Saying Goodbye to National Poetry Month in April 2020.

Earth Poems Reading: Sunday, April 26, 2020 in celebrating Earth Day this month.

We'll be uploading the video of this seven-poet reading 

to our  YouTube channel; keep an eye out for it!

friday night mini-readings with poet rick kearns.

friday night mini-readings
with poet rick kearns

from the poet—on friday nights at 8 pm, i'll be reading live on facebook via my teodoro maxwell page. since the quarantine, i've created a tradition that grew from our other friday night tradition in my kitchen/cocina. since 1993, we've been jamming in my cocina, starting with flamenco, and in the last few years, it's featured gypsy jazz and a few older jazz pieces, along with the flamenco.

in that interim, i've been in 4 groups, playing percussion. i've gone back to guitar, not ready yet to play in public. as we have not been able to be together in-person, we've had zoom gatherings on fridays, including most of the usual suspects.

along with that change, i've also been giving mini-readings of my work, usually 3 poems recorded in the cocina. i've uploaded those mini-readings to youtube for those who can’t watch live, in the moment, on facebook—videos will be uploaded to youtube later each friday evening.

facebook: teodoro maxwell
youtube: tinyurl.com/ycg9ezox 

biography—

rick kearns (AKA kearns-morales) is a poet of puerto rican and european heritage from harrisburg, pennsylvania. his latest full collection was rufino's secret, 2012. other books include street of knives, the dead go swimming, and five other collections. his poems have appeared in over 70 literary journals and 6 national anthologies, including the massachusetts review, painted bride quarterly, and chicago review. some of his work has appeared in european and latin american journals as well. he was named poet laureate of harrisburg, pennsylvania, in 2014.

Call For Poetry Submissions!

 April is National Poetry Month, and this year, we're continuing the tradition of celebrating Bard Fest - in a new and modern way to support the efforts to diminish the spread of COVID-19.

Remember, poetry comes in many different shapes and forms!
Submit written word, a video, a picture, a painting, or all of the above!

Ideas:

Create a poem with magnetic words on your refrigerator.

Write an Ekphrastic poem to artwork around your home or in your neighborhood.

Record a video of a playful squirrel and caption the video with a short poem.

Ways You Can Submit:

via email BerksBards@gmail.com
via Facebook
via Instagram

Submit Via Email Now!

Find Berks Bards on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and at BerksBards.BlogSpot.com

Jayne Relaford Brown Poetry Reading Online On Zoom!

Join Us For A Virtual Poetry Reading!

April 2020 marks 22 years of Berks Bards' commitment to fostering poetry in Berks County! Annually in April, we celebrate National Poetry Month by holding Bard Fest, a series of poetry performances, open mics, workshops, and more! This year, we'd love to continue the tradition of celebrating Bard Fest in a new and modern way. In support of efforts to diminish the spread of COVID-19, we'll be hosting and sharing poetry virtually.

Join us on Zoom on April 9th, 2020 at 6 PM EST for a poetry reading by Berks County's Poet Laureate, Jayne Relaford Brown.

Jayne Relaford Brown is the author of My First Real Tree, a book of poems from FootHills Publications. Her poems have appeared in several literary journals and anthologies including Blueline, Cider Press Review and Alligator Juniper, and All We Know of Pleasure, and as the title poem in I Am Becoming the Woman I’ve Wanted. Her poem, “Finding Her Here,” has been widely distributed as a poster, translated into Mandarin and Russian, and was commissioned as a choral work by Anna Crusis Women’s Chorus.  Her poem “Ode to Hip-Hop” recently became a national finalist for the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize. Brown received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing/Poetry from San Diego State University, and taught college-level creative writing and composition full time until retiring from Penn State Berks in 2018. She is the current Poet Laureate of Berks County, Pennsylvania, and will hold the post until 2021.

Read a sample poem below:

WHY I WANT TO PLAY THE CELLO
All that longing caught between my knees—
to hold with my whole body, and release
the deep unspeakable of joy and grief,
not a lark transcending life in double-octave flight
toward a sound so high we strain to hear,
but here on earth, rib on ribs, the wood and flesh
vibrato of a rougher chest voice waking up the heart,
a trembling call for all that’s cavernous to hum.

All I want is one long note, to pull the bow across
the tautened nerve sustained enough to touch
a tenor deeper than my puny words can reach.
And even with my heavy hand that makes the strung hairs
growl like guttered clearing of the throat, even the ragged tremolo
of clumsy fingers struggling on heavy strings
is part of saying, “Here, here’s the hollow place,
the pulsing emptiness from which the beauty pours.”

Published in Alligator Juniper

Here's how to join us & Jayne Relaford Brown online on April 9th:

• Go to https://tinyurl.com/VirtualBard
•  If required, please enter the Meeting ID 759 062 6042
• You may download Zoom on your mobile device, or join from your browser on your laptop/computer
• As a courtesy, please mute your microphone when not speaking.

Thank you for your continued support of Berks Bards! We hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
Your friends at Berks Bards

Sunday, March 29 — A Reflective Poetry Workshop: Hindsight is 2020 at Barrio Alegría.

Through Pen Street: City of Poems, a community project funded by the Berks County Community Foundation, Barrio Alegría is offering a reflective poetry workshop in late March.

Hindsight is 2020: A Poetry Workshop 

Taught by Joshua Surita

 

Date & Time: Sunday, March 29 from 4-6 pm

Location: Barrio Alegría @ 140 North 5th Street, 2nd Floor, Reading, PA 19601

Details: Open to all ages; free with donations welcome

See more information about this event on Facebook. Also, see Barrio Alegría on Instagram.

Well-Versed: A Collaboration Between Art Plus Gallery in West Reading & Berks Bards.

Last Friday, Art Plus Gallery in West Reading hosted its opening for an exhibit called Art Well-Versed. This came together as a project of the gallery collaborating with Berks Bards through a recent call for submissions we offered, partnering as Berks County-based nonprofits.

The call for submissions involved having folks visit to pick pieces of art to write poems about for this collaboration, pairing one finalized poem with each piece of art. Some artists wrote poems about their own art, while a good number of poets who had no ties to the art brought their imaginations and inspiration to the page based on what it stirred in them, upon seeing the pieces.

A total of 20 local poets contributed, and the exhibit opening celebrated the poetry with a reading by many of the poets sharing their penned words in-person. Dozens of  people filtered throughout the gallery's space to enjoy the whims of words and local art on display by so many talented artists in our region.

Stop into the gallery soon to see this exhibit!

(Hours)

Wednesdays-Saturdays: 12 pm - 7 pm
Sundays: 11 am - 4 pm
Closed Monday & Tuesdays