Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center

Potluck and Annual Meeting
2019-07-14 15:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
Our annual meeting is coming right up and all members are invited. We’ll have the meeting at 3:00 and a potluck dinner at 4:00. Come here about next year’s plans and all the inner workings of MoSt, and of course, we’d love any member input as well. The get-together will be held at a member’s home in Modesto on Sunday, July 14. You are welcome to come just for the meeting or just for the potluck or for both, but we’d be so happy to have you join us. Please email Gillian at info@mostpoetry.org if you’d like more information.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-07-09 18:00 - 20:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for the Second Tuesday Barkin’ Dog reading on July 9th at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto. An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.
Stay tuned for more info!

Summer Poetry Workshops 2019
2019-06-15 13:00 - 15:00 | Stanislaus County Library, 1500 I Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us at the Downtown Modesto Library for our first Summer Poetry Workshop of 2019!

Linda Scheller from the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center(MoSt) will lead a workshop on Archetypes and Dreams. Participants will read, discuss, and write poetry derived from universal ideas and images from dreams.
All experience levels are welcome. This event is part of the MoSt Summer Poetry Workshop series.

All workshops are FREE TO THE PUBLIC with materials and inspiration provided. Sponsored by Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and the Friends of the Modesto Library.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-06-11 18:00 - 20:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for the Second Tuesday Barkin’ Dog reading on June 11th at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto. Our featured poets will be Stella Beratlis and Gillian Wegener. Wegener has been running the Barkin’ Dog series for the past 10 years and is now handing the reins over to Beratlis, who will carry on with new energy and all her grace and verve and humor. And there will be cake!
An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.
Stella Beratlis is the author of Alkali Sink and the poet laureate of Modesto. Her work has been published in California Quarterly, In Posse Review, hardpan, Song of the San Joaquin, Penumbra, and Quercus Review as well as the anthology The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed. She is a librarian at Modesto Junior College.
Gillian Wegener is the author of two collections of poetry, both from Sixteen Rivers Press, The Opposite of Clairvoyance (2008) and This Sweet Haphazard (2017). Her work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle and is forthcoming from MockingHeart Review. Wegener is a co-founder of the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center, has served as poet laureate for the City of Modesto, and started this reading series in June of 2009.

Aileen Jaffa Poetry Contest Awards Ceremony
2019-05-19 14:00 - 17:00 | Carnegie Arts Center, Gemperle Gallery, 250 N. Broadway Ave., Turlock, CA, United States
Come join us at the Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock for the Awards Ceremony for this year’s Aileen Jaffa Young Poets Contest! First, second and third place winners in each category will receive cash awards from the MoSt Poetry Center. Prizes are: First Place $25, Second Place $15, Third Place $10. In addition, the Modesto Branch of the National League of American Pen Women will award a $60 Aileen Jaffa Outstanding Poem award in each of two combined categories, Categories 1 and 2, and Categories 3 and 4. The current president of the NLAPW Modesto chapter will present the awards, and you’ll get to hear a reading featuring the winning poems.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-05-14 18:00 - 20:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for the Second Tuesday Barkin’ Dog reading on May 14th at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto. Our featured poets will be Molly Fisk and Ingrid Keriotis.
An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.
Poet and radio commentator Molly Fisk was chosen by the Academy of American Poets as one of the inaugural American Poet Laureate Fellows. She’s also received grants from the NEA and the CA Arts Council. Fisk is the author of The More Difficult Beauty, among other collections, and lives in Nevada City, CA.
Ingrid Keriotis‘ first book of poetry, It Started with the Wild Horses, is now available from Finishing Line Press. Her poems are also included in the anthology, More Than Soil, More Than Sky: the Modesto Poets. In writing, she believes in Richard Hugo’s advice: “You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything.” Ingrid lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills and teaches writing to community college students.

City of Modesto Poets' Corner Reading
2019-05-05 13:00 - 16:00 | McHenry Museum, 1402 14th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
The annual Poets’ Corner contest is open to all Stanislaus County residents. Poets will read their winning poems on Sunday, May 5, 2019, at 1 p.m. at the McHenry Museum, followed by light refreshments.
Winning poems will be printed in a booklet that will be placed in the Poets’ Bookshelf, which contains published works by local writers and will be kept at the McHenry Museum. Each winner will receive a copy of the booklet.

MoSt Board Meeting
2019-05-02 18:30 - 19:30 | CA
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, May 2nd, at 6:30 pm at the house of one of our members. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

Poetry Book Club
2019-04-24 18:30 - 19:30 | Stanislaus County Library, 1500 I Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
MoSt is pleased to announce another installment of our Poetry Book Club! The meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 24th from 6:30 to 7:30 at the downtown library. Our featured book is Wade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith–copies will be available from the Modesto Library or on Amazon, and we will have a few copies on hand.
This event is free and open to the public.

Sixth Annual Benefit Gala
2019-04-14 14:00 - 17:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Save the date for our Sixth Annual Benefit on April 14th, 2019! Our annual MoSt Poetry Center Benefit provides our supporters with the chance to enjoy food, drinks, and music while mingling with poetry-minded friends.
Come have a lovely afternoon of poetry, food and drink, music, poetry games, a silent auction, and the release of our 2019 George Rogers-Lee Nicholson Chapbook featuring the work of young poets.
Tickets are $20 each and available online at https://mostpoetry.eventbrite.com.
You’ll also be able to buy tickets at the door, but if you purchase them beforehand we’ll know you’re coming and can better plan for the event.
To read about some of our past events, click here.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-04-09 18:00 - 20:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for the Second Tuesday Barkin’ Dog reading on April 9th at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto. We’ll be featuring poets from the Sixteen Rivers poetry collective.
An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.

Ladies of the Knight Reading
2019-04-07 14:00 - 17:00 | Carnegie Arts Center, 250 N. Broadway, Turlock, CA, 95380, United States
MoSt is proud to co-sponsor the Ladies of the Knight poetry reading with Sacramento poets at the Carnegie Arts Center! Stay tuned for more information.

Poetry Reading at MJC
2019-04-05 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
The Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is proud to announce that we will be co-sponsoring a poetry reading at Modesto Junior College with MJC’s Counseling department and the UnDocuAlly DREAM Network. Stay tuned for more information!

MoSt Board Meeting
2019-04-04 18:30 - 19:30 | CA
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, April 4th, at 6:30 pm at the house of one of our members. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-03-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for the Second Tuesday Barkin’ Dog reading on March 12th at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto. Our featured readers are Lee Herrick and Maw Shein Win.
An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.

Poets' Corner Contest Deadline
2019-03-08 | CA
See Poets’ Corner contest page for details.

MoSt Board Meeting
2019-03-07 18:30 - 19:30 | CA
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, March 7th, at 6:30 pm at the house of one of our members. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

Student Chapbook Contest Deadline
2019-03-01 | CA
Today’s the deadline for our annual George Rogers-Lee Nicholson Student Chapbook Contest! Check out the main contest page for full details.

Poetry on Sunday Series
2019-02-17 14:00 - 16:00 | Carnegie Arts Center, Gemperle Gallery, 250 N. Broadway Ave., Turlock, CA, United States
Come join us at the Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock for the first 2019 installment of our quarterly reading series! Click the image at right to download the PDF flyer, and see below for bios of our featured readers.
Derek D. Brown is an author, poet, and venture expressionist based in Los Angeles. His premiere collection of poems entitled Articulate Scars: Comfortable Silences and Reluctant Tears, was met with wide acclaim from poetry virgins and seasoned wordsmiths alike. He’s a highly coveted featured attraction throughout Southern California, whose mix of humor and truth in punchy poems has deeply embedded him in the fabric of the poetry scene.
Brian Dunlap is a native Angeleño who still lives in Los Ángeles. He explores and captures the city’s stories that are hidden in plain sight. He is the author of the chapbook Concrete Paradise (2018) from Finishing Line Press. Dunlap is the winner of the 2018 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize from december magazine judged by former Los Ángeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez. His poems and book reviews have been published in Angel City Review, CCM-Entropy, California Quarterly and Dryland, among others. He runs the blog site www.losangelesliterature.wordpress.com, a resource to explore L.A.’s vast literary culture.
Susan Kelly-DeWitt is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and the author of Spider Season (Cold River Press, 2016), The Fortunate Islands (Marick Press, 2008) and nine previous small press collections and online chapbooks. Her work has appeared in many anthologies, and in print and online journals at home and abroad. She is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Northern California Book Reviewers Association. For more information, please visit her website at www.susankelly-dewitt.com.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-02-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for the Second Tuesday Barkin’ Dog reading on February 12th at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto. We’ll be featuring the poetry of beloved local poets Virginia Dall, George Rogers, and Lee Nicholson, read by members of the MoSt poetry community.
An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.

MoSt Board Meeting
2019-02-07 18:30 - 19:30 | CA
Our next Board meeting will be held on February 7th at 6:30 pm. If you are interested in attending, please contact us at info@mostpoetry.org.

Poetry Out Loud County Competition
2019-02-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Little Theatre, MJC, 435 College Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Poetry Out Loud is a national poetry recitation contest for students, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, and the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is proud to announce that we will be holding our county-level competition at the MJC Little Theatre on February 6th. Last year, our county winner took third place at the state level, so don’t miss the chance to witness this year’s contest!

7th Annual Modesto Poetry Festival
2019-02-02 09:30 - 16:00 | St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 1528 Oakdale Road, Modesto, CA, 95355, United States
We are thrilled to announce the details of our 7th Annual Modesto Poetry Festival, coming up on February 2nd, 2019!
Each year in February we organize and hold an all-day poetry festival featuring workshops, readings, and a featured poet. This year, we are proud to welcome back featured poet Indigo Moor, Sacramento’s Poet Laureate, as our guest poet and workshop leader. CLICK HERE to read more about the workshop theme.
Join us on Saturday, February 2nd, 2019 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Modesto for a day of poetry, learning, and inspiration! Click on the image at right to download the PDF flyer, and you can click here to download the registration form (which also has details about this year’s festival poetry contest).
Themes for this year’s contest are 1. Here in this House; 2. What Remains; 3. The Edge of the Sea; 4. In and Out of Fashion (Life a la Mode). Submissions to the poetry contest must be postmarked by the CONTEST DEADLINE: JANUARY 11, 2019. Please see the form for more information.

Poetry Book Club
2019-01-23 18:30 - 19:30 | Stanislaus County Library, 1500 I Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
MoSt is pleased to announce another installment of our Poetry Book Club! The meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 23rd from 6:30 to 7:30 at the downtown library. Our featured book is Adamantine by Shin Yu Pai–copies are available from the Modesto Library or on Amazon, and we will have a few copies on hand.
This event is free and open to the public.

Poetry Festival Contest Deadline
2019-01-11 | CA
Today’s the postmark deadline for the poetry contest held at our annual Modesto Poetry Festival! For more information, take a look at the main event page.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-01-08 18:00 - 20:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for the Second Tuesday Barkin’ Dog reading on January 8th at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto. We’ll have an evening of poetry with featured readers from America, We Call Your Name. An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2018-12-11 18:00 - 20:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for the Second Tuesday Barkin’ Dog reading on December 11 at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto. We’ll have an evening of poetry by featured readers the Licensed Fools. An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.

Poetry on Sunday Series
2018-12-02 14:00 - 17:00 | Carnegie Arts Center, Gemperle Gallery, 250 N. Broadway Ave., Turlock, CA, United States
Come join us at the Carnegie Arts Center in Turlock for our quarterly reading series! Download the PDF flyer at right, and read more about our featured poets below:
James Weaver has published his first book, Writing Therapy. Included in the collection are poems previously published in Penumbra, Susurrus, Collision IV, Suisun Valley Review, as well as other journals in California. On reputation alone, this poet has the crowd snapping at their seats and enjoys connecting with the audience. When he’s not doing poetry, he enjoys spending time with family and friends.
Joseph Nolan is a practicing attorney. Joseph self-published three books of poems in 2017: Human Grace, Cats Can’t Use Straws, and Sky Gardens. Joseph likes to work in rhyme and meter, writing mostly shorter poems. His writing has been published in the Sacramento Voices anthology (2017) and will be published in its upcoming 2018 Edition, in Poetry Now, an online quarterly journal of the Sacramento Poetry Center, and in Collision V, an anthology of poetry from local poets in combination with artistic photography from local professional photographers. He is an active member of the Sacramento Poetry Center and the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center.
Camille Norton’s book, A Folio for the Dark, was chosen for publication by Sixteen Rivers Press during its 2017 open reading period. It will appear in the spring of 2019. Her first book of poems, Corruption, was a 2004 National Poetry Series winner, published by HarperPerennial in 2005. Her work has appeared in Field, The Colorado Review, The Georgia Review, and in American Poet: The Journal of the Academy of American Poets. One of her poems in A Folio for the Dark,“ The Prison Diary of Bartlett Yancey Malone,” was published in The Best American Poetry of 2010. Camille grew up outside of Philadelphia and studied English and American Literature at Harvard University. A Professor of English at University of the Pacific, in Stockton, CA since 1994, she teaches courses in poetry, gender studies, and critical theory. She has worked collaboratively with artists and composers since the early 1990’s, when she co-edited Resurgent: New Writing by Women, an anthology of experimental writing by women in literature, film, and the visual arts. She lives in Stockton, near the San Joaquin River, and is at home in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Her poetry explores the interstices between artistic expression and the political systems that define who reads, who writes, and who is remembered.
Susan Kelly-DeWitt is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and the author of Spider Season (Cold River Press, 2016), The Fortunate Islands (Marick Press, 2008) and nine previous small press collections and online chapbooks. Her work has appeared in many anthologies, and in print and online journals at home and abroad. She is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Northern California Book Reviewers Association. For more information, please visit her website at www.susankelly-dewitt.com.

Poetry Book Club
2018-11-14 18:30 - 19:30 | Stanislaus County Library, 1500 I Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
MoSt is pleased to announce the fourth installment of our Poetry Book Club! The meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 14 from 6:30 to 7:30 at the downtown library. Our featured book is to be announced–stay tuned. More details to follow, but as usual, this event is free and open to the public.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2018-11-13 18:00 - 20:00 | Barkin’ Dog Grill, 940 11th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us for the Second Tuesday Barkin’ Dog reading on November 13 at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto. We’ll have an evening of poetry by featured readers Roy Mash and Rebecca Foust. An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.
