Poetry Night at the Queen Bean
2020-09-15 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Zoom
Melchor Sahagun III will be hosting Poetry Night at the Queen Bean on Tuesday, September 15th starting at 6 pm, via the Zoom platform. (Links to the event will be furnished on Facebook a little later this month). The reading will be devoted exclusively to open mic readers, so drop by and read and/or listen to some great poetry.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin’ Dog – on Zoom!
2020-09-24 08:00 - 17:00
Join host Stella Beratlis in our monthly reading + open mic series. This month we are excited to feature Eliot Schain, author of THE DISTANT SHORE, and Patrick Cahill, author of THE MACHINERY OF SLEEP.
Patrick Cahill’s prose and poems have appeared in over forty journals, including TriQuarterly, Volt, Poets Eleven, the Irish magazine Into the Void, Subprimal, and Eclectica. His poems have twice won the Central Coast Writers Award. He is a cofounder and editor of Ambush Review, a San Francisco–based literary and arts journal and was a contributing editor for the Sonoma County anthology Digging Our Poetic Roots. Patrick received his Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from the University of California, Santa Cruz and wrote a study of Whitman and visual experience in nineteenth-century America. Portions of this work have appeared in The Daguerreian Annual and Left Curve.
Eliot Schain’s poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Santa Monica Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and Miramar, among other journals, as well as in three anthologies: The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed, Christopher Buckley and Gary Young’s Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics from California, and America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience. Schain’s books include American Romance from Zeitgeist Press and Westering Angels from Small Poetry Press. He has served as program director for the Poetry Society of America, has taught high school, and now works as a psychotherapist. A proud member of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, he lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Mary.

Open mic follows: sign up in advance (10 slot available): https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday
Zoom: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/91739636824
Or iPhone one-tap (US Toll): +16699006833,91739636824# or +12532158782,91739636824#
Or Telephone: +1 669 900 6833 (US Toll)/Meeting ID: 917 3963 6824

MoSt Zoom Open Mic Night!
2020-10-25 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is offering an Open Mic Poetry Reading to MoSt members and to any other poets in the Stanislaus County community. This Zoom program will be on Sunday, October 25 at 7:00 p.m. The host will be Salvatore Salerno. All poets are invited to read one or two of their own poems for two to three minutes, including any introductory remarks. If they have books that are available, they can show those works to the audience. The Zoom invitation will be sent through the MoSt website, our Facebook page, and through other publicity venues on Friday, October 23. There is no prior registration required. We look forward to hearing your poetry!

Second Tuesday @ Barkin’ Dog – on Zoom!
2020-11-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
Join us for the NOVEMBER installment of the Second Tuesday Poetry series on November 10th at 7:00 pm, hosted by Stella Beratlis. We are pleased to feature poets Aideed Medina of Fresno and Jon Grammatico of Modesto.

Aideed Medina, poet and spoken word artist, creates and performs poetry in English, or Spanish, as dictated by the inspiration of each individual piece. She enjoys mentoring high school students under the direction of the Fresno Poet Laureate, Bryan Medina, with the Poetry Out Loud Program, and for youth slam competitions throughout the California central valley. She was honored to be the 2017 Representative for the Loud Mouth Poetry Slam of Visalia, CA at the Women of the World Poetry Slam DTX, and recently received the 2017 Fresno Arts Council Horizon Award for her contributions to the city’s artistic and cultural scene in the category of individual artist. She is currently working on her first two manuscripts, “A California Dime” and “Mis Papelitos.” Her work has appeared in Revista Literaria Austral, Fresno State’s Club Austral literary magazine and Flies, Cockroaches and Poets, the Chicano Writers and Artists Association journal. Online she has work on La Bloga, Poets Responding, Art of the Commune: La comuna, and as part of a collection of original art songs composed for The Opera Remix, Fresno Grand Opera.
Jon Grammatico has been writing poems since his high school days but began reading at local open mics last year. Jon received his Bachelor of Arts in Gender Studies and his Master of Social Work from Stanislaus State. He currently works as a social worker with Stanislaus County in the Public Health Department, functioning as the HIV/AIDS program coordinator and is the recently elected President of MoPride, the leading LGBTQ+ organization in Stanislaus county. When he is not writing, Jon spends his time tending to his 30+ house plants, caring for his two cats and dog, and listening to music. He currently lives in Turlock, CA with his partner.
Zoom link: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/99171810028
Open mic following the featured readers; sign up here: https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog - On Zoom!
2020-12-08 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
The MODESTO-STANISLAUS POETRY CENTER and your host Stella Beratlis are pleased to welcome Odilia Galván Rodríguez and Meg Withers for Second Tuesday Poetry on December 8, 2020. Join the reading via Zoom at 7 pm: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/91826874769

Odilia Galván Rodríguez is a poet, writer, editor, publisher, and social justice activist, the author of six volumes of poetry. Her latest is The Color of Light, FlowerSong Books, 2019. She is a long-time community organizer and volunteer and has been the editor for Matrix Women’s News Magazine, Community Murals Magazine and Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba. She currently edits two journals: Cloud Women’s Quarterly and Anacua Literary Arts.
Galván Rodríguez co-founded the Facebook page “Poets Responding,” and co-authored the groundbreaking, award winning anthology, Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, University of Arizona Press. Her poetry and writings have appeared in numerous anthologies, and literary journals. She is a practitioner of Indigenous Spiritual and Healing Traditions and strives to live a simple life based on the indigenous worldview of her ancestors.

Meg Withers has been writing to save her sanity since she was about 9. She has been published in literary journals and other creative projects. She has been anthologized, and has three published books: Must Be Present to Win (Ghost Road 2005), A Communion of Saints (TinFish 2008), and Shadowed: Unheard Voices (Press at Fresno State 2014).
Her fourth book, Particular Odyssey: In Search, is forthcoming from Prickly Pear Press, and is likely to be published in 2021, barring the unforeseen circumstances of life these days. The basis for Meg’s work is concern with the attempt to silence voices.
Open mic follows the featured readers. Please sign up in advance at https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday.

Poetry on Sunday Series
2020-12-13 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom
Please join us for the December edition of MoSt’s quarterly Poetry On Sunday Readings on Sunday, December 13th at 2:00 P. M. While we look forward to a time we can all gather again at the Carnegie Arts Center, this time we’ll be on ZOOM: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84608931424
Join us, too, for the Open Mic time following the featured readers! And please feel free to download and print our PDF flyer.

Jay Deshpande is the author of Love the Stranger and The Rest of the Body (both from YesYes Books) and the new chapbook The Umbrian Sonnets (PANK). His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a Kundiman fellowship, and residencies at Civitella Ranieri and the Saltonstall Arts Colony. He teaches at Brooklyn Poets and Columbia University’s School of the Arts.

Prageeta Sharma is the author of the poetry collections Grief Sequence (Wave Books, 2019), Undergloom (Fence Books, 2013), Infamous Landscapes (Fence Books, 2007), The Opening Question (Fence Books, 2004), which won the 2004 Fence Modern Poets Prize, and Bliss to Fill (Subpress, 2000). She is the founder of the conference Thinking Its Presence: Race, Creative Writing, Literary Studies and Art. A recipient of the 2010 Howard Foundation Award and a finalist for the 2020 Four Quartets Prize, she has taught at the University of Montana and now teaches at Pomona College.​

Second Tuesday @ Barkin’ Dog – On Zoom!
2021-01-12 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
Please join the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and host Stella Beratlis as we present the first Second Tuesday Poetry reading of 2021! Helping us ring in this year are featured poets Sam Pereira and Dawn Trook, followed by a dynamic open mic.
Sam Pereira is from Los Banos, California; he received his Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Fresno and his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa, where he was a student in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His books include The Marriage of the Portuguese (L’Epervier Press, 1978), Brittle Water (Abattoir Editions/Penumbra Press, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 1987),[3] and A Cafe in Boca, released in 2007 by Tebot Bach. In December, 2020, Nine Mile Press published Pereira’s seventh collection of poems, True North and Untrue You.
Dawn Trook is a writer, theater producer, performer, and educator. She teaches writing at UC Merced. Though she focuses on non-traditional methods of poetry distribution, she has been published in The Rumpus, Ms Magazine, and several literary journals.
Join us at 7 via Zoom: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/99542317135
Open mic signups at https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog - on Zoom!
2021-02-09 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and host Stella Beratlis are pleased to welcome Josiah Luis Alderete and Anthony Cody for Second Tuesday Poetry on Tuesday Feb. 9, 2021. Join the reading via Zoom at 7 pm: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/91076973120
Open Mic signup: https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday

Josiah Luis Alderete is a full blooded Pocho Spanglish speaking poet from La Area Bahia who learned to write poetry in the kitchen of his Mama’s Mexican restaurant. He first began performing his poetry in San Francisco’s Mission District at the infamous Cafe Babar’s Thursday night readings and was one of the founding members of San Francisco’s outspoken word troupe, The Molotov Mouths. He is also a radio insurgente whose stories have appeared on KALW’s “Crosscurrents” and whose show, “The Spanglish Power Hour,” aired on KPFA. He curates and hosts the monthly Latinx reading series Speaking Axolotl at Nomadic Press in Oakland. Josiah Luis Alderete’s first book of poems, Baby Axolotls y Old Pochos, is forthcoming from Black Freighter Press.
Anthony Cody is the author of Borderland Apocrypha (Omnidawn, April 2020), winner of the 2018 Omnidawn Open Book Contest selected by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry , and longlisted for the PEN America / Jean Stein Book Award. He is a 2020 Poets & Writers debut poet and a 2020 Southwest Book Award winner from the Border Regional Library Association. A CantoMundo fellow from Fresno, California, Anthony has lineage in both the Bracero Program and the Dust Bowl. His poetry has appeared in The Academy of American Poets: Poem-A-Day, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, The Boiler, ctrl+v journal, among others. Anthony is a member of the Hmong American Writers’ Circle where he co-edited How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology. He is a recent MFA-Creative Writing graduate from Fresno State where he continues to collaborate with Juan Felipe Herrera and the Laureate Lab Visual Wordist Studio. Anthony has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, and Desert Nights, Rising Stars Conference. Anthony won the inaugural 2020 CantoMundo Guzmán Mendoza / Paredez Fellowship for his work-in-progress poetry manuscript, “The Rendering”, selected by Aracelis Girmay. He serves as an associate poetry editor for Noemi Press and a poetry editor for Omnidawn.

Poetry on Sunday Series
2021-02-21 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom
Download the PDF Flyer here!
Please join us for the February edition of MoSt’s quarterly Poetry On Sunday Readings on Sunday, February 21st at 2:00 P.M., featuring local poets Ed Bearden and Cleo Griffith. While we look forward to a time we can all gather again at the Carnegie Arts Center, this time we’ll be on ZOOM: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83974391144
Open Mic Time follows, including poems from the New Year’s Poetry Challenge.
Free and open to the public. Join us in celebrating the written and spoken word!

Ed Bearden has been published in Penumbra, Quercus Review, In The Grove and the anthology More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets. He is the recipient of the 2007 Award in Literary Arts presented by the Stanislaus Arts Council. His poetry has received three Pushcart Prize nominations. He was the 2008-2012 Poet Laureate for the City of Modesto. His work is scheduled to appear later this year in Evening Street Review.
Cleo Griffith was Chair of the Editorial Board of Song of the San Joaquin for its first twelve years and remains on the Board in its 17th year. She is vice-president of the Modesto branch of the National League of American Pen Women. Widely published, she lives in Salida, California with her cats Amber and Neil.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog - on Zoom!
2021-03-09 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and host Stella Beratlis are pleased to welcome Iris Jamahl Dunkle and Cathryn Shea for Second Tuesday Poetry on Tuesday, March 9, 2021. Join the reading via Zoom at 7 pm: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/96055243749
Open Mic signup: https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday

Iris Jamahl Dunkle writes and lives in Northern California. An award-winning literary biographer, essayist, and poet, her academic and creative work challenges the western myth of progress by examining the devastating impact that agriculture and overpopulation have had, and continue to have, on the North American West. Taking an ecofeminist bent, her writing also challenges the American West’s androcentric recorded history by researching the lives of women. As Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, she witnessed first-hand the devastating 2017 wildfires. These fires were the catalyst for her latest collection of poetry West : Fire : Archive and her investigation of her family’s migration to California during the Dust Bowl. Twitter: @irjohnso
Cathryn Shea’s poetry has been published in New Orleans Review, Typishly, After the Pause, burntdistrict, Permafrost, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere; she has also been shortlisted or selected for a variety of poetry prizes, including winning the Marjorie J. WIlson Award, judged by Charles Simic. She’s the author of four chapbooks and her first full-length collection, Genealogy Lesson for the Laity, was just published in September 2020 by Unsolicited Press of Portland, Oregon. Poet Thomas Centolella author of Almost Human (Tupelo Press, winner of the Dorset Prize),Terra Firma, Lights & Mysteries, and Views from along the Middle Way (Copper Canyon), notes the following about Cathryn’s work: “Focused chiefly on the domestic life, with all its “important confusion,” but also ranging into the transpersonal, Shea holds a particular regard for subjects that have vanished or are on the verge of vanishing, and does her best to rescue them with her appealingly quirky style, sometimes comic, sometimes melancholy, and always vested with affection.” Follow Cathryn on Twitter: @cathy_shea.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog - on Zoom!
2021-04-13 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and host Gillian Wegener are pleased to welcome Sixteen Rivers Press poets Stella Beratlis and Dane Cervine Second Tuesday Poetry on Tuesday April 13, 2021. Join the reading via Zoom at 7 pm: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/94208575176 and sign up for Open Mic (3 mins each poet) following the featured poets.
Open Mic signup: https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday

Stella Beratlis grew up in a second-generation Greek-American family in Northern California. Her first collection of poems, Alkali Sink, was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2015 and was a nominee for the Northern California Book Awards in poetry. Her work has also appeared in numerous journals, including Harbor Review, Penumbra, Song of the San Joaquin, In-Posse Review, and California Quarterly, as well as in the anthologies The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems from the San Francisco Bay Watershed (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010) and California Fire and Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology (Story Streets, 2020). She is coeditor of the collection More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets (Quercus Review Press, 2011) and served as the poet laureate of Modesto from 2016 to 2020. Beratlis lives and works as a librarian in Modesto.
About Dust Bowl Venus:
With tenderness, wit, and humor, Dust Bowl Venus explores the fragility of love, good health, and the Earth. Rooted not just in the city of Modesto but also in the music, legends, and community of the Central Valley, these poems brilliantly reflect a struggle to find beauty in the contradictions of our contemporary lives. Amazingly thoughtful and musical, these are poems we should all read. —Judy Halebsky, author of Spring and a Thousand Years and Sky=Empty
“The poems in Stella Beratlis’s Dust Bowl Venus ring with the clarity of a shovel strike against stone, each line cracking against the next, igniting spark after glorious spark. And yet, like the seasonal lake bed on which Modesto sits, like the many hands ‘making mud out of dry soil,’ every poem aches toward tenderness. In one poem, Beratlis asks ‘What grows here?’ before revealing the bounty—heirloom tomatoes, holy basil, kindness—that can be coaxed from this ‘city of drought.’ But darker things grow here, too: a tumor ‘the consistency of a potato,’ fear, terror that ‘builds cell by sticky cell.’ Here, to grow, and to love, is to risk vulnerability. These’“bone-and-ligament / narratives’ of grief and yearning, illness and healing, perseverance and resistance, beat with so much heart in this fiercely beautiful book.” —Erin Rodoni, author of Body, in Good Light and A Landscape for Loss
“Stella Beratlis’s Dust Bowl Venus animates California’s Central Valley as a postmodern Prometheus, an eco-sapient Frankenstein with whom we wrangle, wrestle, and fall madly in love. With sass and grit and grace, Beratlis’s craft is brilliant in its imagistic associations that jolt and jump cut in powers of ten. These poems stir us with the urgency of the Anthropocene and form a ‘mycorrhizal web’ that connects us to the mantle of deep time.” —Rosa Lane, author of Chouteau’s Chalk and Tiller North

Dane Cervine is a poet whose recent books include Earth Is a Fickle Dancer (Main Street Rag), and The Gateless Gate – Polishing the Moon Sword, from Saddle Road Press in Hawaii. Previous poetry books include Kung Fu of the Dark Father, How Therapists Dance, The Jeweled Net of Indra, and What a Father Dreams. Dane’s poems have won awards from Adrienne Rich, Tony Hoagland, the Atlanta Review, Caesura, and been nominated for a Pushcart. His work appears in The SUN, the Hudson Review, TriQuarterly, Poetry Flash, Catamaran, Miramar, Rattle, Sycamore Review, and Pedestal Magazine, among others. You can read more about Dane’s work at his blog: https://danecervine.typepad.com/
About The World Is God’s Language:
“Dane Cervine’s new book, The World Is God’s Language, is a raft for troubled souls, a balm for aching hearts, and a tree of koan-like wisdom nuggets to be squirreled away and returned to again and again. These prose poems often address loss and difficulties but with a lightness of touch that emphasizes the spiritual lessons they can embody. . . . Dane Cervine steadies us with his attention to each word, his deceptive simplicity of language, and his calibrated spirituality—which outlines mysteries, rather than attempting to fill them in. These remarkable poems are Rumi-like pearls.”
—David Sullivan, author of Seed Shell Ash
“Dane Cervine’s poems cast their attention on the everyday—his father’s slippers, an orange cat, the last biscuit in a box—and find the extraordinary in what’s in front of all of us. Even when the poems take place in distant locales, Cervine makes magic with simplicity. Hand in hand, he takes his readers to the edge, and willingly, we jump with him.”
—Patrice Vecchione, author of My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice: A Guide to Writing Poetry & Speaking Your Truth

Annual Benefit Gala
2021-04-25 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom
SAVE THE DATE!
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center will hold its benefit on Sunday, April 25th, from 2-4 pm, on Zoom. There will be music, there will be poetry, and while we still won’t be able to be in person, we will share the amazing camaraderie of our poetry community and seriously rejoice in that!
To buy tickets, please go to most2021.eventbrite.com. If you would like to support our gala fundraising effort, please visit our Fundly page.
Our featured poets for the event will be longtime MoSt supporters Lee Herrick and Indigo Moor. To download a copy of the flyer, please click here.

Lee Herrick is the author of three books of poems: Scar and Flower, finalist for the 2020 Northern California Book Award, Gardening Secrets of the Dead and This Many Miles from Desire. He is co-editor of the anthology The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (Orison Books). His poems appear widely in literary magazines, textbooks, and anthologies such as HERE: Poems for the Planet, with an introduction by the Dalai Lama; Indivisible: Poems of Social Justice, with an introduction by Common; One for the Money: The Sentence as Poetic Form; and California Fire and Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology. His prose has appeared in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, and elsewhere. He served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. Born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted to the United States at ten months, he teaches at Fresno City College, where he co-founded the forthcoming Social Justice and Cultural Center, and in the MFA program at Sierra Nevada University.
Indigo Moor is a multi-genre, award-winning writer and teacher. His second book of poetry, Through the Stonecutter’s Window, won the Northwestern University Press’s Cave Canem prize. His first book, Tap-Root, was published as part of Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Select Poetry Series. His stageplay, Live! at the Excelsior, was a finalist for the Images Theatre Playwright Award. Indigo is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA Program—where he studied poetry, fiction, and scriptwriting—and a graduate member of the Artist’s Residency Institute for Teaching Artists. A musician and photographer, Indigo’s collaborations include the Artists Embassy International Dancing Poetry Festival, the Livermore Ekphrastic Project, and the Davis Jazz Arts Festival.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog - on Zoom
2021-05-11 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and host Stella Beratlis are pleased to feature poets Lelania Fowler and Salvatore Salerno for Second Tuesday Poetry on Tuesday May 11, 2021. Join the reading via Zoom at 7 pm (https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/92855890148) and sign up for open mic (3 mins each poet, maximum 10 poets) following the featured poets.
Zoom link: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/92855890148
Open Mic signup: https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday

Lelania Fowler
Born and reared on the Eastside of Santa Barbara, California, Lelania Fowler experienced a Chicano/Hippie hybrid childhood. Later as a homeless teen, she bounced between Long Beach, Hollywood, and her hometown of Santa Barbara before relocating to Sacramento. In the late 1980s, she became part of a thriving music and arts scene and she began songwriting for local musicians.She writes about PTSD, sexual violence, California nature themes, and is a mental health activist.Her poetry has most recently been published in Quiet Rooms, a global anthology published by Cold River Press. Under a Milk Glass Moon is her first collection of poetry.
About Under a Milk Glass Moon:
“An excellent debut collection of poetry. Lelania’s long strophic lines and sparkler-like images propel these excursions into another realm. The work is not lyrical or narrative but cuts a lovely landscape between these genres. Refreshing to read and re-read.” –D.R. Wagner
“Lelania Fowler’s Under A Milk Glass Moon is, I am convinced, a collection of hymns to the Hindu goddess Kali, Mother of All, adorned in her necklace of human heads. There is a female energy in this writing to which I, as a male, have been blind and deaf, a feminine language in which I am not fluent. Even so, the poems themselves contain keys to help me unlock doors I
never knew existed.” —Robert Lee Haycock

Salvatore Salerno
Salvatore Salerno has an M.F.A. from University of North Carolina, where he was awarded The Academy of American Poets University Prize. He is retired from teaching English and Drama at Grace Davis High School. More than 120 of his poems have been published in numerous periodicals. His latest poetry book is Hello, Posterity. He has also independently published volumes of nonfiction, plays, and short stories.
Salvatore is a board member of Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center, and he is also the president of the Stanislaus Audubon Society. He is the current poet laureate of Modesto.

Poetry on Sunday Series
2021-05-23 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom
Please join us for the May edition of MoSt’s quarterly Poetry On Sunday Readings on Sunday, May 23rd at 2:00 P. M. While we look forward to a time we can all gather again at the Carnegie Arts Center, this time we’ll be on ZOOM. Join us, too, for the Open Mic time following the featured readers!
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85841157090
Click here to download the PDF flyer.

Josiah Luis Alderete is a full-blooded Pocho, Spanglish-speaking poeta who has been an active part of la Area Bahia’s spoken word scene for over twenty years. He was a founding member of outspoken word group “The Molotov Mouths” and is the curator and host of the long-running monthly Chicanx/Latinx reading series “Speaking Axolotl” which happens the 3rd Thursday of every month in el Zoom mundo. Josiah’s book of poems, Baby Axolotls y Old Pochos is being released this April from Black Freighter Press.
Whether sharing stages with legendary beat poets or your favorite Hip Hop emcees, Andru Defeye’s unorthodox writing and performance style has made him a fixture behing microphones around the country. 2020 saw the release of his critically acclaimed Frequency album, followed shortly after by his crowning as the youngest Poet Laureate in California capitol history. From Sacramento to Staten Island and SXSW, Andru served as the Director of Communications for Sol Collective from 2009-2020. In 2014 Defeye founded Zero Forbidden Goals, a support system for creatives dedicated to innovating arts equity, experiences, and education. ZFG’s guerilla art activations including National Guerilla Poetry Month, Chainlink Poetry, and The Intersection have been covered and recreated around the globe.
Angela Drew is a mother, dancer, poet, and spoken word performer who has loved the rhythm of words for as long as she can remember. Born in Berkeley, CA, she began writing at age eight and has always understood that words have the power to soothe, stir, or solidify connection. Thus, her lifelong love affair with storytelling began. Angela has performed at various venues throughout Modesto, Sacramento and Bay Areas, including Modesto Junior College, Modesto’s inaugural “Ill List Poetry Slam” at the State Theater, the Gallo Center for the Arts, in a Sankofa Community Theater production of The Journey—The African American Experience, and the Hildegard Festival of Women in the Arts, Turlock and the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center’s poetry event “Words Worth Speaking,” to name a few. Angela’s spoken word piece, “BWE: The Black Woman Experience” was recently featured at the 2020 NAACP Modesto/Stanislaus Virtual Black Graduates Recognition Ceremony and her poetry was included in COLLISION VI, the February 2020 exhibit at the Mistlin Gallery which featured poet-photographer collaborations.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog - on Zoom!
2021-06-08 19:00 - 20:30 | Zoom
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and host Stella Beratlis are pleased to feature poets Indigo Moor and Jennifer K. Sweeney for Second Tuesday Poetry on Tuesday June 8, 2021. Join the reading via Zoom at 7 pm (https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/94454258218). Open mic (3 mins each poet, maximum 10 poets) following the featured poets.
Join reading: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/94454258218
Open mic following featured readers. To sign up: https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday

Jennifer K. Sweeney
Jennifer K. Sweeney is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Foxlogic, Fireweed, winner of the Backwaters Prize from Backwaters Press/University of Nebraska. Her other collections are Little Spells (New Issues Press, 2015), How to Live on Bread and Music (Perugia Press), and Salt Memory (Main Street Rag). She is the recipient of many awards, including the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Perugia Press Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. She teaches poetry workshops at the University of Redlands in California, and is known for a decade-long practice of private instruction and manuscript critique.
Foxlogic, Fireweed can be purchased from the University of Nebraska Press, linked from Jennifer’s website: https://www.jenniferksweeney.com/
About FOXLOGIC, FIREWEED
“Foxlogic, Fireweed is a torn map of a state where all words are proximate to mystery. Venturing into terra incognita, into territory that might be anima mundi, maybe, reader, you think you know the lineaments, but they are altered. Altared. Yes, to dream space, but wilder, wider—this metal into bird, stone into air, mother into vulpine. Sweeney is breathing strangeness into a small body of words, and the expanses open exponentially.”—Marsha de la O
​“The logic of Foxlogic, Fireweed is human and humane; it’s the logic of a penetrative tenderness and an embodiment always on the verge of dispersing into fox, or deer, or rain. . . . These are not bandwagon poems. They don’t mug for the camera. Rather, they enact a love ‘sourced in loneliness’ where ‘with our little keys of witness’ we find each other—the very definition of the lyric poem.”—Diane Seuss

Indigo Moor
Indigo Moor is the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Sacramento. His fourth book of poetry, Everybody’s Jonesin’ for Something, took second place in the University of Nebraska Press’ Backwater Prize. His second book, Through the Stonecutter’s Window, won Northwestern University Press’s Cave Canem prize. His first and third books, Tap-Root and In the Room of Thirsts & Hungers, were both part of Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Select Poetry Series. Indigo is an adjunct professor at Dominican University and visiting faculty for Dominican’s MFA program, teaching poetry and short fiction.
Indigo is a former faculty member at the Stonecoast MFA Program, where he graduated in 2012 with an MFA in poetry, fiction, and scriptwriting. He’s a playwright as well: his full-length stageplay, Live! at the Excelsior, was a finalist for the Images Theatre Playwright Award, and the subsequent screenplay has been optioned for a full-length film.
Indigo is a Cave Canem fellow, former resident artist at 916 ink, and a graduate member of the Artist’s Residency Institute for Teaching Artists.
A 10-year veteran of the US Navy and a twice-decorated Gulf War Veteran, Indigo divides his time between writing, teaching, and Integrated Circuit Layout Designer for computer companies.
About EVERYBODY’S JONESIN’ FOR SOMETHING
“Narratives don’t always belong to history’s victors,’’ writes Indigo Moor. If this line gives you pause, I strongly suggest you carry Moor’s brilliant book, Everybody’s Jonesin’ for Something, home with you. In this dazzling book, you will read just how closely this poet has been paying attention, to us, to his histories, foreign and domestic, to our mighty (and sometimes mighty confusing) nation. Jonesin’ is a verse flashlight to all the corners you thought no one was supposed to pay attention to, line by beautifully crafted line, truth by earned truth. You’ll reach the last line of the last poem, and trust me, that’s when the hunger for more will begin.”—Cornelius Eady, author of The War Against the Obvious
“Indigo Moor’s new collection shuttles between searing rebuke and hopeful anguish with accents of hard-edged humor. What I love most is the clarity of thought—the no-holds-barred, no-punches-pulled sharpness of the language that carries the reader through each poem, jonesin’ for the next. Everybody’s Jonesin’ for Something invites you out of your complacency and fuels a restlessness that reminds you that you’re alive, that this is no time for sleeping.”—Tim Seibles, author of One Turn around the Sun

Second Tuesday Poetry Reading with Nicca Ray and Michelle Cernuto
2021-08-10 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center features authors Nicca Ray and Michelle Cernuto for the August installment of Second Tuesday Poetry. Join us for a great mix of poetry, ghost fiction, and punk rock memoir on Tuesday, August 10 at 7 pm on Zooom. Hosted by Stella Beratlis with open mic following the featured readers.

Zoom: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/91909197367
Open mic signup: https://form.jotform.com/berattle/secondtuesday

NICCA RAY
Nicca Ray’s poetry collection, BACK SEAT BABY, was recently published by Chris D.’s Poison Fang Books. In the forward, Ann Magnusun writes, “Plumbing the depths of uncertainty and loneliness, Ray finds gold in the collective swamplands of our souls.” The poet, Charles Plymell, calls Back Seat Baby the “High Noon of poetry.”

Nicca Ray’s memoir RAY BY RAY: A DAUGHTER’S TAKE ON THE LEGEND OF NICHOLAS RAY (Three Rooms Press, 2020) has been called “harrowing, beautifully written and near-impossible to put down” by Shelf Awareness and “a daring revelation of strength and survival, told unflinchingly, bravely, with empathy, sympathy and ultimately an understanding of a great artist who is almost impossible to fathom,” by Ronee Blakely, actress, singer and Academy Award nominee.
Nicca is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a 2020 Acker Award recipient.

MICHELLE CERNUTO
Michelle Cernuto is the author of the recently published YOU USED TO KNOW ME, a fictional coming-of-age account of growing up in Las Vegas in the 80s.

“A mash note from beyond the grave to a lost Vegas. 1980s punk teen dysfunction… a melancholic travelogue through a spiritual wasteland. The self-effacing murder victim gives us a matter-of-fact, blow-by-blow commentary as she haunts both her friends and her predator in a suburban, desert dystopia…. We see ominous harbingers of Death rushing headlong towards us, much like an out-of-control carnival ride…locked into one final, endlessly accelerating rollercoaster to oblivion. There’s no getting off, and the effect is harrowing and masterful.– Chris D. (author of No Evil Star, Dragon Wheel Splendor and Other Love Stories of Violence and Dread, Mother’s Worry, et.al.; singer/songwriter of the bands The Flesh Eaters and Divine Horsemen)

“A vivid recollection of a crazy time in the crazy place of the American Southwest…a transitional time before entire cities were turned into theme parks. Magically real, her story echoes the truth of the women I grew up with, who fought an oppression they could feel empirically but not always articulate with street smarts and sheer guts. And then there are the ghosts…” – Victor Krummenacher (of bands Camper Van Beethoven, Monks of Doom and The Third Mind)

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Poetry On Sunday Series featuring Dane Cervine & Stella Beratlis
2021-08-15 14:00 - 16:00
Join host Gary Thomas and our featured readers Stella Beratlis and Dane Cervine for the Sunday, August 15th edition of MoSt’s Poetry On Sunday Series readings on Zoom, beginning at 2:00 P. M. Pacific Time.
Stella Beratlis is the author of Alkali Sink (2015) and her latest collection, Dust Bowl Venus (May 2021). Her poems have appeared in the anthologies The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems from the San Franciso Bay Watershed (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2010) and California Fire and Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology (Story Streets, 2020). Beratis served as Modesto’s poet laureate from 2016-2020 and works as a librarian there.
Dane Cervine is a poet whose recent books include Earth Is a Fickle Dancer (Main Street Rag), and The Gateless Gate – Polishing the Moon Sword, from Saddle Road Press in Hawaii. Previous poetry books include Kung Fu of the Dark Father, How Therapists Dance, The Jeweled Net of Indra, and What a Father Dreams. Dane’s poems have won awards from Adrienne Rich, Tony Hoagland, the Atlanta Review, Caesura, and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His work appears in The SUN, the Hudson Review, TriQuarterly, Poetry Flash, Catamaran, Miramar, Rattle, Sycamore Review, and Pedestal Magazine, among others. You can read more about Dane at his blog: https://danecervine.typepad.com/
Here is the Zoom link to the reading:
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Meeting ID: 833 7514 2037
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Stella’s latest book, Dust Bowl Venus, and Dane’s new book, The World is God’s Language, have recently been published by Sixteen Rivers Press. For more information about the authors and the books, go to these pages on the Sixteen Rivers site:
https://sixteenrivers.org/authors/stellaberatlis/
https://sixteenrivers.org/authors/dane-cervine/
Our usual Open Mic Time will follow the featured readers. We look forward to seeing you!

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Julia B. Levine & Matthew Lippman plus open mic
2021-10-12 19:00 - 20:00
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and host Stella Beratlis are pleased to welcome poets Julia B. Levine and Matthew Lippman on Tuesday, October 12, 2021. Join the reading via Zoom at 7 pm: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/91357899430. Sign up for Open Mic (3 mins each poet) following the featured poets.
JULIA B. LEVINE
Julia B. Levine has won numerous awards for her work, including the 2015 Northern California Book Award in Poetry for her fourth collection of poetry, Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight, (LSU press 2014), first prize in the 2019 Bellevue Literary Review poetry contest, 2019 Public Poetry Awards, 2018 Tiferet Poetry Prize, as well as the 2003 Tampa Review Poetry Prize for Ask, and the 1998 Anhinga Poetry prize as well as a bronze medal from Foreword magazine for her first collection, Practicing for Heaven. Her fifth and most recent collection, Ordinary Psalms, is now available from LSU press.
MATTHEW LIPPMAN
Matthew Lippman’s collection Mesmerizingly Sadly Beautiful (2020) is published by Four Way Books. It was the recipient of the 2018 Levis Prize. He is the author of 5 other poetry collections.
Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 7 pm PDT
Zoom link: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/91357899430
Open Mic signup: https://forms.gle/j6dsvm31MA2377Pu6
————
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Meeting ID: 913 5789 9430

Second Tuesday Poetry Reading featuring Cristina Sandoval & Manny Moreno
2021-11-09 19:00 - 20:00 | Google Meet
The‌ ‌Modesto-Stanislaus‌ ‌Poetry‌ ‌Center‌ ‌features‌ ‌poets Cristina Sandoval and Manny Moreno for the November installment‌ ‌of‌ ‌Second‌ ‌Tuesday‌ ‌Poetry.‌ ‌Join‌ ‌us‌ ‌to hear these two poets read for us as first-time featured poets on Tuesday,‌ November 9, at‌ ‌7‌ ‌pm‌, ‌on‌ ‌Google Meet. Hosted‌ ‌by‌ ‌Stella‌ ‌Beratlis‌ ‌with‌ ‌open‌ ‌mic‌ ‌following‌ ‌the‌ ‌featured‌ ‌readers.‌ ‌
Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/yzr-effe-nrh
Otherwise, to join by phone, dial +1 760-654-5100 and enter this PIN: 914 592 889#

Sign up for Open Mic: https://forms.gle/v8J9cK9RXn4YDwwc9
CRISTINA SANDOVAL
Cristina Sandoval is an MFA student at Fresno State University and a poet to the bone. Cristina has been a purveyor of words since she can remember. She is a proud Chicana and is desperately in love with language. She often mixes her two languages, Spanish and English, in an attempt to bridge the beauty and hurt in both. Her work often focuses on family, mental health, and finding meaning in the terrible. She has two books on Amazon, Moon Ride, and We Need Bad Bitches. Her work has been featured in Penumbra, Artifact Nouveau, Exist(ir), and Dystopian Dance Party. Her thesis work is centered around the nature of family, culture, and hair. She is from Modesto, California, and now lives in Fresno. And if you were wondering, yes, she misses Mr. T’s Donuts!
MANNY MONOLIN
Monolin “Manny” Moreno is the author of four books, the most recent of which is a collection of poems, Longview Road. Manny’s previous works include Scared–Coming Full Circle: A Memoir; his first poetry collection, The Bridge Is Gone; and The Elder: A Tribute, about the importance of elders in the community and about two Native American elders in particular.
His poems are about growing up in Livingston, where his family’s roots were established in the early 1900s, and about a wide range of topics.
Manny is a Member of the Black Wolf Honor Society Gourd Clan, a member of Native American Church and Sundances yearly in South Dakota. Manny is of Yaqui/Tarascan descent. Manny has been featured in interviews on Native Voice TV, Channel 10, Sacramento and Company, KKUP Radio/Indian Time and Two Roads Productions. He has been a speaker at Modesto Junior College and various events. He was nominated for the Pushcart Award in 2011.
ACCESS THE READING:
Google Meet: To join the video meeting, click this link: meet.google.com/yzr-effe-nrh
To join by phone instead, dial (US) +1 760-654-5100 and enter this PIN: 914 592 889#
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Poetry on Sunday Series
2021-11-21 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom
Poetry On Sunday Series Reading: November 21, 2021
Join host Gary Thomas and our featured readers Gerald Fleming, Michael Meyerhofer, And Melchor Sahagun III for the November 21st, 2021 edition of MoSt’s Poetry On Sunday Series readings on Zoom, beginning at 2:00 P. M. Pacific Time.
Gerald Fleming‘s The Bastard and the Bishop is his third Hanging Loose Press title. Previous are Night of Pure Breathing and One, an experiment in monosyllabic prose poems. He’s published two books with Sixteen Rivers Press (Swimmer Climbing Onto Shore and The Choreographer) and recently edited The Collected Poetry and Prose of Lawrence Fixel, also a Sixteen Rivers title. He’s edited literary magazines traditional, vitreous, and epistolary.
Michael Meyerhofer’s fifth poetry book, Ragged Eden, was published by Glass Lyre Press in 2019. He has been the startled recipient of the James Wright Poetry Award, the Brick Road Poetry Book Prize, and other honors. He is also the author of a fantasy series, and serves as the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. For more information and an embarrassing childhood photo, visit troublewithhammers.com.
Melchor Sahagun III says, “I do stuff; like Poetry, Skateboarding, Music, Comic Books, that sort of stuff. I’m in my late thirties, but I somehow feel simultaneously younger and much older than I am—it’s weird. I’m weird. You’re weird. Life is weird. I don’t really know what I’m doing, to be honest, but that’s all right because neither do you. I like my cats, A LOT. I like you a lot, too.”
Our usual Open Mic Time will follow the featured readers. We look forward to seeing you!
MoSt Poetry Center is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: MoSt’s Poetry On Sunday Series Reading–November 21, 2021
Time: Nov 21, 2021 02:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

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Second Tuesday Poetry featuring George Higgins and Rick Bursky
2021-12-14 19:00 - 20:30
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to welcome poets George Higgins and Rick Bursky on Tuesday, December 14, 2021. Register in advance for this meeting: https://tinyurl.com/2p8k6saw. Sign up for Open Mic (3 mins each poet) following the featured poets: https://forms.gle/vYexC9AiS7d7Cgeo7. Hosted by Stella Beratlis.
George Higgins’s book, There There, was published by Kelsay Books/White Violet Press. He has been published in Best American Poetry and more recently in Prairie Schooner and Catamaran.
Rick Bursky’s most recent book, Let’s Become a Ghost Story, is out from BOA Editions. His previous book, I’m No Longer Troubled by The Extravagance, is also from BOA Editions. He teaches poetry for The Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Erin Rodoni & Dana Koster
2022-01-11 19:00 - 20:00
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center invites you to the first Second Tuesday Poetry reading of 2022, featuring Erin Rodoni and Dana Koster.
When: Tuesday, January 11, 2022 at 7 pm PST
Where: Zoom (RSVP https://tinyurl.com/4c3byekj)

ERIN RODONI
Erin Rodoni’s most recent book is And if the Woods Carry You, winner of the 2020 Southern Indiana Review Michael Waters Poetry Prize. Her two previous collections are: Body, in Good Light and A Landscape for Loss. Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies such as Blackbird, Poetry Northwest, and Best New Poets. She has won awards from AWP, Ninth Letter, and the Montreal International Poetry Prize. She teaches at the Writing Salon in San Francisco and serves on the board of the Marin Poetry Center.
And if the Woods Carry You, Winner of the 2020 Michael Waters Poetry Prize: On the brink of climate catastrophe, a mother grappling with her choice to bring children into an apocalyptic world sends her daughters into the woods of fairy tale as a rite of initiation. The woods carry her fears of extinction— devastating fires, rising seas, and the predatory dangers of girlhood—but also contain the transformative magic of love, interdependence, and renewal. And if the Woods Carry You roots into the wild heart of motherhood, where worry and wonder intertwine.
“Like all great fairy tales, Erin Rodoni’s poems are a glorious marriage of the domestic and the dangerous. There are tests and transformations, solitudes and sacrifices, births and burials. Everything is changing into something else, something energized, erotic, and enchanted. But it is the poet’s attention to craft that lifts these poems from the beguiling world of mere narrative into the more magical realm of art. In language that feels both ancient and current, Rodoni manages to craft lyrics that seem to come from some other world while speaking truths to this one. This is a marvelous book with a poetic voice to enliven even the wildest woods.” –Dean Rader, author of Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry and Landscape Portrait Figure Form
DANA KOSTER
Dana Koster was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and grew up in Ventura, California. She earned her English degree from UC Berkeley and MFA in poetry from Cornell University. From 2011-2013, she was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. She lives in Modesto, California with her husband and two sons, where she works as a wedding photographer, occasional freelance writer and half of the art partnership Broad Sides with her collaborator, Chelsea America.
Dana’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in EPOCH, Indiana Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Cincinnati Review, PN Review, Clackamas Literary Review, THRUSH Poetry Journal and many others. She has work in the anthologies America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience, Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books, Haiku of the Living Dead and More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets. In 2012, she was the recipient of a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize and a Theodore Christian Hoepfner Award. Her first book, Binary Stars, was published by Carolina Wren Press in 2017. She makes a lot of claims about immortality and ghosts on her twitter account.
“We need a new word (astro-tropism?) for the poetry of Binary Stars. For the way it leaps into stellar depths to cast a gaze sharp as a hummingbird’s beak back on the extended family cluster. Two stars, a larger and a smaller, in tight rotation, yield binary poems in clumps and couplets in the first-person dual and second-person singular: to the baby, the husband (with orbiting cows, horses, and almonds), the burned-out but still gravitational father-in-law and mother, and the therapist, whose analytical gaze is returned with equal intensity. Koster has written a domestic poetry not “of the heart,” not soft-focused, but of the barycenter, the binary center of gravity, in which the familiar, thrown off kilter, becomes alienated, estranged, and new. Dare you read a poetry at the white heat? Then open Binary Stars, an incandescent book of the first magnitude.”
—John Shoptaw, author of Times Beach

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Kelly Cressio-Moeller & John Sibley Williams
2022-02-08 19:00 - 20:00
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present the Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Kelly Cressio-Moeller and John Sibley Williams, hosted by Stella Beratlis with an open mic following the featured poets.
Tuesday, February 8, 2022
7 pm PST
RSVP for Zoom
Sign up for open mic (3 mins per reader)
Kelly Cressio-Moeller
Kelly Cressio-Moeller is a poet and visual artist. Her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net, and have appeared widely in journals and at literary websites including Gargoyle, North American Review, Poet Lore, Salamander, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Water~Stone Review, and ZYZZYVA, among others. An associate editor at Glass Lyre Press, she lives in the Bay Area with her husband, two sons, and basset hound. Shade of Blue Trees from Two Sylvias Press (Finalist for the Wilder Prize) is her first poetry collection. Visit her website at www.kellycressiomoeller.com
John Sibley Williams
John Sibley Williams is the author of seven poetry collections. The most recent are the forthcoming Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award, 2021) and The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award, 2021), just published this month. A twenty-six-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Laux/Millar Prize, Wabash Prize, Philip Booth Award and others. Previous publishing credits include Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, and Poetry Northwest, among many others. John holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rivier University and an MA in Book Publishing from Portland State University. He is the founder and head teacher of Caesura Poetry Workshop, a virtual workshop series, and he serves as co-founder and editor of The Inflectionist Review. He also works as a poetry editor and book coach. John lives in Portland, Oregon.

Poetry on Sunday Series featuring Heather Altfeld and Troy Jollimore
2022-02-13 14:00 - 15:00 | Zoom
Join host Gary Thomas and our featured readers Heather Altfeld and Troy Jollimore for the February 13th, 2022 edition of MoSt’s Poetry On Sunday Series readings on Zoom, beginning at 2:00pmPacific Time.
Heather Altfeld’s second book of poems, Post Mortem, published in 2021 by Orison Books, was selected by Eric Pankey for the 2019 Orison Prize. Her first book, The Disappearing Theatre, won the 2015 Poets at Work Prize. She is the 2017 recipient of the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Conjunctions Magazine, Aeon, Orion Magazine, Narrative, ZYZZYVA, Poetry Northwest, and others. She teaches in the Honors Program and for the Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities at California State University, Chico.

Troy Jollimore is the author of four books of poetry and three books of philosophy, as well as numerous articles, essays, and reviews. His first collection of poetry, Tom Thomson in Purgatory, won the National Book Critics Circle award in poetry for 2006. His third, Syllabus of Errors, appeared on the New York Times’ list of the best books of poetry published in 2015. His most recent collection of poetry, Earthly Delights, was published by Princeton University Press in 2021. He is currently a Professor in the Philosophy Department at California State University, Chico. His poems have appeared in publications including the New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House, and The Best American Poetry 2020.

To attend the February 13, 2022 Poetry on Sunday Series reading, please register using the link below.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcucuGtrDIvHNMw1JjSYCkeUpOrZlGJHTMR

Second Tuesday Poetry presents Naming the Lost: The Fresno Poets Reading
2022-03-08 19:00 - 20:00
MoSt is thrilled to host a Zoom reading with Christopher Buckley, Gordon Preston, Lee Herrick, and Sam Pereira, who will talk about and read work from the anthology Naming the Lost: The Fresno Poets. The reading will include poems and excerpts from interviews and essays.
With open mic following the featured poets; 3 minutes per reader.
When: Tuesday, March 8, 2022 at 7 pm PST
Where: Zoom (RSVP in advance for link: https://tinyurl.com/4c3byekj)
Link for open mic signup: https://forms.gle/xVfDF4hUx89REVmq7

A Reading with Lara Gularte in conjunction with Festa: A Celebration of Portuguese Faith & Culture
2022-04-02 14:00 - 15:00 | Carnegie Arts Center, 250 N. Broadway, Turlock, CA, 95380, United States
Join MoSt Poetry, in partnership with the Carnegie Arts Center, as we present a reading with Lara Gularte in conjunction with the main lobby exhibition Festa: A Celebration of Portuguese Faith & Culture. Gularte is joined by local poet Sara Coito.
Lara Gularte lives and writes in the Sierra Foothills of California, and she is El Dorado County Poet Laureate 2021-2023. Her book of poetry, Kissing the Bee, was published by “The Bitter Oleander Press,” in 2018. Her forthcoming book, Fourth World Woman, published by Finishing Line Press, was published earlier this year.
Nominated for several Pushcart Prizes, Gularte has been published in national and international journals and anthologies. Her poetry depicting her Azorean heritage is included in the The Gávea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry, and in Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada. She is affiliated with the Cagarro Colloquium: Azorian Diaspora Writers, at the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI), California State University-Fresno.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring the poetry of Mexican poet Ulalume González de León
2022-04-12 19:00 - 20:00
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center presents Second Tuesday Poetry, featuring the poetry of Mexican poet Ulalume González de León from Plagiarisms/Plagios Vol. 2
with translators Terry Ehret &Nancy J. Morales and guest poet-translator William O’Daly.
Hosted by Stella Beratlis
Zoom–RSVP required: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvdu-oqDktGNSizk4tQoG2D1gD0ynwn0CD. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Open mic signup link (3 min per poet): https://forms.gle/PHW4ixpkG3U3zwJk8
About Ulalume González de León

Ulalume González de León was born in 1928 in Montevideo, Uruguay, the daughter of two poets, Roberto Ibañez and Sara de Ibañez. She studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Mexico.
While living in Mexico in 1948, Ulalume became a naturalized Mexican citizen. She married painter and architect Teodoro González de León, and together they had three children. She published essays, stories, and poems, and worked with Mexican poet and Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz as an editor of two literary journals, Plural and Vuelta. She also translated the work of H.D., Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Hughes, Lewis Carroll, and e.e. cummings.
In the 1970’s in Latin America, González de León was part of a generation of women writers challenging the traditional identities of women, marriage, and relationships. Her poetry earned her many awards, including the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, the Flower of Laura Poetry Prize, and the Alfonso X Prize. Ulalume González de León died in 2009 of respiratory failure and complications of Alzheimer’s.
About the Translators
Terry Ehret, one of the founders of Sixteen Rivers Press, has published four collections of poetry, most recently Night Sky Journey from Kelly’s Cove Press. Her literary awards include the National Poetry Series, the California Book Award, the Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize, a nomination for the Northern California Book Reviewer’s Award, and five Pushcart Prize nominations. From 2004–2006, she served as the poet laureate of Sonoma County where she lives and teaches writing.
Nancy J. Morales, a first-generation American of Puerto Rican parents, earned her bachelor’s degree from Rutgers College, a master’s in teaching English as a Second Language from Adelphi University, and a doctorate in education from Teachers College at Columbia University. She has taught at Dominican University, College of Marin, Sonoma State University, and other schools, from elementary to graduate levels. Currently she is a board member for the Northern California Chapter of the Fulbright Alumni Association and teaches Spanish to private clients.
About William O’Daly
William O’Daly is co-founder of Copper Canyon Press and a noted Neruda translator.

Many Voices, One Community: Gillian Wegener and Salvatore Salerno
2022-04-28 19:30 - 20:30
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center & Stanislaus County Library Present Many Voices, One Community, featuring Gillian Wegener and Salvatore Salerno, emeritus and current Poets Laureate of Modesto
Celebrate National Poetry Month by sharing your poetry! Read your poetry, or poems from one of your favorite poets. Reading time limited to three minutes per person.
Thursday, April 28
at 7 p.m. on Zoom
Register at www.stanislauslibrary.org to receive the Zoom link.

Second Tuesday Poetry Reading featuring Susan Kelly-Dewitt & Linda Toren
2022-05-10 19:00 - 20:00
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center presents Second Tuesday Poetry, featuring Susan Kelly-Dewitt and Linda Toren.
Hosted by Gary Thomas
Date: Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Time: 7:00 pm PST
on Zoom–RSVP required:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIpf–tqTwjHtzOiKfx1CE232QV992N-gyG
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
About Susan Kelly-Dewitt
Susan Kelly-DeWitt is the author of The Gatherer’s Alphabet, just published in 2022, Gravitational Tug (Main Street Rag, 2020), Spider Season (Cold River Press, 2016), and The Fortunate Islands (Marick Press, 2008).
Her work has been included in many national and regional anthologies including The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (Autumn House Press), When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women (Autumn House Press), : In Whatever Houses We May Visit: an Anthology of Poems That Have Inspired Physicians (American College of Physicians) and Claiming the Spirit Within: A Sourcebook of Women’s Poetry (Beacon Press). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, New Letters, North American Review and many others. She has been featured on Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily.
Susan has been the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, The Chicago Literary Award from Another Chicago Magazine, the Bazzanella Award for Short Fiction and a number of Pushcart nominations. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Northern California Book Reviewers Association.
Over the years she has worked as a freelance writer and poetry columnist for the Sacramento Bee and Sacramento Union as the editor of the on-line journal Perihelion and the print journal Quercus. She has been a California Poet-in-the-Schools, Artistic Director for the Women’s Wisdom Project arts program for homeless and low-income women, an educator, and an artist in the prisons. She lives in Sacramento, California, where she is a contributing editor for Poetry Flash and a reviewer for Library Journal. Previously she was an instructor for the University of California, Davis and a blogger for Autumn House Press’ Coal Hill Review. She is also an exhibiting visual artist.
Gatherer’s Alphabet is the first book in Gunpowder Press’s California Poets Series.
Praise for Gatherer’s Alphabet:
These luscious poems feel like small museums of infinite wonder. Gallery, butterfly, stars in autumn. The wisdom of nature, the work of angels, what women endure—I love these poems. A timeless grace breathes through this marvelous book, this bounty you’ll be grateful that you read. —Lee Herrick, Fresno Poet Laureate (2015-17) author of Scar and Flower, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and This Many Miles from Desire
Susan Kelly-DeWitt’s concentrations come to life as if in a studio, with watercolor washes and ink accentuations. As well as mother and father, ghosts and angels, words are animated characters urgently communicating— whistling to animals or dogwood gods, pinches of anger too—a tool to save us. Is she holding a pen—or a moth by its wings? Poems like “Words” and “The Thorne Miniatures” and the title poem gaze multi-eyed at the reader from the palm of her offering hand. — Sandra McPherson, author of The 5150 Poems and Speech Crush
What I love about Susan Kelly-DeWitt’s poems are the colors, how they “hold / themselves out / to be touched.” Her mother is described as having “storm-colored hair.” Silence is a “white bulb.” The past is a minefield of blue flowers. This bringing together of nature and mind, the mundane and the transcendent, is the result of the poet’s unrestrained sympathy for all living things. Kelly-DeWitt’s companions in this vision-quest are O’Keeffe and Van Gogh, artists who paint not the appearance of field and cloud, but the primal energy beneath the surface. The act of seeing is the true subject here. We are fortunate to have Kelly-DeWitt to guide us through this journey. —Michael Simms, editor of Vox Populi, author of Nightjar
Coming from a world “sheltered by cold leaves of starlight,” Susan Kelly-DeWitt’s powerful new work serves as a garden for ghosts, windows, and angels capable of making ordinary events extraordinary. A sharp sense of loss is integral to Gatherer’s Alphabet, which is steeped in the particulars of memory, the pebbles, the dark pits. Here is an “impossible country of imagination“ that must be visited over and over. —Maya Khosla, Poet Laureate Emerita of Sonoma County, author of All the Fires of Wind and Light
About Linda Toren
Linda Toren lives in the foothills of Calaveras County with her husband Theo, dogs, a cat, and many chickens. Linda is a retired teacher and director of Voices of Wisdom through Manzanita Writers Press (MWP). She has presented poetry workshops for children and adults, publishing schoolwide collections of poetry and art at local elementary schools for more than 15 years.
Her poetry appears in many collections, including Manzanita: Poetry and Prose of the Mother Lode & Sierra (MWP 1995–2008), Voices of Wisdom (MWP 2018, 2019, 2022), Out of the Fire (MWP 2017), Collision V: an Intersection of Poetry and Photography (2018), and more. This year, her first full-length collection, Raven Braids the Wind: A Life in Syllables, was published by Manzanita Writers Press.
Raven Braids the Wind started with a simple assignment in elementary school— write a haiku. That first haiku—Lonely people live/within themselves like dusty/ books upon a shelf—is a senryu (a haiku poem focused on personal reflection or comment about the self or world.) Thousands of haiku later, this poetic form has become a daily journey in which the author explores and translates the natural world and the inner world of introspection. Whether or not you write haiku, you will be able to appreciate their accessibility and simplicity and find yourself opening doors and windows to companionable thoughts and feelings.
Linda produces a community radio program dedicated to poetry, prose, nonfiction literary news, lyrics, and the celebration of thoughts and language at KQBM Blue Mountain Radio (KQBM.org).
Praise for Raven Braids the Wind:

Linda Toren has graced readers with her haiku meditations on the world—both the natural world and the chaotic one humans have wrought. Her poems take us on a seasonal journey through pine forests and chicken coops, through road-side sweet peas, on ravens’ wings, and through the dreams and puzzlement of modern life. Toren’s careful attention allows the reader a window into her love and compassion for these worlds, in all their flawed wonder. One haiku reads “How do I gather/ the threads of my life into/ some kind of order?” Lucky for us, in this collection, Linda Toren does just that, and the order revealed is deeply personal, poignant, and beautiful. —Gillian Wegener, author of This Sweet Haphazard (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2017)

Raven Braids the Wind by Linda Toren is a collection of lovely and thought-provoking haiku and senryu graced with charming artwork. Toren’s haiku transport the reader into the garden, the busy barnyard, and the woodlands where birds, plants, animals, and weather impart wisdom and elicit questions that Toren transposes into concise and musical language. Her senryu distill the vicissitudes of emotion, recent sociopolitical perturbations, and pandemic upheaval, deftly portraying the human condition in clean, contemplative lines. The juxtaposition of these two poetic forms reflects the dichotomy of contentment and disquiet, the eternal and the ephemeral, in measured syllables that brilliantly convey vivid imagery and lucid observations. Linda Toren’s Raven Braids the Wind is a treasure. –Linda Scheller, author of Wind and Children (Main Street Rag, June 2022) and Fierce Light (FutureCycle Press, 2017)

Second Tuesday Poetry with Clay Hunt and Briana Muñoz
2022-06-14 19:00 - 20:00
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center presents Second Tuesday Poetry, featuring Clay Hunt and Briana Muñoz, hosted by Stella Beratlis.
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
7:00 pm PST w/ open mic
on Zoom–RSVP required: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvcOqvrz8pG9Yi9Z0cV9-AoGodS4mymh-Q
RSVP Open Mic (3 min per poet): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezxMg1qBq4z4NyNQWRckkONw_hR-JWWJ8HsJ__XjSDKx34GA/viewform

Briana Muñoz
Briana Muñoz is a Poet from Southern California. She is the author of Loose Lips published by Prickly Pear Publishing (2019) and of Everything Is Returned to the Soil published by FlowerSong Press (2021). She has performed poetry in places like UNEAC (The National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba), CECUT (The Tijuana Cultural Center), El Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego and beyond.
Briana currently serves as the Volunteer Event Coordinator for the Sims Library of Poetry and the Volunteer Event Coordinator for the Luis J Rodriguez for CA Governor 2022 campaign.
About Everything is Returned to the Soil/ Todo Vuelve a la Tierra:
Everything Is Returned to the Soil is a bilingual, full-length poetry collection of poems on the spiritual, political, and cultural realms. Reading Briana Muñoz’s poetry is like following her as she reclaims her Indigenous culture, recounts moments growing up wedged in-between two borders, all while breaking long existing patriarchal structures within her existence as a woman of color.
https://linktr.ee/Awomanofwords
Links to purchase books: https://www.flowersongpress.com/store/p/everythingisreturnedtothesoil
https://www.pricklypearpublishing.com/shop/loose-lips
Clay Hunt
Clay Hunt is the author of three chapbooks: Born Shane, published by Two Key Customs, Young When the Sun Went Down, published by Budget Press, and Sewn-On Patch, published by Between Shadows Press. He has poems published in many journals, some which include Spectra Poets, The Raw Art Review, Paper and Ink Literary Zine, The Rye Whiskey Review, Penumbra, Song of the San Joaquin, Seppuku Quarterly, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine. Some of his poems have won awards such as 2nd place in poetry in Modesto Junior College’s Celebration of the Humanities, The Dark Sire’s TDS Awards 2021 for poetry, and the City of Modesto’s Poet’s Corner Contest. He currently lives in San Francisco with his wife, Laura.
Young When the Sun Went Down chapbook can be found at Budgetpress.net
Email: Chuntjr89@gmail.com
Instragram: @claytanic89
