Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center

MoSt Board Meeting
2020-11-05 18:30 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Zoom
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, November 5th, at 6:30 pm via Zoom. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

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

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

Poetry Book Club
2020-11-18 18:30 - 19:30 | Zoom
Our MoSt Book Club is back on Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 6:30, via Zoom meeting!
We’ll be discussing Dylan Thomas’s Collected Poems. There are copies available to borrow at the Modesto Public Library. If you’d like one, please email Vicki, our most wonderful librarian contact, at vsalinas@stanlibrary.org. The discussion will be led by MoSt Board member Sal Salerno.
We’ll send out the Zoom invite via Mailchimp and our Facebook page soon, so stay tuned!

Deadline: NAACP Youth Video Contest
2020-11-30 | CA
MoSt is proud to help co-sponsor this contest!
Do you use artistic expression to help cope with COVID-19 and its impact on your community? Can you record a 3-5 minute video showcasing your creative activities?
NAACP is hosting a Virtual Showcase for you to show off your talent! We are looking for individuals between the ages 14-25 to participate. Every participant will be given a T-Shirt for participation in addition to being placed into a drawing to win some prizes. Your video will be posted on many social media platforms & live TV! If you are 17 and under, please submit a Release Form with your parent signature, along with your video for complete submission. If you haven’t already, please check out our sample video of what we are looking for. In order to participate, you MUST be a resident of Stanislaus County.
The contest deadline has been extended to November 30th.
Click here for more information and the entry form.

MoSt Board Meeting
2020-12-03 18:30 - 19:30 | Zoom
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, December 3rd, at 6:30 pm via Zoom. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

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

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

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

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

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

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

MoSt Board Meeting
2021-01-07 18:30 - 19:30 | Zoom
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, January 7th, at 6:30 pm via Zoom. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

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

Coffee, Tea, and Poetry
2021-01-16 08:00 - 09:00 | Zoom
Join us for a new event…Coffee, Tea, and Poetry, a way to start the day with poetry! Share what poetry collection you’re reading now and a poem or two from that collection.
Bring your chosen morning beverage and join us on Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83329984336?pwd=[REDACTED]
For more detailed Zoom information, please check our latest Poetry Everywhere newsletter or contact us at info@mostpoetry.org!

Poetry Book Club
2021-01-20 18:30 - 19:30 | Zoom
Our MoSt Book Club is back on Wednesday, January 20, 2021, at 6:30, via Zoom meeting!
We’ll be discussing The Age of Phillis by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. There are copies available to borrow at the Modesto Public Library. If you’d like one, please email Vicki, our most wonderful librarian contact, at vsalinas@stanlibrary.org. The discussion will be led by MoSt Board member Linda Scheller.
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89965113712

Contest Deadline: Chaparral Poets
2021-01-31 | CA
The Annual Contest for the California Federation of Chaparral Poets is open! The entry fee is free for members, and $5 per poem for non-members. Submissions must be postmarked or e-mailed by midnight, January 31, 2021.
For more information, please visit the contest website!

Poetry Workshop: Finding Inspiration from Surprising Sources
2021-02-06 10:00 - 14:00 | Zoom
Finding Inspiration from Surprising Sources:
A Workshop Event with Maw Shein Win

And!! Two afternoon workshops :
The News from Poetry, with Gary Thomas
Poetry from Phrases, with Linda Scheller

When: Saturday, February 6, 2020 10:00 am-2:00pm
Where: Zoom Event (please register below for details)
Registration: $15 – Click here to register via Eventbrite!
Maw Shein Win is a poet, editor, and educator who lives and teaches in the Bay Area. Her poetry chapbooks are Ruins of a glittering palace (SPA/Commonwealth Projects) and Score and Bone (Nomadic Press). Invisible Gifts: Poems was published by Manic D Press in 2018. She was a 2019 Visiting Scholar in the Department of English at UC Berkeley. Win is the first poet laureate of El Cerrito, California (2016 – 2018), and her new full-length poetry collection is Storage Unit for the Spirit House on Omnidawn. She often collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and other writers. Visit her website at mawsheinwin.com
Click below to download a PDF flyer:

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

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

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

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

Coffee, Tea, & Poetry
2021-02-27 08:00 - 09:30 | Zoom
Join us for a new event…Coffee, Tea, and Poetry, a way to start the day with poetry! Share what poetry collection you’re reading now and a poem or two from that collection.
Bring your chosen morning beverage and join us on Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85021113353?pwd=[REDACTED]
For more detailed Zoom information, please check our latest Poetry Everywhere newsletter or contact us at info@mostpoetry.org!

MoSt Board Meeting
2021-03-04 18:30 - 19:30 | Zoom
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, March 4th, at 6:30 pm via Zoom. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

Deadline: Modesto Poem
2021-03-08 | CA
In honor of Modesto’s 150th anniversary, MoSt invites you to contribute to a community collaborative poem! Write a quatrain (a four-line poem) celebrating what you love or appreciate or think is pretty true about Modesto. Everyone of all ages and poetic experience levels is welcome to submit. Send your Modesto poem to info@mostpoetry.org with Modesto Poem in the subject line. The deadline has been extended to March 8th, but why wait that long. Send your Modesto poem in today!
Help spread the word! Share this with your family and friends! Even people who don’t live in Modesto, but have a connection to Modesto are welcome to jump in and submit!
One quatrain per person, please, and we at MoSt reserve the right not to publish any quatrain that includes profanity or negativity beyond the scope of this project. We like honesty, but we won’t publish insult or injury.

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

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

Coffee, Tea, & Poetry
2021-03-27 09:00 - 10:00 | Zoom
The March edition of Coffee, Tea, and Poetry is coming right up on March 27 at 9:00am. That’s a change of time from the previous 8:00am start, so you can set your alarm for an hour later. Bring whatever your morning beverage of choice is and whatever poetry you’re reading for a great chat and a great way to start the day! Hosted by Sal Salerno.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81521738825?pwd=[REDACTED]
For more information, please contact us at info@mostpoetry.org.

MoSt Board Meeting
2021-04-01 18:30 - 19:30 | Zoom
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, April 1st, at 6:30 pm via Zoom. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

Coffee, Tea, & Poetry
2021-04-10 09:00 - 10:00 | Zoom
The April edition of Coffee, Tea, and Poetry is coming up on April 10 at 9:00am. Bring whatever your morning beverage of choice is and whatever poetry you’re reading for a great chat and a great way to start the day! Hosted by Sal Salerno.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88966133427?pwd=[REDACTED]
For more information, please contact us at info@mostpoetry.org.

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

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

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

Poetry Book Club
2021-04-21 18:30 - 19:30 | Zoom
Join us for the latest edition of the MoSt Poetry Book Club! We’ll meet on Wednesday, April 21st at 6:30 pm. In the meantime, pick up a copy of Indigo Moor’s excellent new collection, Everybody’s Jonesin’ for Something, now available at the front desk of the Modesto Library. Tom Myers and Tom Portwood will lead a discussion about the collection that evening. Please join us!
Zoom link: https://cccconfer.zoom.us/j/92507601303

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

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

MoSt Board Meeting
2021-05-06 18:30 - 19:30 | Zoom
Our next MoSt Poetry Board meeting will be held on Thursday, May 6th, at 6:30 pm via Zoom. If you are interested in attending, please email info@mostpoetry.org for more information.

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

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

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

Coffee, Tea, & Poetry
2021-05-22 09:00 - 10:00 | Zoom
Join us for Coffee, Tea, and Poetry! A Saturday morning conversation about the poetry you’re reading. You can read from the latest book you’re reading, and if you’d like, share a few poems from that book on your screen. Hosted by Sal Salerno.
May 22, 2021 09:00 AM Pacific Time
Join the Zoom Meeting
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Poetry on Sunday Series
2021-05-23 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom
Please join us for the May edition of MoSt’s quarterly Poetry On Sunday Readings on Sunday, May 23rd at 2:00 P. M. While we look forward to a time we can all gather again at the Carnegie Arts Center, this time we’ll be on ZOOM. Join us, too, for the Open Mic time following the featured readers!
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85841157090
Click here to download the PDF flyer.

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

Submission Deadline: Song of the San Joaquin
2021-06-01 | CA
The deadlines for the Song of the San Joaquin have been changed to the first day of March, June, September, and December as more time is needed to get the books mailed before each of the readings. That means the next deadline is June 1, which is coming right up! See the Song of the San Joaquin website for more information: http://www.chaparralpoets.org/SSJ.html
