Poetry Reading and Open Mic featuring Youth Poet Laureate Zoe Byron

Please join Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and Stanislaus County Library at a poetry reading and open mic at the Oakdale Library, featuring Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate Zoe Byron. Bring a poem—your own or a favorite–to share at open mic. Reading starts at 12:00; free and open to all.

Zoe, a student at Oakdale High School, was selected by a panel of judges to serve as the county’s second Youth Poet Laureate. The Youth Poet Laureate program is a partnership between MoSt Poetry, Stanislaus County Library, SCOE, and MJC’s School of Language Arts & Education. For more info: ypl@mostpoetry.org.

Poetry Book Club: In Praise of Late Wonder by Lee Herrick

Join us for the latest edition of the MoSt Poetry Book Club, when we’ll be discussing California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick’s excellent new collection, In Praise of Late Wonder! We’ll meet on Sunday, November 17th, 2024 at 2pm, at Panera Bread, 2103 McHenry Avenue, in Modesto.

In the meantime, pick up a copy of Lee’s book, which is now available at the front desk of the Modesto Library. Tom Portwood will lead a discussion about the collection that afternoon. We look forward to seeing you!

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring John Shoptaw and Murray Silverstein

Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is excited to present Second Tuesday Poetry with featured poets Murray Silverstein and John Shoptaw. 

Date: Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Artist Lab at the Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto CA 95354 

Join us at this reading featuring noted East Bay poets John Shoptaw and Murray Silverstein, with open mic following our guest poets. Featured poets will be reading from their new collections, which will be available for purchase and signing. 

Murray Silverstein

Red Studio is Murray Silverstein’s third book of poems. His first collection, Any Old Wolf (2007), was the winner of the Independent Publisher’s Bronze Medal for Poetry and was followed by Master of Leaves (2014). His poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Rattle, ZYZZYVA, The MacGuffin, The Brooklyn Review, West Marin Review, Plainsongs, Nimrod, The Dreaming Machine, and Spillway.

The senior editor for two Sixteen Rivers anthologies, America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (2018), which received the Independent Publisher’s Silver Medal for anthologies, and The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed (2010), he also directs the Sixteen Rivers Press Youth Poetry Project, which has published three chapbooks by teen poets: Anthems (2022), Dear Earth (2023), and Our Own Light (2024). A practicing architect for forty years and coauthor of four books on architecture, including A Pattern Language (Oxford University Press) and Patterns of Home (The Taunton Press), Silverstein lives in Oakland, California.

John Shoptaw

John Shoptaw, a leading voice in ecopoetics, is widely published in literary journals and magazines, including Arion, Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, and Poetry.  His first poetry collection, Times Beach (2015), won the Notre Dame Review Book Prize and the Northern California Book Award in Poetry.  Shoptaw is the author of On the Outside Looking Out: John Ashbery’s Poetry, the libretto for Eric Sawyer’s opera Our American Cousin (Boston Modern Orchestra Project), and a number of essays on poetry and poetics, including “Why Ecopoetry?” (Poetry). He teaches in the UC Berkeley English Department. 

From the Foreword to Near Earth Objects, by Jenny O’Dell: 

In Near-Earth Object, Shoptaw explores the interactions, sometimes dark and sometimes joyful, between humans and the non-human natural world. Resisting the human exceptionalism that in its many forms can block imaginative access to the world, Shoptaw entertains the perspectives of a host of others: a cricket, a bat, a nuthatch, a carnival bear, a tree’s shade, cherubim, an asteroid, and Earth herself.

Patrick Davis, publisher at Unbound Edition Press, said, “John’s remarkable work is formally attuned, entirely accessible, and urgently relevant. His ecopoetics, on full display in Near-Earth Object, propel a vital voice for our challenging times.”

MoSt Poetry on Saturday featuring Christina Lloyd & Alice Templeton

MoSt Poetry On Saturday Reading
November 9, 2024
2:00 p.m. PST
Carnegie Arts Center
250 North Broadway Avenue, Turlock, CA
     Join host Gary Thomas for the latest edition of Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center’s (MoSt’s) Poetry On Saturday in-person readings on November 9 at 2:00 p.m. at the Carnegie Arts Center (250 North Broadway Avenue) in Turlock. Our featured poets are Christina Lloyd and Alice Templeton, both with new books out from Sixteen Rivers Press. An Open Mic time will follow the featured poets. This event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be provided.

     Born in Hong Kong and raised in Manila and San Francisco, Christina Lloyd holds a PhD in creative writing from Lancaster University. Her work appears in a wide variety of publications, including Canadian Woman Studies, EcoTheo, Hive, Meniscus, Poetry Daily, Poetry Ireland, Poet Lore, The North, and SWWIM. Women Twice Removed, published by Sixteen Rivers Press, is her first full-length collection. She lives in San Francisco.

     Alice Templeton’s poems and short stories have appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Bellingham Review, Calyx, North American Review, Poetry, and other publications. Her work was a finalist for the 2020 Neruda Prize from Nimrod, and her chapbook Archaeology won the 2008 New Women’s Voices Prize in Poetry from Finishing Line Press. She is also the author of a critical book on Adrienne Rich’s poetics and scholarly articles on contemporary poetics, cultural criticism, and literary theory. Originally from Tennessee, Templeton lives in Point Richmond, California.

Dos Rios State Park Nature Poetry Walk

A special event for poetry lovers! Join a State Park Interpreter and special guest, poetry author, Salvatore Salerno. Bring your favorite poem or poetry book about nature and share with other poetry enthusiasts. Walk 2.5 miles round-trip to the amazing pond Oaks. Share or just listen to poems that connects us to nature. Please bring good walking shoes, sunscreen, snack, and water. Bring lunch to eat at the day use area, along the pond, following the poetry walking tour. Register:  https://www.parks.ca.gov/EventDetails/16477