Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center

MoSt Second Tuesday Poetry Reading featuring Angela Drew & Linda Scheller
2024-02-13 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto, CA, United States
Please join us Tuesday, February 13th, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. PST for a poetry reading featuring Angela Drew and Linda Scheller at Prospect Theater Project’s Artist Lab, 1214 K Street, Modesto CA. Hosted by Gillian Wegener, this free event will include an open mic.
Angela Mason-Drew is a mother, dancer, poet, spoken word performer and self-proclaimed linguistic artist who has loved the rhythm and sounds of words for as long as she can remember. Born in Berkeley, CA, she began writing at age 8 and has always understood that words have the power to soothe, stir, or solidify connection. Her lifelong love affair with storytelling began in the sandbox of her childhood playground and she has played with the magic of words ever since. Angela is a graduate of Holy Names University in Oakland, CA, where she graduated magna cum laude. She is a proud Bay Area native and shares stories from her current home in the Central Valley. To learn more about Angela and her word artistry, visit her on Instagram @she_spits_fire Facebook @Angela Drew (Angela Mason) and online at www.elderberrywine.org.

Linda Scheller is the author of two books of poetry, Fierce Light (FutureCycle Press) and Wind & Children (Main Street Rag Publishing Company). Her poetry, plays, and book reviews are published in numerous journals and anthologies including Hawai’i Pacific Review, Poem, Sugar House Review, Slipstream, and Colorado Review. Recent honors include Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominations, and her manuscript Laurels was a finalist for the 2023 Aryamati Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the Concrete Wolf Louis Poetry Book Award. Ms. Scheller is a retired educator who volunteers as a programmer for KCBP Community Radio. For more information, please go to her website, lindascheller.com.

Ekphrasis: Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Rhony Bhopla and Lynn Hansen
2024-03-12 19:00 - 20:30 | Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto, CA, United States
Ekphrastic poetry has come to be defined as poems written about works of art; however, in ancient Greece, the term ekphrasis was applied to the skill of describing a thing with vivid detail. —Getty Museum
We invite you to join the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center at Second Tuesday Poetry as we feature visual artist/poet Rhony Bhopla and Lynn Hansen of Modesto. Both poets will share their poems accompanied by images. With open mic following featured poets. Hosted by Stella Beratlis.
Date: Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Place: Artist Lab, Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto, 95354
Open mic sign-up form (3 min per poet): https://forms.gle/RnPGLFptHija15RU8

RHONY BHOPLA

Rhony Bhopla is a poet and visual artist whose poems and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in PRISM International, The Hopper, Notre Dame Review, Cherry Moon: Emerging Voices from the Asian Diaspora, Northwest Review, and Harvard Review. She is a member of the Mapmakers Alumni Institute, and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University.

LYNN HANSEN

Lynn M. Hansen is Faculty Emerita from Modesto Junior College Biological Sciences and a member of Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and the National League of American Pen Women, Modesto Branch. A new collection of travel poems, In the Presence of the Moai: Poetry and Prose of Travel, was published in November 2023. In addition to her other poetry collections, Flicker and The Journey to Sky Avenue, she has written an historical novel about the life of her grandmother.

Bloom Where Planted: Four Central Valley Poets for National Poetry Month
2024-04-09 19:00 - 20:30 | The Artist Lab at Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for our next Second Tuesday Poetry on April 9, 2024, as we present four Central Valley poets to help us honor National Poetry Month.
Featuring Kristy Lauron, Elizabeth Sousa, Jazmarie LaTour, and Kevin Walton with open mic following featured poets.
When: Tuesday, April 9, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Where: The Artist Lab at Prospect Theater Project, 1218 K Street, Modesto CA 95354. Plenty of street parking, free! We are also welcome to park across the street at the Stanislaus County Law Library.
Open Mic Sign-up: https://forms.gle/rcwsEcyk7paszWk27(4 mins per poet or 2 pieces, whichever is shorter)
Our Featured Poets
Kristy Lauron
My name is Kristy Lauron and I am a published poet. I was born and raised in Stockton and have been immersed in the arts since childhood. I believe art is necessary for healing and sharing of our human existence. My poetry is a reflection of my self journey, offering insights to my trials and tribulations, all wrapped up in love.
Jazmarie LaTour
Jazmarie is the Poet Laureate of her hometown Stockton, Ca. She is an artisan, healer, mediation leader, and dreamer who uses writing to attune to the frequency and deep call of the Earth, her Ancestors, and the Great Spirit that leads her. Her love for spoken word performance has given her the courage to speak from her heart to anyone who will listen. Her love for the written word has given her the courage to allow others to hold a piece of her heart right in their hands. She is the author of the collection The Nature of Her, which can be ordered from the thenatureofher.com.
Elizabeth Sousa
Elizabeth Sousa is a poet from Turlock, a Type One Diabetes advocate, and an aspiring badass. She was co-organizer of the 2016 Writers Resist reading at the Prospect Theater Project, and she has performed her pieces on stages throughout the Central Valley.
Kevin Walton
Kevin is a poet and raconteur who founded a Facebook group, To the Prose Pros, a space where he shares his work and offers a forum for others to contribute. He lives in Modesto with his wife, artist Traci Bookman.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Fresno poets Michael Meyerhofer and Angela Chaidez Vincent
2024-05-14 19:00 - 20:00 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
MoSt Poetry welcomes featured poets Michael Meyerhofer and Angela Chaidez Vincent for its May Second Tuesday Poetry series–this month at Bookish–Modesto’s very own, very new, and very exciting bookstore!
Where: Bookish Bookstore, 811 W. Roseburg Avenue, Modesto CA 95350
When: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Hosted by Modesto poet laureate emeritus Gillian Wegener; open mic follows featured poets. Please sign up at event.
Michael Meyerhofer

Michael Meyerhofer is the author of five books of poetry—including What To Do If You’re Buried Alive (free from Doubleback Books). His work has appeared in The Sun, Missouri Review, Southern Review, Brevity, Rattle, and other journals. He’s also the author of a fantasy series and Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. For more info and an embarrassing childhood photo, visit troublewithhammers.com.
About WHAT TO DO IF YOU’RE BURIED ALIVE
The poems in What To Do If You’re Buried Alive are tenderly masculine, self-deprecating and humorous. They are the poems of an adult male poet looking back at childhood and puberty with anything but rose-colored glasses. He shows us how we see ourselves often through time—with a mixture of cringe and understanding.
Mary Biddinger, author of A Sunny Place with Adequate Water, writes, “With a compassionate eye, and his trademark sense of humor that hooks readers from the very first page, Meyerhofer sends us back to our earliest memories, and shows us a world of heartbreak and wonder.” And Jon Tribble, author of Natural State, adds “Through pain and loss, Meyerhofer’s poems are harrowing prayers searching for ‘the charms of language’ that might lead to forgiveness, to redemption, to love.”
Angela Chaidez Vincent
Image credit: © Adrianne Mathiowetz Photography
Angela Chaidez Vincent writes poetry and fiction and has a background of livelihoods in engineering, mathematics, and programming. Her debut poetry collection ARENA GLOW (April 2024, Tourane Press) features poems about women with a daredevil oblique. Angela’s work has appeared in Oxford Review of Books, North American Review, 32 Poems, Atticus Review, and Bellevue Literary Review, among others. She lives in Fresno, California and is online at angelachaidezvincent.com.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Susan Cohen & Lenore Weiss
2024-08-13 19:00 - 20:00 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is proud to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Susan Cohen & Lenore Weiss
Date: Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg, Modesto CA 95350 (Roseburg Square Shopping Center)
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event.

Susan Cohen
Susan Cohen’s third collection, Democracy of Fire (Broadstone Books: 2022), was praised by Ellen Bass as a “wise and wonderful” vision of “our interconnectedness.” Her poetry honors include the Red Wheelbarrow Prize judged by Mark Doty, the Terrain Annual Poetry Prize judged by Arthur Sze, and a special mention in Pushcart Prize XLIII. A former journalist and contributing writer for the Washington Post Magazine, she lives in Berkeley and has appeared in 32 Poems, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, Verse Daily, and many anthologies.
Praise for Susan Cohen & Democracy of Fire
A thread of elegy runs through Democracy of Fire, Susan Cohen’s wise and wonderful new poetry collection. Tenderly, precisely, these poems record a litany of the world’s ongoing losses: “Greenland’s ice sheet pooling like tears into the ocean,” elephants, beetles, democracies, “languages left behind like cloaks,” and “our own bones interred without ceremony.” Cohen shows us our interconnectedness, a reminder of both the beauty and value of what’s at stake. Yet, paradoxically, this vision makes Democracy of Fire a deeply comforting book. Of the planet Mercury she writes, “…a pinprick ablaze for longer than our species will exist…Between us and it, there’s a distance far beyond air, and beyond despair.” —Ellen Bass, Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets & author of Indigo
At this historical, political and ecological moment, with democracy and our earth aflame, could there be a more timely or relevant collection than Susan Cohen’s powerful, wise and deeply humane book of poetry, Democracy of Fire? Here, the many losses we experience both daily and across time—losses both cultural and personal—are mitigated by the act of memory and a faith in, well, the facts of our world and our capacity for intimate reckonings. Once again, Susan Cohen has shown herself to be one of the most compassionate recorders of our complicated times. —David St. John, Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets & author of The Last Troubadour: Selected and New Poems
Lenore Weiss
Lenore’s past poetry collections form a trilogy about love, loss, and being mortal: Cutting Down the Last Tree on Easter Island (West End Press, 2012); Two Places (Kelsay Books, 2014), and The Golem (Hakodesh Word Press, 2017). Her most recent collection, Video Game Pointers (WordTech Editions, 2024) issues a call for peace. Ethelzine published her hand-sewn poetry chapbook, From Malls to Museums. Alexandria Quarterly Press published her prize-winning flash fiction chapbook, Holding on to the Fringes of Love.
Lenore serves as the Associate Editor (Creative Nonfiction) for the Mud Season Review and lives in Oakland, California with Zebra the Brave and Granola the Shy. She earned an MFA in fiction from San Francisco State University. You may find her at www.lenoreweiss.com.

Praise for Lenore Weiss and Video Game Pointers
“This mighty collection features limbs of a radical mass autobiography. Our aggregate imagination wedded to virtuosic architecture of wordplay and image. Through these poems, quilted revolutionary legacies of resistance find their best song.”—Tongo Eisen-Martin, 8th Poet Laureate of San Francisco, California
“This generous volume stretches the expansive geography of the author’s imagination, time, space, experience and world view. Weiss is a practitioner of the politics of being fully alive.”—Maw Shein Win, Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn)

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Tom Myers and Stella Beratlis, with special guest Zoe Byron
2024-09-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Tom Myers and Stella Beratlis, with special guest Zoe Byron, Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate
Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg, Modesto CA 95350 (Roseburg Square Shopping Center)
Join us for this special reading to celebrate the release of Tom Myer’s first full poetry collection, Tremor in my Bones. Also featuring Stella Beratlis, author of Dust Bowl Venus. With special guest Zoe Byron, new Youth Poet Laureate for Stanislaus County.
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Reading host: Gillian Wegener
Tom Myers
Tom Myers is a retired elementary school teacher and a founding board member of the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt). He enjoys the wilds of nature and a sense of place frames much of his poetry. His poems have been published in hardpan, Quercus Review, More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets, Collision II and VII, Homestead Review, Cosumnes River Journal, and Steam Ticket. He has four chapbooks. His first full-length book, A Tremor in my Bones, was just published in August.
Stella Beratlis
Stella Beratlis is the author of Dust Bowl Venus (2021) and Alkali Sink, both published by Sixteen Rivers Press. Alkali Sink was a 2016 nominee for the Northern California Book Award. Stella’s poems have appeared in journals and anthologies as well as in the grand rotunda of the San Francisco Transbay Terminal, as part of a giant LED installation by artist Jenny Holzer. Stella was Modesto’s poet laureate from 2016-2020; is the coordinator of the Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate program, and works as a librarian at Modesto Junior College. She also collects typewriters, if you want to sell yours.
Zoe Byron
Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate Zoe Byron, a junior at Oakdale High School, was recently appointed to serve as the county’s second youth poet laureate. Zoe, whose parents are both English teachers, is a confirmed poetry fanatic whose initial exposure to performance poetry (thanks, Mom!) during the pandemic sparked a curiosity for and love of the form. Zoe’s early work was published in Oakdale Junior High’s annual poetry anthology; more recently, her work appeared in Penumbra, the Stan State literary journal. Zoe is also a regular participant in the Stanislaus County Poetry Out Loud competition.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Patricia Caspers & Molly Fisk
2024-10-08 19:00 - 20:30 | The Artist Lab at Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Patricia Caspers and Molly Fisk
Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Artist Lab at the Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto CA 95354
Join us for this special reading featuring Patricia Caspers and Molly Fisk, both of Nevada City. Patricia’s collection The Most Kissed Woman in the World was published by Kelsay Books earlier this year; she is the editor of the poetry journal West Trestle Review. Molly Fisk is the poet laureate of Nevada City and received a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets to create the anthology California Fire & Water, A Climate Crisis Anthology. Her new collection, Walking Wheel, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2026.
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener
Patricia Caspers
Patricia Caspers is an award-winning writer and the founder/publisher of West Trestle Review. She is the author of three full-length poetry collections: The Most Kissed Woman in the World (Kelsay Books, 2024), Some Flawed Magic (Kelsay Books, 2021), and In the Belly of the Albatross (Glass Lyre Press, 2015). She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College, and her work has appeared widely in journals such as Ploughshares, Malahat Review, and Sugar House Review.
About The Most Kissed Woman in the World:
“There is so much beauty in Patricia Caspers’ The Most Kissed Woman in the World, and a lot of darkness, too. In each “Portrait of God” Caspers finds the sacred somewhere unexpected: a pungent ginkgo tree; an assisted living facility; a dysfunctional family; the self in all its gorgeous imperfections. These lyrical, surprising poems look at the world with hard-won clarity and tenderness, embracing joy without turning away from suffering. “God is the kitchen knife that misses,” Caspers writes, as well as “the crash of abundance.” Exactly. The Most Kissed Woman is sharp and generous and wise, reminding us where we hurt and also, in its revelatory unfoldings, why we go on.” –Chloe Martinez, author of Ten Thousand Selves

Molly Fisk

Molly Fisk edited California Fire & Water, A Climate Crisis Anthology, with a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. Author of The More Difficult Beauty, Listening to Winter, and five volumes of radio commentary, her new collection Walking Wheel is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2026. Fisk, who lives in the Sierra foothills, has also won grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She was the inaugural poet laureate of Nevada County and is current poet laureate of both KVMR-FM, Nevada City and Hell’s Backbone Grill in Boulder, UT.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring John Shoptaw and Murray Silverstein
2024-11-12 19:00 - 20:30 | The Artist Lab at Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
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.”

Second Tuesday: Members' Holiday Open Mic & Potluck
2024-12-10 18:00 - 19:30 | The Dragonfly Art for Life, 1210 J Street, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center presents Second Tuesday: Members’ Holiday Open Mic and Potluck. Bring a dish to share, and help us celebrate 15 years of bringing poetry to the community through our Second Tuesday series. If you’re not a MoSt member yet, you are warmly encouraged to attend and join us at the door.
On Tuesday, December 10 at the Dragonfly Art for Life, 1210 J Street, Modesto CA 95354.
MoSt Poetry is proud to serve our community with free poetry events, including the Second Tuesday Poetry series, Poetry on Saturdays at the Carnegie Arts Center, Free Summer Poetry Workshops at the Library, New Year’s Poetry Challenge, Poetry Everywhere initiative at Stanislaus County K-12 public schools, and more. Programs we administer or in which we partner include Poetry Out Loud, Aileen Jaffa Youth Poetry Contest, Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate, and the City of Modesto’s Poets’ Corner Contest.
On Facebook, Instagram, and Threads: @mostpoetry.

Second Tuesday Feb. 11: Joseph Rios & Vielka Solano
2025-02-11 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Vielka Solano and Joseph Rios
Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener.

Vielka Solano
Born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, Vielka Solano obtained her Doctor of Medicine degree from the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo. After immigrating to Modesto, California, Vielka started working for Golden Valley Health Centers, providing healthcare to the underserved, rural community of Patterson, California. Professionally and as a poet, Vielka’s work focuses on social injustice, the trauma of war, and domestic violence. She is the founder of “Poesia y Arte Curando el Alma,” an outreach program designed to give those who have suffered domestic violence a voice through the arts. She is the founder of Noche de Poesia and host of Grito de Mujer in Modesto. In 2019, Vielka was among the recipients of the Outstanding Woman of the Year award from the Stanislaus County Commission for Women, and has also received the Concilio Unsung Hero Award. Vielka is part of Influencers4Justice, a program funded by Blue Shield of California Foundation.
Joseph Rios
Joseph Rios headshot
Joseph Rios was born in the San Joaquin Valley in 1987. He is a Xicano writer and the author of Shadowboxing: Poems & Impersonations (Omnidawn, 2017), winner of a 2018 American Book Award. A Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University, Rios is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships from Community of Writers, CantoMundo, Letras Latinas, and the California Arts Council. Rios lives on Yokuts land in Fresno, California, where he served as poet laureate from 2022-2024. In 2024, he received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. He is the founder of Doña Helen’s, a poet’s residency at his grandparents’ longtime home in the San Joaquin Valley.
As an exuberant collection of relentless declamations against the existing economic order, “Shadowboxing” contains fresh poems of elemental protest, open reflections on politically motivated murders and disappearances, and lyric proclamations praising the inherent superiority of collective identity over the relic of the personal. —Sonja James, The Journal

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Bob Stanley and Dane Cervine with Open Mic
2025-03-11 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Bob Stanley and Dane Cervine.
Date: Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Modesto poet laureate emeritus & author Gillian Wegener.

BOB STANLEY
Bob Stanley studied poetry at Caltech and UCLA, and he taught English and Creative Writing at Solano College, Sac City College, and Sac State before retiring in 2021. Sacramento’s Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2012, Bob has organized poetry events in California for many years. His collections include Walt Whitman Orders a Cheeseburger (2009), Miracle Shine (2013), and Language Barrier (2024). Bob and his wife Joyce live in Sacramento and organize online poetry seminars that help support nonprofit organizations.
Bob’s most recent collection, Language Barrier, which is published by CW Books, is available on the Random Lane Press website: randomlanepress.com
ABOUT LANGUAGE BARRIER
“Language is no barrier to our enjoyment of the experiences Bob Stanley has distilled and decanted in these poems. His keen eye for detail takes us first on a passionate tour of China and then on a reminiscent journey through America, described through the prism of many poetic forms. As he says, ‘I could write with both care and abandon,’ and he has done just that. Here you will find tragedies in miniature, but also wonder at nature and the past. Through it all runs Stanley’s raconteurial charm, a Poundian respect for the world of the senses, and a tireless yearning for song: ‘keep the discord in the chord, / sing what’s hard to sound soft.’ The result, in Stanley’s own words, is ‘peach-perfect.’”—Brad Buchanan

DANE CERVINE
Dane Cervine’s recent books of poetry include DEEP TRAVEL – At Home in the [Burning] World (Saddle Road Press), The World Is God’s Language (Sixteen Rivers Press), Earth Is a Fickle Dancer (Main Street Rag), and The Gateless Gate – Polishing the Moon Sword (Saddle Road Press). Dane’s poems have won awards from Adrienne Rich, Tony Hoagland, the Atlanta Review, Caesura, and been nominated for multiple Pushcarts. His work appears in The SUN, the Hudson Review, TriQuarterly, Poetry Flash, Catamaran, Miramar, Rattle, Sycamore Review, Pedestal Magazine, among others. Dane lives in Santa Cruz, California. Visit his website at: https://danecervine.typepad.com/
ABOUT DEEP TRAVEL
“I love the way [Dane has] taken the haibun back to its origins with Bashō—what a brilliant and perfectly executed form for [his] observations and musings. It’s such a rich book. Some of [the] haiku are so beautifully apt, little marvels, and one of my favorites is the one inspired by Ocean Vuong:
I am a book—of bone,
raft and river
That seems to me emblematic of the entire book and [Dane’s] intents—to offer insights and responses without any trace of self-importance, and then to return to shore. –Lynne Knight

Second Tuesday Poetry with Soul Vang and Gary Thomas
2025-04-08 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Gary Thomas & Soul Vang
Date: Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener
SOUL VANG
Soul Vang is the author of three collections of poetry: Of Tigers and Wars (Sahtu Press, 2024); Song of the Cluster Bomblet (HER Publisher, 2024); and To Live Here (Imaginary Friend Press, 2014).
Poet, educator, and U.S. Army veteran, Vang received his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from California State University, Fresno, and is an editorial member of the Hmong American Writers’ Circle (HAWC).
Vang’s writing has appeared in Academy of American Poets (poets.org), Water~Stone Review, Abernathy Magazine, Asian American Literary Review, Fiction Attic Press, In the Grove, The Packinghouse Review, Southeast Asia Globe, and The New York Times, among others.
His awards and honors include the 2014 Imaginary Friend Press Poetry Prize and the 2015 Horizon Artist Award from the Fresno Arts Council.
About TO LIVE HERE
To Live Here is a triumph: a pure and graceful portrait of the poet from Sky Mountain and the Dragon River, as a young man in the United States Army, and as a parent and poet in Fresno. Part emotional cartography and pure mastery of the craft, this vital glimpse into the Hmong American experience is a heart, a history, and a gift of hard-earned wisdom. Each poem is an artifact, a piece of art, and an important addition to American literature. This is poetry built to last. You will not forget it. –Lee Herrick, Fresno Poet Laureate
GARY THOMAS
Gary Thomas grew up on a peach farm outside Empire, California. Prior to retirement, he taught eighth grade language arts for thirty-one years and junior college English for seven. His poems have been published in The Comstock Review, MockingHeart Review, Atticus Review, River Heron Review, Barzakh, Blue Heron Review, Split Rock Review, Book of Matches, and Hole in the Head Review, among others, in the anthology More Than Soil, More Than Sky: The Modesto Poets, and in Tule Review 2024. He is a founding member of the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt) and of the Stanislaus County writing group known as The Licensed Fools. A full-length collection, All the Connecting Lights, was released in August 2022 from Finishing Line Press. His latest poetry collection, O Yes We Breathe, was published in November 2024 by Manzanita Writers Press.
ABOUT O YES WE BREATHE:
In his new collection, O Yes We Breathe, Gary Thomas seamlessly weaves days-gone-by boyhood pastoral with the post-pandemic political and spiritual present. Moving between poems, I was transfixed by the gentle music within these pages. “I am beholden to beauty that breathes any way it can-” As inhale, Thomas’ keen eye for detail sharpens the blade of these poems on the sandstone grit of his father’s lessons on life. As exhale, Thomas delivers poignant and tender incantations summoning the deeper, higher self. “If all we ever have is what we trade invisibly in our hulls of flesh and fluidity, we can learn to care for what we have. We can partake our full portion as family. We can breathe easy.” Each poem is a circle within itself “still working with some astonishment,” rippling outward, a whole world. This collection: “Let it light the corners.”
-Kai Coggin, Poet Laureate of Hot Springs, Arkansas, author of Mother of Other Kingdoms and Mining for Stardust

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Tama Brisbane & Rosa Lane
2025-05-13 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Rosa Lane (Maine, East Bay) & Tama Brisbane (Stockton)
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Limited open mic; sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener & Stella Beratlis

Rosa Lane
Rosa Lane, poet and architect, was found to be the youngest girl to have built a house. She was 11 years old when she built her 1st home, which is featured in a book entitled Making Ourselves at Home: Women Builders and Designers (Papier Mache Press, 1995). But Lane’s primary love is poetry. She is the author of four poetry collections: Called Back (Tupelo Press, 2024); Chouteau’s Chalk (University of Georgia Press, 2019); Tiller North (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2016); and Roots and Reckonings, a chapbook published by Granite Press East under a grant from the Maine Arts Commission.
Most recently, her work was selected as the Best of Poetry for the 2024 Geminga Prize, winner of the 2023 Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Award, runner-up for the 2023 River Heron Poetry Prize, and named finalist for the 2023 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition (Cork, Ireland) and the 2023 Australian Book Review‘s Peter Porter Prize (Melbourne) among other awards.
Lane’s latest poems have appeared in Catamaran, Crosswinds, Five Points, Nimrod, RHINO, River Heron Review, Southword, Third Coast, and elsewhere. She splits her time between the North Bay and coastal Maine, her native home where she lives with her wife. Website: www.rosalane.com

About CALLED BACK
“Rosa Lane’s Called Back breaks through the membrane that separates us from Dickinson’s time. Here, we enter Dickinson’s world brand new with the vigor of research re-imagined, obsession expressed with prolific inventiveness and mounting urgency, and language that astonishes in its apt, abundant, and irresistible embrace of sound. This is a book fearless in its approach and lavish in its accomplishment.”
– Rebecca Kaiser Gibson, author of The Promise of a Normal Life: A Novel

Tama Brisbane
TAMA L. BRISBANE is the City of Stockton’s Poet Laureate Emerita. She served four historic terms
from 2015-2023, presenting well over 300 times, including the inauguration of the city’s first Black
Mayor, Michael Tubbs. Her debut Laureate project helped engineer Stockton’s return to All-American
City status with an innovative spoken word presentation incorporating dozens of multigenerational,
multiethnic voices. Her performance as Guest Poet at The King Center and Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta led Martin Luther King III to say to her, “your words matter.” She remains in constant demand as
a keynote speaker and spoken word artist.
Tama is also President of With Our Words LLC, and a Program Director with Concrete Development Inc.
In her capacity as a literary and performing arts consultant, she develops curricula, programs, and events
across the United States and around the world. The impact of her words and her works have positively
shifted creative and cultural landscapes in Stockton and beyond.
“Mama T” is a published author, a Susan B. Anthony Award Winner for Creative Arts, a Black Women
Organized for Political Action Honoree, a University of the Pacific Woman of Distinction, an Action on
Behalf of Children Honoree, and a founding member of the National Black Poet Laureates Group. Her
tireless efforts on behalf of youth – particularly youth of color and from marginalized communities – have
been celebrated and recognized by both houses of the California Legislature, by the United States House
of Representatives, and the United States Senate.
Tama is grateful to her Creator for her earthly assignment. She takes inspiration and guidance from her
two favorite quotes. The first is from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “The salvation of humanity lies in the
hands of the creatively maladjusted.” The second is attributed to an Eastern proverb: “If you sit on the
bank of the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.”

Second Tuesday Poetry with Aideed Medina and Russell Reza-Khaliq Gonzaga
2025-06-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Fresno’s newest Poet Laureate and spoken word artist Aideed Medina with Tracy poet, teacher, and spoken word artist Russell Reza-Khaliz Gonzaga

Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2025Time: 7:00 pm PSTWhere: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center

Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener

Russell Reza-Khaliq Gonzaga
Russell Reza-Khaliq Gonzaga has hosted and organized events and workshops including the Sierra Poetry Festival, the Center Camp Spoken Word Stage at Burning Man, and the weekly ELYSEUM Writers Workshops at Harbin Hot Springs. Russell is Poet Laureate Emeritus of Lake County (2012-2014) and has represented San Francisco for three years at the National Poetry Slam. As an Arts Educator, he has worked with several organizations including YouthSpeaks and WritersCorps. He is also the recipient of the Certificate of Honor from the Board of Supervisors and a Mayor’s declaration of “Russell Gonzaga Day” in San Francisco. Currently, Russell is Poetry Editor for The Fabulist, hosts the monthly Word Bubbles Open Mic in Tracy CA, and is caretaker for his beloved Auntie Rosie.

Aideed Medina

Aideed Medina is Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, award-winning spoken word artist and playwright, and is the author of 31 Hummingbird: A Suite of Poems (Editorial Xingao, 2023) and Segmented Bodies (Prickly Pear Press, 2024). Her poetry and prose have been featured in many publications, including Fresno State’s Club Austral Literary Magazine, Chicano Writers and Artists Association Journal, La Bloga, Poets Responding, Split This Rock, and Nueva York Poetry Review, among many others, as well as in compositions for the 559 Mural Project and Fresno Grand Opera’s Opera Remix. Aideed is also a California Naturalist, and practices “flor y canto” as part of her poetic process and exploration of California’s natural history. This past April, Aideed was appointed Fresno’s seventh poet laureate. She will serve through March 2027.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Sherre Vernon and Paula Sheil
2025-07-08 19:00 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Sherre Vernon (Merced) and Paula Sheil (Stockton)
Date: Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener
Paula Sheil
Paula Sheil is a Professor of English at San Joaquin Delta College. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts from Raymond College and a Master of Arts in Writing from New College of California. She founded, with friends, Tuleburg Press in 2012 and The Write Place in 2017.
She taught elementary education, moved on to arts administration, and then journalism before joining the faculty at Delta. In the 1990s, she ran an open mic that prompted her interest in publishing. She and the late Julia Holzer published ¡ZamBomba!, a poetry quarterly that was read from Seattle to San Diego, until 2000. At Delta, Sheil started the Writer’s Guild and Artifact, the college literary magazine.
Her work has been published in too many small journals, magazines, and newspapers to mention. She’s prouder yet of the poets and writers she has published and remains committed to empowering and amplifying the voices of Stockton and San Joaquin.
Sherre Vernon
Sherre Vernon (she/her/hers) is the award-winning author of Green Ink Wings, The Name is Perilous, and Flame Nebula, Bright Nova. Sherre has been published in journals such as Tahoma Literary Review and The Chestnut Review, nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, and anthologized in several collections including Fat & Queer and Best Small Fictions.
We welcome these poets, both new to the Second Tuesday series!

Second Tuesday Poetry: Modesto Poet Laureate Angela Drew + Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate Valentina Zeff
2025-08-12 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Modesto Poet Laureate Angela Drew with special guest Valentina Zeff, Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate
Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener
ANGELA DREW
Angela Drew is a mother, dancer, author, poet, and self-proclaimed linguistic artist who has loved the rhythm of words for as long as she can remember. Born in Berkeley, California, she began writing at age eight, and has always understood that words have the power to soothe, stir, or solidify connection. She has played with the magic of storytelling ever since. Angela is the winner and first-place slam champion of Modesto’s 2021 ILL List 16 Poetry Slam. She has performed her spoken word poetry at an array of venues, just to name a few: Yoshi’s Jazz Club, Oakland, California; Gallo Center for the Arts and the State Theater, Modesto, California; Brickhouse Art Gallery, Sacramento, California, and Apache Cafe, Atlanta, Georgia–a landmark poetry lounge that is home to some of Atlanta’s finest creatives.
She is the author of ElderBerry Wine, a children’s book written in poetic verse that celebrates the beauty and majesty of our elders, and the richness they bring by simply being a part of our lives. Join Angela on her poetic journey on all social media platforms. Her book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers.

VALENTINA ZEFF
Valentina Zeff is a sixteen-year-old poet from Modesto, California who is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at Modesto High School. Zeff has been writing free verse and ballad poetry since her freshman year of high school.
Zeff is active within her community and school through social and environmental activism, extracurricular projects, and volunteering. She was selected to be a member of the Park’s Youth Committee (April 2024-current), Modesto Youth Commission (October 2024-current), and student representative for Modesto High School’s Student Senate for both ninth and tenth grade. During the 2023-2024 Speech and Debate season, she was a top finalist for Original Spoken Word Poetry at State Qualifications. She is also the founder and Co-President of Modesto High School’s Book Club where she leads discussions on novels and poems of interest. Additionally, she is the Secretary and head layout editor/designer of the Panther Press, Modesto High School’s monthly newspaper.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Samantha Tetangco Ocena and Moira Magneson
2025-09-09 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Samantha Tetangco Ocena and Moira Magneson, El Dorado County’s newest poet laureate
Date: Tuesday, Sep 9, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener
Samantha Tetangco Ocena
Samantha Tetangco Ocena is a Filipino-American writer and teacher. Her poetry collection, Hope You Blend In: Studies In Color & Light (Broadstone Books, 2024), was a finalist for the 2023 National Poetry Series. A multi-genre writer, her poetry, short stories, and creative nonfiction have appeared in dozens of literary magazines, most notably, The Sun, Tri-Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, Zone 3, Gertrude, Foglifter, and Cimarron Review, among others. Sam has served as editor-in-chief for Blue Mesa Review, president of the AWP LGBTQ Writer’s Caucus, and was co-director of Plume: A Writer’s Companion, where she co-hosted Plume: A Writer’s Podcast. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico and is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of California Merced.
ABOUT HOPE YOU BLEND IN: STUDIES IN COLOR & LIGHT
In this fierce debut, poet Samantha Tetangco wields “words like flint” to reveal the world we live in, from the apocalyptic world of California wildfires where “our backyards became / this hell / we have created” to the real world in which the queer brown body becomes “an open wound.” But these poems also remind us of the ordinary magic left to us: breathing in a lover’s scent, planting tulips, and even the beauty of weeds blossoming “so small & sweet / they always go unnamed.” Meticulously crafted and political in the best ways, this book brims with sharp beauty and reminds us what it is to be human.
–Lisa D. Chavez, author of In an Angry Season
​Samantha Tetangco’s gaze is so sharp in this collection of poems, that a single shift in tense can pierce a hole in the wall of contemporary rhetoric. We who “taught the matches / how to strike” are given an aperture to view our own participation in history. Beyond holding witness, these poems provoke action. Are we—sharing a home, a country, a planet (on fire!)—actually in this together or are we just pretending? You will be known by what you choose: will you be a bearer or a borer of fruit?
–Benjamin Garcia, author of Thrown in the Throat

Moira Magneson

Over the years, Moira Magneson has worked as a river guide, artist’s model, truck driver, television writer, editor, and community college writing instructor. A Northern California native, she lives in the Sierra foothills where she has spearheaded many art actions and initiatives, including El Dorado County’s Poetry Out Loud Competition, Veterans’ Voices, Barbaric Yawp, and Black Lives: An American Overture. In 2024, she was the resident poet for ForestSong, a community arts project exploring solastalgia, biophilia, and resilience in the face of wildfire devastation. And just recently, she was named El Dorado County’s Poet Laureate 25-27. Magneson is the author of A River Called Home: A River Fable, an illustrated novella (Toad Road Press, 2024). In the Eye of the Elephant is her first full-length collection of poems.

ABOUT IN THE EYE OF THE ELEPHANT
Moira Magneson’s In the Eye of the Elephant is an extraordinary collection of poems. I’ve rarely seen a book so exquisite in its centering of the natural world or in its honoring of the animal within us as well as those animals alongside us. Yet these poems are also dazzling and explosive in their reckonings with personal family wreckage, and so deeply moving, so deeply consoling in both their private and public grieving. Magneson writes, “I praise Earth as it is, its holy cup my heaven.” What a timely balm this book will be to its readers, and what a treasure of visionary human compassion they will find.
—David St. John, author of Prayer for My Daughter
I am drawn to Moira Magneson’s poems for the grime and gristle of their language—“elisions and plosives swept / piecemeal and stained // off the slaughterhouse floor”—for storytelling that stares pain in the face and delivers a hard-earned, unexpected beauty that is possible because of a clear-eyed placement in the natural world. This world is not romanticized but instead made wondrous through images that invite readers to consider their own station in the wild. In the Eye of the Elephant is rewarding on numerous levels; I’ll come back to it again and again.
—Albert Garcia, author of A Meal Like That

Second Tuesday Poetry presents FIVE FOR TEN: Five Central Valley Poets
2025-10-14 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry: Five for Ten, featuring five Central Valley poets:

Casey Giffen
Daley Perry
Cynthia Barstad
Paloma Contreras
Melchor Sahagun III

Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener
CASEY GIFFEN:
A retired teacher of 40 years, Casey enjoys creating on-demand poems on his manual, Smith-Corona typewriter. His poetry has been published in Modesto Poets’ Corner Contests, Penumbra, and the Hughson Chronicle. Acts of Becoming is his second poetry collection.
PALOMA CONTRERAS:
Paloma Contreras is a Mexican, bilingual poet and educator. Most of her writing is autobiographical and deals with themes of loss.
MELCHOR SAHAGUN III:
Melchor Sahagun III is a poet and corny romantic who lives in Stockton. His collection, Sorry I’m Late, was published by Tuleberg Press.
DALEY PERRY:
Daley Perry is a Central Valley native who lived in Tennessee for 15 years before (very happily) returning home in 2019. She loves writing angsty poetry that explores themes of spirituality, smashing the patriarchy, pop culture, and loving our bodies.
CYNTHIA BARSTAD: Cynthia Barstad, an early childhood educator for 30 years before she retired, has shared her words with her family, friends, and strangers for years. She has been published in Stanislaus Connections along with her granddaughter Jenissa, who shares Cynthia’s passion for words.

Second Tuesday Reading featuring Marisol Baca & Gillian Wegener at Bookish
2025-11-11 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Please join us at Bookish Modesto as we feature two tremendous Central Valley poets: Gillian Wegener and Marisol Baca.
Marisol Baca teaches English, Literature, and Creative Writing at Fresno City College. She teaches Honors in the Leon S. Peters Honors Program, and she also teaches as a part of the RAIN program (Resources for American Indian Needs). Baca is the author of a book of poems called Tremor, and she was named Fresno’s first woman and first Chicana/Latinx Poet Laureate (2019-2021). Marisol’s poem about the naming of Fresno has been designated the city’s official poem.
Gillian Wegener is the author of one chapbook and two full-length collections of poetry: Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other (In the Grove Press, 2001), The Opposite of Clairvoyance (2008), and This Sweet Haphazard (2017), both from Sixteen Rivers Press. She is also the founding president of Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center, a previous Poet Laureate for the City of Modesto (2012-2016), and a two-time recipient of the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize. She is a long-time educator in Oakdale and has lived in Modesto longer than she’s lived anywhere else.
The reading starts at 7:00 at Bookish Modesto. With open mic following featured poets.

Second Tuesday - MoSt Member Potluck/Open Mic
2025-12-09 18:00 - 20:00 | The Dragonfly Art for Life, 1210 J Street, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Join us for our December reading at The Dragonfly- Art for Life for a joyful open mic and potluck for members of Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center.
We’d love to have you there! It’s not too late to join MoSt–you can join at the door, even.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Tara Rico & Juan Luzuriaga
2026-01-13 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Inaugural Poet Laureate of Manteca Tara Rico and San Luis Obispo poet Juan Luzuriaga
Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
The reading is free; drinks, snacks, and books are available for purchase at Bookish. Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener
Tara Rico
Tara Rico (she/her/ella) is a local writer, advocate, performer, and educator. She is the City of Manteca’s first Poet Laureate; her work can be found in collections such as the Tuleberg Press anthology The Fire Within: Labor, Art, and the Human Spirit.
Tara is also the founder of MAS Improv 209 and POETICAS Institute, a new nonprofit committed to bringing written, performing, and other creative art to the Central Valley and under-resourced communities.
Tara is an actor and comedian who has performed recently at the Pam Kitto Black Box Theater of Stockton, Modesto’s Prospect Theater, and at the Central Valley Gender Health and Wellness Center’s “Kings, Queens, and Comedians” drag show of 2024.

Juan Luzuriaga
Juan Luzuriaga was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and immigrated to the U.S. at 16 in 2000. He studied Neuroscience at Rutgers University and English at UC Merced. He teaches poetry in prisons, at Cuesta College, and California Poets in the Schools. He has been a featured panelist at UC Merced, Cuesta College Central Coast Writers’ Conference, Litfest and more, and he is a featured panelist at the 2026 San Francisco Writers Conference Poetry Summit.
He has been published in Acentos Review, San Diego Poetry Annual, Monterey Poetry Review, Cholla Needles, Poetry Breakfast, Matchbox Magazine, and in the anthologies Silence Is Consent, To Be Completely Honest, and Method Writers Speak. His collection, Chimborazo Whispers, is forthcoming from Blue Light Press.

Second Tuesday Feb. 10 - William O'Daly and Linda Marie Prather
2026-02-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Linda Marie Prather and William O’Daly
Date: Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
The reading is free; drinks, snacks, and books are available for purchase at Bookish. Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener!
WILLIAM O’DALY
William O’Daly, co-founder of Copper Canyon Press, is a poet and translator whose published works include eight books of translation of the late-career and posthumous poetry of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda and Neruda’s first volume, Book of Twilight — all published by Copper Canyon Press. Book of Twilight was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in Translation of Poetry for 2018. His most recent book of poems, The New Gods, was published by Beltway Editions in September 2022.
In addition to The New Gods, he is the author of four books of poems. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, recipient of the American Literary Award from the bilingual Korean American journal Miju Poetry and Poetics, and four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems, translations, essays, and reviews have been published in numerous journals and as part of multimedia exhibits and performances.
About The New Gods
“We need to sit on the rim/ of the well of darkness/,” Pablo Neruda wrote, “and fish for fallen light/ with patience.” In the poems of The New Gods, William O’Daly sits with us beside this well, each stunning metaphor shaping world after world of possibility. Here the dark currents of bitterness and grief, arrogance and war give way to the sweetness of a daughter’s questions or the shiver of a Sierra lake. From the charred rubble of Iraq to the snowy Andes of Neruda’s exile, O’Daly’s deep music guides us beyond the “machinery of destruction” into a new Parnassus where “every word blossoms erotic,” where heron, waterfall, moonlit pools, and sea all burn with the “inexhaustible light” of beauty and desire, and we “recognize this burning as our own.”
~ Terry Ehret, author of Lost Body and Night Sky Journey
LINDA MARIE PRATHER
Linda Marie Prather has been widely recognized, winning honors in both, poetry, and visual art. She has been featured in More Than Soil, More Than Sky/The Modesto Poets, Stanislaus Connections, and KCBP, and KQBM radio, Two Roads/A program of Art & Science, Poets Corner, A Circle of Voices, Penumbra, Poetry of the Sacred, The Story Teller, and others. She is a two-time nominee for a Pushcart Prize and was the recipient of the Pegasus Award from California Federation of Chaparral Poets. Linda co-edits the poetry quarterly, Song of the San Joaquin, and is an Arts and Letters member of the National League of American Pen Women.
Her latest and ninth book of poetry Everyday Mercies was released in 2025 and is available on Amazon.`
About Everyday Mercies
Everyday Mercies is a contemplative collection of poems that finds meaning in the often overlooked ordinary. From the quiet glory of morning light to the surprising resilience found in seasons of uncertainty, these poems invite us to pause and ponder the mercies granted us anew every morning.

Second Tuesday with Eliot Schain & Salvatore Salerno
2026-03-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Modesto Poet Laureate Emeritus Salvatore Salerno with Sixteen Rivers Press poet Eliot Schain
Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener

ELIOT SCHAIN
Eliot Schain’s poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Santa Monica Review, and Miramar, among others, as well as in a number of anthologies, including Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems and Poetics from California and The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed. His book, The Distant Sound, was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2020. Earlier books include American Romance and Westering Angels, both from Zeitgeist Press.
Selections from The Distant Sound have been recorded and released as a digital album in collaboration with guitarist Harrison Flynn, available on Apple Music and Spotify. A newer collaboration Drive, They Said, also with Harrison Flynn, is available as well. Schain has served as program director for The Poetry Society of America, taught high school, and currently works as a psychotherapist in Berkeley, California, where he lives with his wife, Mary D’Elia.
ABOUT THE DISTANT SOUND
The Distant Sound is a prismatic meditation on what it means to be human, especially when the body and mind seek their own paths to heaven. The poems employ the long Whitmanian breath and are often narrative, but with mysterious syntax whose goal is to bypass reason and activate the heart.

SALVATORE SALERNO

Salvatore Salerno has an M.F.A. from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he was awarded The Academy of American Poets University Prize. He has worked as a playwright and poet in the North Carolina Visiting Artist Program. After retiring from teaching English at Davis High School, Salvatore became a founding member of Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center. He was the Poet Laureate of Modesto from 2020-24. His sixth book of poetry is After Thoughts.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Escritores del Nuevo Sol/Writers of the New Sun
2026-04-14 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
THE ANTIDOTE IS POETRY. COME TO POETRY.
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring members of Sacramento-based writing group Escritores del Nuevo Sol/Writers of the New Sun: Zheyla Henriksen, Paul Aponte, Janet Rodriguez, JoAnn Anglin, Marco Contreras, and Lorena Rodriguez.
Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener.
Zheyla Henriksen is an Ecuadorian poet, researcher, artist, and retired college & university teacher including at UC Davis where she received her PHD in Latin American and Spanish Literature. She has been awarded several times including in 2004 when she received La Medalla de Oro al Merito Cultural in Cuenca Ecuador. Zheyla was included in the Who’s Who of Distinguished Professionals, and in History & Anthology of Ecuadorian Literature (2023).
Paul Aponte is a Chicano Poet,co-coordinator of Escritores Del Nuevo Sol / Writers of the New Sun, and member of Círculo De Poetas & Writers. He has been published in the Tecolote Press anthology Poetry In Flight, Tule Review 2024, in the anthology Soñadores – We Came To Dream, in the Los Angeles Review Volume 20 – Fall 2016, and in Cold River Press Voices 2022-2025. His colorful book of poetry DEL CACTUS is available through Prickly Pear Press and other sources.
Janet Rodriguez is an author, teacher, editor, and the author of Making an American Family: A Recipe in Five Generations (Prickly Pear Publishing, 2022), a family memoir. Her short story, “The Key in the Tignanello Bag” was recently published in the regional anthology, Sacramento Noir, edited by John Freeman. Her work has also been featured in Hobart, Pangyrus, Eclectica, The Rumpus, Cloud Women’s Quarterly, American River Review, and Calaveras Station. Her short stories, essays, and poetry usually deal with themes involving morality in faith communities and the mixed-race experience in a culturally binary world.
JoAnn Anglin is a leading member of Escritores Del Nuevo Sol and has been a teaching poet in the schools, including at Shriners Children’s Hospital, and at New Folsom Prison. Her chapbooks include Words Like Knives, Like Feathers and Heat, and her poems have been published in Tule Review, Sable & Quill, Sacramento Voices, Rattlesnake Review, The Pagan Muse, 100 Poems about Sacramento, Acorn, and Cosumnes River Journal. In 2012, JoAnn received an Arts Program Award from the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and the Sacramento City Council and in 2024 she was honored by the California Senate for her contributions as a poet and leader to the community.
Marco Contreras is from Stockton and currently resides in Sacramento. He has been published in UCLA’s Daily Bruin and La Gente De Aztlan magazine. He also has contributions in several anthologies, including his latest about his trip to the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
Lorena Rodriguez has roots in the Andes, born and raised in a land where the cultivation of potatoes and corn is a way of life. A multidisciplinary artist, Lorena uses performance and theater as a tool for activism, community building, and healing. She is a writer, performer, fermenter, dancer, and textile artist, and through her work, she shares practical actions for health and well-being while inspiring the reimagining of systems that address collective needs and foster healing.

HISTORY OF LOS ESCRITORES DEL NUEVO SOL

Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol emerged from a literary program of La Raza Galería Posada (LRGP), the Sacramento Chicano/Native American arts center founded in 1972. Our roots can be followed to an initial poetry event organized by the Royal Chicano Air Force and other groups. That event in 1978 was called “One More Canto”. It was held at the Reno Club, a downtown neighborhood bar and dance club. This idea of poetry for the community grew and future poetry, song and performance art events continued. LRGP took sponsorship of the Canto Series well into the 1980’s and 1990’s with those events occurring at La Raza Galería Posada, Luna’s Café, the Benny Barrios Studio and the Odd Fellows Hall.
In the 1990’s LRGP board members Arturo Mantecón and Francisco X. Alarcón organized a Floricanto series featuring Latino poets. Seeing favorable community interest, they started a writers’ workshop, Taller Literario. The Taller philosophy was to foster, preserve, and present the best of Chicano/Latino and native American writing. The first meetings attracted about a dozen local writers. Alarcón and Mantecón drew on their experience in publishing and working with writing groups to guide this group to be given recognition and to be established in October of 1993.
The Taller became an essential part of La Raza Galería Posada readings and became connected with other significant cultural events – Day of the Dead, Cinco de Mayo, exhibition openings, etc.In time, events were added such as the Valentine’s Day and the all-Spanish readings.
Eventually the group adopted a new name suggested by Graciela Brauer Ramírez: Escritores del Nuevo Sol / Writers of the New Sun. This recognized the 2012 coming of El Sexto Sol, the dawning of a new world consciousness based on the Mesoamerican worldview.
As the years passed, Los Escritores became a known part of the Sacramento literary community. In 2002, José Montoya, a member of Los Escritores, was appointed Sacramento’s Poet Laureate. Los Escritores participated in his activities resulting in more visibility. In 2020’s, two additional members were named Poet Laureate – Lara Gularte (El Dorado County) and Nancy González St. Clair (Lodi, CA) also contributing to more recognition and visibility for Escritores del Nuevo Sol.
With the publication of our 2004 anthology, Voices of the new Sun, Poems and Stories / Voces del Nuevo Sol, Cantos y Cuentos, the group’s written work took tangible form. The 25th Anniversary anthology was published in 2017, and in 2025 the anthology Then and Now came to cheer the past and present.
While the circle has grown, it also acknowledges the loss of loved ones who were a part of its start: Phil Goldvarg, José Montoya, Helen and Esteban Villa, Luz María Gama, Max Schwartz, Sam Ríos, Jean y Winn Starr, and Escritores co-founder Francisco X. Alarcón. We remember them well.

Second Tuesday Poetry with featured poets Kathy Pon and Chris Olander
2026-05-12 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Chris Olander, performance poet & poet laureate Nevada County (2017-2019) and Central Valley poet/farmer/educator Kathy Pon.
Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm PST; doors at 6:30 PM
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Open mic following featured poets (2-3 min per poet); sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener. Event is free and open to the public; refreshments and books available for purchase at Bookish.
Kathy Pon
Kathy Pon earned a doctorate in education, but in retirement returned to her life-long passion for reading and writing poetry. Her husband is a third-generation farmer, and they live in the middle of a Central California almond orchard with their two dogs. She is a member of two monthly poetry groups, is an avid pickleball player, and enjoys hiking and swimming. Her work has been published in Passengers Journal, Canary, Rock Paper Poem, Wild Roof Journal, The Closed Eye Open, The Gilded Weathervane, Rockvale Review, and in other places including the anthology, Women in a Golden State (Gunpowder Press). She recently received honorable mention for the Bearing Witness Contest (Slingo Creek). Her chapbook, Orchard Language (Finishing Line Press) was published in 2025. You can find her at kathleenpon@gmail.com.
Chris Olander
Chris Olander, poet, performer, teacher and bio-educator with California Poets in the Schools (CPITS) since 1984, blends performance techniques with spoken word to create an Action Art Poetry: musical image phrasing to dramatize relative experiences—a poetry arising from oral and bardic traditions.
Chris is the author of 3 full-length collections including this year’s Who Are We, Cold River Press as well as four chapbooks and 8 CDs. His work is included in the anthology Silent Motif: Conference of Poets. Chris was Nevada County’s poet laureate from 2017-2019 and for over 25 years was an organizer and featured reader in the Berkeley Watershed Poetry Festival, sponsored by Poetry Flash and U.S. poet laureate Robert Hass.
He was the Artistic Director for the Nevada County Poetry Series in Grass Valley from 2000-2013, the Artistic Director for Poets Playhouse Series in Nevada City for 10 years, and the poet coach for Poetry Out Loud in Nevada, Placer, Sacramento and El Dorado Counties. In 2008, his student Roshawnda Bettencourt won the CA statewide POL championship, with numerous other Nevada County POL winners taking 2nd and 3rd place in that competition through the years.

Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Mai-Linh Hong and Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco
2026-07-14 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
MAI-LING HONG
Mai-Linh Hong is a Vietnamese American refugee poet and literary scholar. Her debut poetry collection, Continental Drift, won the 2025 Trio Award and was published by Trio House Press in July 2026. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Waxwing, Ploughshares, Copper Nickel, Wildness, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Maine Review, and elsewhere. She publishes essays on Asian American and refugee literature in scholarly journals and anthologies. A lifelong crafter, she is coauthor and coeditor of The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice (University of California Press, 2021). She teaches literature at the University of California, Merced.

ELIZABETH MCMUNN-TETANGCO
Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco lives in California’s Central Valley and co-edits One Sentence Poems and First Frost. She also works as a librarian at UC Merced. Her work has appeared in many online and print journals, and her most recent book, Salt Shaker Girls, is available through Cuttlefish Books.
