Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center

MoSt Board Meeting
2019-12-05 18:30 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, December 5th, 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 on Sunday Series
2019-12-01 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 third 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.
Ash Young currently lives in Modesto with her husband, two sons, and two Pomeranians. She writes poetry about her life, and hopes to never be famous.
Born in Canada, and of Iraqi heritage, Zaid Shlah currently resides in Northern California with his family. His poetry has appeared in literary magazines, journals, and anthologies in both Canada and the U. S. In May of 2005, he was awarded the American Academy of Poets Award. His first book of poetry, Taqsim, was published in the US and in Canada (Frontenac House, 2006). His second book of poems and essays is entitled Clockwork (Frontenac House, 2015). He teaches composition and literature at Modesto Junior College.
Lee Herrick is the author of three books of poems: Scar and Flower, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and This Many Miles from Desire. His poems appear widely in literary magazines, textbooks, and anthologies, including Columbia Poetry Review, The Poetry Foundation, Indivisible: Poems of Social Justice and Here: Poems for the Planet, with an introduction by the Dalai Lama. He is co-editor of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (forthcoming in Spring 2020 by Orison Books). Born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted to the United States, he served as Fresno Poet Laureate (2015-2017) and teaches at Fresno City College and the MFA Program at Sierra Nevada College.

Poetry Book Club
2019-11-13 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! Join us for a conversation about Blindspot by Teju Cole. Copies of Blindspot are available at the downtown Modesto library to check out.
The book club will be held Wednesday, November 13 at 6:30 in the conference room at the downtown library and will be facilitated by Janette Jameson. See you there!

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-11-12 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 November 12th 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.

MoSt Board Meeting
2019-11-07 18:30 - 19:30
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, November 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.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-10-15 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 October 15th at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto with featured readers Paul Neuman and Amy Miller. An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.

MoSt Board Meeting
2019-10-03 18:30 - 19:30
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, October 3rd, 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.

Members' Book Exchange Party
2019-09-28 14:00 - 17:00
We’re having a party for our members!
What: A book exchange open-house party! Arrive your duplicate or unwanted poetry books and trade for new-to-you poetry!
Where: At a member’s home in Modesto.
When: September 28, from 2pm to 5pm.
Why: To celebrate our members and share our love of poetry!
Join us for food, drink and poetry joy! More formal invitations to come, but pencil the date in today! And if you aren’t yet a member, it isn’t too late! Join MoSt today and join us for this poetry celebration!

Summer Poetry Workshops 2019
2019-09-14 13:00 - 15:00 | Stanislaus County Library, 1500 I Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us at the Downtown Modesto Library for our FINAL Summer Poetry Workshop of 2019. Tom Portwood will lead a workshop on Writing Poems of Social Justice — the Art of Empathy.

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.

Poetry Reading: Odilia Galván Rodríguez
2019-09-13 19:00 - 20:30 | College Avenue United Church of Christ, 1341 College Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Save the date for a special upcoming poetry reading with poet and activist Odilia Galván Rodríguez at the College Avenue United Church of Christ.
About Odilia Galván Rodríguez (bio: University of Arizona Poetry Center)
Odilia Galván Rodríguez, poet, writer, editor, educator, and activist, is the author of six volumes of poetry, her latest, The Nature of Things, is a collaboration with Texas photographer, Richard Loya, by Merced College Press 2016. Also, along with the late Francisco X. Alarcón, she edited the award-winning anthology, Poetry of Resistance: Voices for Social Justice, University of Arizona Press, 2016. This poetry of witness anthology, the first of its kind, because it came about because of the on-line organizing work of Alarcón, Galván Rodriguez, and other poet-activists which began as a response to the proposal of SB 1070, the racial profiling law which was eventually passed by the Arizona State Legislature in 2010, and later that year, HB 2281which bans ethnic studies. With the advent of the Facebook page Poets Responding (to SB 1070) thousands of poems were submitted witnessing racism, xenophobia, and other social justice issues which culminated in the anthology.
Galván Rodríguez has worked as an editor for various print media such as Matrix Women’s News Magazine, Community Mural’s Magazine, and Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba. She is currently, the editor of Cloud Women’s Quarterly Journal online; facilitates creative writing workshops nationally, and is director of Poets Responding (to SB 1070) and Love and Prayers for Fukushima, both Facebook pages dedicated to bringing attention to social justice issues that affect the lives and wellbeing of many people and encouraging people to act. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, and literary journals on and offline.
As an activist, she worked for the United Farm Workers of America AFL-CIO, The East Bay Institute for Urban Arts, has served on numerous boards and commissions, and is currently active in Women’s organizations whose mission it is to educate around environmental justice issues and disseminate an indigenous world view regarding the earth and people’s custodial relationship to it. Odilia Galván Rodríguez has a long and rich history of working for social justice in solidarity with activists from all ethnic groups.

Second Tuesday @ Barkin' Dog
2019-09-10 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 September 10th 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.

The Writers' Block @ Barnes & Noble
2019-09-07 12:00 - 17:00 | Barnes & Noble, 3501 McHenry Ave, Suite E, Modesto, CA, 95356, United States
Modesto’s Barnes and Noble is hosting The Writer’s Block, an afternoon celebration of writing in our area, on September 7 from noon to 5pm. This event will include panels, readings, and book signings. This is also a bookfair fundraiser benefiting Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt). Mention the bookfair or use the ID 12545562 and a percentage of the profits from your purchase will go back to MoSt to support the work we do promoting poetry throughout Stanislaus County.
This is going to be a great day! We hope you can stop by!

MoSt Board Meeting
2019-09-05 18:30 - 19:30
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, September 5th, 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 on Sunday Series
2019-08-18 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 third 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.
Sara Coito is a Central Valley native whose claim to fame is that she and Megan Rapinoe share an alma mater. She seeks to explore ugly emotions, the struggle and ease of intimacy, and the plurality of devotion in her poetry. Her other passions include music, making pictures, working in kindergarten classrooms, eggs for breakfast, and snail mail. You can find her earlier work in Sigma Tau Delta’s Rectangle and University of Portland’s Writers magazine. Connect with her via email at coitosk@gmail.com or Instagram @thecoits.
Ingrid Keriotis is a former MJC English instructor. Her first book of poetry, It Started with the Wild Horses, was published in April and is available at ingridkeriotis.com. Ingrid currently teaches at Sierra College in Grass Valley. When it comes to writing poetry, she believes in Richard Hugo’s advice: “You owe reality nothing and the truth about your feelings everything.”
Joshua McKinney’s most recent book of poetry is Small Sillion (Parlor Press, 2019). His work has appeared in such journals as Boulevard, Denver Quarterly, Kenyon Review, New American Writing, and many others. He is the recipient of The Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize, The Dickinson Prize, The Pavement Saw Chapbook Prize, and a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Writing. He is co-editor of the online eco-poetry zine, Clade Song. He teaches at California State University, Sacramento.

Summer Poetry Workshops 2019
2019-08-17 13:00 - 15:00 | Stanislaus County Library, 1500 I Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us at the Downtown Modesto Library for our third Summer Poetry Workshop of 2019. Gillian Wegener will lead a workshop on Poetry of Place. Write new poems inspired by other poems of place and some questions that will help you dig deep and find new creativity in writing about places that are important to us.

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
2019-08-13 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 August 13th at 6:00 at the Barkin’ Dog Grill in downtown Modesto, featuring poets Pos Moa and Yu-Han Chao. An open mic will follow the featured reading, so bring a poem or two to share.
Pos Moua is a Hmong-American writer, educator, and poet who lives in Merced with his wife and their five children. He is the author of the chapbook “Towards the World Where the Torches Are Burning” (Swan Scythe Press, 2001), the first published work from a Hmong American poet. He has published work in How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology, Tilting the Continent: Southeast Asian American Writing, UC Davis Poetry Review, Sacramento’s “Poetry Now,” and National Poetry.” Pos Moua’s new book, Karst Mountains Will Bloom, was published by Blue Oak Press in April 2019.
Yu-Han (Eugenia) Chao was born and grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. Her poetry books & chapbooks were published by Another New Calligraphy, BOAAT Press, Dancing Girl Press, and University of Nebraska Press. Her new short story collection, Sex & Taipei City, is now out with Red Hen Press. She maintains a blog at www.yuhanchao.com about nursing school.

MoSt Board Meeting
2019-08-01 18:30 - 19:30
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, August 1st, 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
2019-07-24 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! Join us for a conversation about Theodore Roethke’s final collection The Far Field. Four copies of The Far Field are available at the downtown Modesto library to check out, but if you have Roethke’s Collected Poems, almost the entire collection is included there as well.
The book club will be held Wednesday, July 24 at 6:30 in the conference room at the downtown library and will be facilitated by Salvatore Salerno. See you there!

Summer Poetry Workshops 2019
2019-07-20 13:00 - 15:00 | Stanislaus County Library, 1500 I Street, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Join us at the Downtown Modesto Library for our second Summer Poetry Workshop of 2019. Stella Beratlis and Nancy Lewis will lead a workshop on Erasure/Blackout poetry. Participants will create their own new poems based on prompts and examples. See http://newspaperblackout.com/ or http://erasures.wavepoetry.com/ for examples.

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.

Potluck and Annual Meeting
2019-07-14 15:00 - 17:00
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
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.
