love the feeling
Of sliding into home plate
So many happy times,
Out in the sun.
The fun doesn't end
Until the game is won.

by Alex B.



The Philies
Are awesome.
So are the fans.
I like to go and shake their hands.

by Drew S.

Monday October 21, 2013 at 6 p.m. at Reading Area Community College featuring poets Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin

Please join Berks Bards for the Bruce Stanley Memorial Poetry Reading in room 118 of the Schmidt Tech Center featuring Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin.

Valerie Fox's books include The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books) and The Glass Book (Texture Press). She recently published Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press), which was co-written with Lynn Levin. Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon is a compilation written with Arlene Ang (Texture Press). She currently teaches writing at Drexel University and previously taught at Sophia University (Tokyo) and Peirce College (Philadelphia). She was a founding co-editor of 6ix magazine and Press 1. She has published work in Ping Pong, Hanging Loose, West Branch, Hamilton Stone Review, and many other journals.

LIST OF BOOKS

1. Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013, $22, ISBN 978-0-615-78283-6)

2. The Glass Book (Texture Press, 2010, $15,  ISBN 978-0-9797573-8-9)

3.  The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books, 2006, $12, ISBN 0-9773786-4-0)

4. Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon (Texture Press, 2008, $15, ISBN978-0-9797573-1-0)
(a compilation with Arlene Ang)

LYNN LEVIN is the author of four collections of poems: Miss Plastique (Ragged Sky Press, 2013); Fair Creatures of an Hour (Loonfeather Press, 2009), a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium (Loonfeather Press, 2005), a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award; and A Few Questions about Paradise (Loonfeather Press, 2000). She is, with Valerie Fox, the author of a craft-of-poetry book, Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013). Lynn Levin’s poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Boulevard, Washington Square Review, Verse Daily, and on Garrison Keillor’s radio show The Writer’s Almanac. She is currently involved in translating the work of Odi Gonzales, a Peruvian Andean poet. Lynn Levin teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Lynn Levin: List of Books

I will bring a supply of these books to the RACC event.

1. Miss Plastique (Ragged Sky Press, 2013, $15, ISBN 978-1-933974-12-5)

2. Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013, $22, ISBN 978-0-615-78283-6)

3.  Fair Creatures of an Hour (Loonfeather Press, 2009, $12.95, ISBN 978-0-926147-28-7)

4. Imaginarium (Loonfeather Press, 2005, $12.95, ISBN 0-926147-18-8)

Berks Bards is supported in part by grants from the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts as administered through the Berks Arts Council.

Thursday, September 5, 2013, 6 p.m. at the GoggleWorks, first floor, with poets Brian Fanelli and Dawn Leas

Join Berks Bards in welcoming Dawn Leas and Brian Fanelli to First Thursday at the GoggleWorks.

Dawn Leas holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Wilkes University. In past lives she has worked as a copywriter, freelancer, director of admissions at an independent school, and middle-school English teacher. Currently, she is the associate director of the Wilkes University M.A./M.F.A. Creative Writing Program. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in San Pedro River Review, Literary Mama, Willows Wept Review, Poetry in Transit, Connecticut River Review and elsewhere. Her chapbook, I Know When to Keep Quiet, is available from Finishing Line Press.

Brian Fanelli's poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared or is forthcoming in Main Street Rag, Spillway, World Literature Today, Portland Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, and other magazines and journals. He is the author of one chapbook, Front Man (Big Table Publishing), and the full-length collection All That Remains, out this fall through Unbound Content. Brian has an M.F.A. from Wilkes University and is a Ph.D. student at SUNY Binghamton. He is currently a full-time English instructor at Lackawanna College.

An open mic follows the reading. This event is free and open to the general public.

August 22, 2013 at First Energy Stadium hear the reading of the Baseball Poetry Contest Winners for 2013

Join the Fightin' Phils and Berks Bards for a reading of the 2013 Fightin' Phils/Berks Bards Baseball Poetry Contest winning entries.

The reading follows the baseball game which begins at 7:05 p.m. and precedes the fireworks display following the game.

Also, new this year, kids 13 and under can write a poem at the Berks Bards table, set up in the concourse, and thereby enter a drawing to win a baseball!

Winners to be announce by ticket numbers from the field just before the reading following the game.

Thursday August 1, 2013 at 6 p.m. on the first floor of the GoggleWorks featuring Turkish poet Tuğrul Tanyol

Join Berks Bards in welcoming Turkish poet Tuğrul Tanyol!

Tuğrul Tanyol is a well-known poet, critic and essayist in Turkey. He was born in 1953 in Istanbul and educated at the Catholic Lycée of St Joseph and the University of the Bosphorus. In 1985 he won the Necatıgıl Prize for poetry. To date he has published six books of poetry and written many reviews and critical essays. He teaches social sciences at the University of Marmara. His poetry is lyrical but controlled by a classical clarity. It has been said of him that 'he is a poet alive to the pitfalls of blind ideological allegiances'. He has been translated into Spanish, French and English and was the first Turkish poet to take part in the Trois Rivières poetry festival in Quebec.
-from Ruth Christie's introduction in MPT Series 3/8 Getting it Across 

This event is free and open to the public
 

July 11, 2013 at 6 p.m. first floor of the GoggleWorks, just past the gift shop featuring a Poet's Picnic of Good Words and Good Food

Come one, come all.

Bring your poetry and a picnic snack to share, drinks and service for a Poet's Picnic on the 11th of July.

We'll be meeting at the same location, the site of the former La Cucina Cafe on the first floor of the GoggleWorks.

Come hungry.

Open mic, good food and good friends.

Who could ask for more?