Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center

Mini-Workshop for Teens: Write a Tiny Poem - Contest Deadline Jan. 31
2026-01-17 13:00 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Mini Workshop & Youth Poet Laureate Q & A
Valentina Zeff, current Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate, answers your questions!
Teens are invited to join Valentina on Zoom on one (or both!) of these two dates: Saturday, January 17 and Saturday, January 24, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. Valentina shares great tips on how to write a tiny poem for the Woven Words Teen Contest.
Then you can easily submit your poems to our contest! Deadline for that is January 31, 2026.
Feel free to drop in and meet Valentina and learn about the Woven Words: Teen Voices from the Central Valley Anthology.

January 17 Zoom Meeting
January 24 Zoom Meeting

Write a Tiny Poem Workshop Postponed until February--date TBA
2026-01-31 13:00 - 14:00
Mini Workshop & Youth Poet Laureate Q & A

Zoom workshop has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstance. Please return to this page to see future workshops during the month of February!
WOVEN WORDS Youth Poetry Contest deadline extended: February 28, 2026.

Valentina Zeff, current Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate, answers your questions!

Join us on Saturday, January 24, 2026 January 31, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. as Youth Poet Laureate Valentina Zeff shares tips on how to write a tiny poem for the Woven Words Teen Contest.

Then you can easily submit your poems to our contest!

Feel free to drop in and meet Valentina and learn about the Woven Words: Teen Voices from the Central Valley Anthology and how you can submit poems for the contest.

Poetry Out Loud Competition Feb. 3
2026-02-03 18:30 - 20:30 | Prospect Theater Project, 1214 K Street, Modesto, CA, United States
The public is invited to attend the Stanislaus County Poetry Out Loud contest on Tuesday, February 3 at the Prospect Theater Project.
Through this program, high school students across the country participate in a dynamic poetry recitation competition that is designed to improve their public speaking skills, help build confidence, and teach them about literary history and contemporary life.

Poetry Out Loud is a fun and dynamic way to introduce students to poetry.
Poetry Out Loud builds self-confidence and helps develop social and emotional maturity.
The thrill of competition encourages students to do their best and support their peers.
Poetry Out Loud creates lifelong lovers of poetry and creative writing.
Poetry Out Loud offers an opportunity for all types of students to succeed.

Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center, in partnership with the Stanislaus Arts Council, is the local organization organizing and hosting the county-level contest. The winner (plus one alternate) move forward to the California Poetry Out Loud contest.

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.

UPDATED: Poetry at the Carnegie featuring Jesse Wolfe and Stella Beratlis
2026-02-21 14:00 - 15:00 | Carnegie Arts Center, 250 N. Broadway, Turlock, CA, 95380, United States
PLEASE NOTE: Due to a necessary scheduling change, Jesse Wolfe will read with Stella Beratlis on 2/21/26. Cleo Griffith will be a featured reader at a future date to be determined. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Please join host Gary Thomas at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 21, 2026 at Carnegie Arts Center (250 North Broadway Ave., Turlock, California) for a poetry reading featuring Jesse Wolfe and Stella Beratlis. There will be light refreshments and an open mic time following the featured poets. This event is free and open to the public.
Jesse Wolfe is a poet, scholar, and English Professor at CSU Stanislaus, where he has taught since 2006. His debut poetry chapbook, En Route, was published in 2020 by Cathexis Northwest Press, who will also publish his new volume, Breathe Again: A Polyphony, in 2026. He is the author of two scholarly books about modernist literature and the history of intimacy. He is currently working on a third scholarly book about African American modernism and ideas of progress.

Stella Beratlis is the author of Dust Bowl Venus. Her first collection Alkali Sink was a nominee for the 2016 Northern California Book Award in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in Harbor Review, California Quarterly, and In Posse Review. among others, and in the anthologies The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems from the San Francisco Bay Watershed and California Fire and Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology. She was Modesto’s poet laureate from 2016-2020 and works as a librarian at Modesto Junior College.

Write a Tiny Poem: Workshop with Youth Poet Laureate Valentina Zeff
2026-02-28 13:00 | Zoom
Tiny Poem Workshop With Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate Valentina Zeff. All are welcome!
Learn how to write a tiny poem + enjoy a Q&A with the Youth Poet Laureate. Find out how to submit your poems to the contest. The Woven Words Tiny Poem Contest is FREE and open to teens who live in or attend high school in Stanislaus County. The contest is a publication opportunity–the entries will be woven into a larger poem and published in a book, and we will celebrate together a bit later in the spring!
PLUS YOU CAN WIN PRIZES–top poem in each theme wins $50. Note: all poems will be accepted for publication. Please see contest guidelines for details.
Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85093492645

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.

Nature Poetry Reading & Walk at Dos Rios State Park
2026-03-21 10:00 - 12:00 | Dos Rios State Park, 3559 Shiloh Rd, Modesto, CA, 95358, United States
Nature lovers and fans of poetry are welcome to celebrate Spring at the 4th Nature Poetry Reading and Walk at Dos Rios State Park on Saturday, March 21 at 10:00 a.m.. Participants can bring a few of their own nature poems to read, or read poems from their favorite nature poets. After the one-hour reading at the ramadas, an optional hike will be offered by park staff along the 1.8-mile trail around the oxbow pond. Loaner binoculars are available.

Aileen Jaffa Young Poets Contest Deadline
2026-04-03
Co-sponsored by Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center and National League of American Pen Women, Modesto Chapter
Cash awards will be given in each of four categories: K-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12
Stanislaus County students in grades K-12 can submit up to 3 poems with an entry fee] of $1 per poem. Each poem must be the student’s original creative work, 24 lines or less in any style. Submit 2 copies of each poem, one without the student’s name and one with the student’s name plus an attached entry form. Poems entered in the Aileen Jaffa Young Poets Contest cannot be simultaneously submitted to the Poets’ Corner Contest or any other poetry contest. Submissions must be postmarked by the April 3, 2026 deadline.
Please visit Aileen Jaffa Young Poets Contest for full contest rules.

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.

Saturday at the Carnegie featuring poets Cleo Griffith & Sheila D. Landre
2026-05-16 14:00 - 15:00 | Carnegie Arts Center, 250 N. Broadway, Turlock, CA, 95380, United States
Please join host Gary Thomas at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 16, 2026 at Carnegie Arts Center (250 North Broadway Ave., Turlock, California) for a poetry reading featuring Cleo Griffith and Sheila D. Landre. There will be light refreshments and an open mic time following the featured poets. This event is free and open to the public.
Cleo Griffith has been widely published in journals such as Main Street Rag, Straylight, and Westward Quarterly. She has been on the editorial board of Song of the San Joaquin since it began in 2003. She lives with her cats, Amber and Mister, and an assortment of barn swallows, lizards, scrub jays and other creatures among the artist-rich environment of the Central Valley. Her first book, The Yellow Dress, was published last year.
Sheila D. Landre is a retired English and Spanish teacher, a minister, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She was raised in a military family and has lived in Ohio, Louisiana, San Antonio, Yokohama, Washington, D.C., and Heidelberg. She came to Santa Cruz in 1965, then Capitola and Salinas before coming to Modesto in 1976. She is a graduate of Cal State Stanislaus and taught at Turlock Junior High until her retirement. Sheila has been writing poetry since childhood. Her work has been appeared in many California publications including ZamBomba!, In the Grove, Song of the San Joaquin, Stanislaus Connections, Penumbra, and Modern Bride Magazine. She is currently finishing Volume 124 of her journal.

Woven Words Tiny Poem Contest — Reading & Reception
2026-05-20 17:30 - 18:30 | Queen Bean Coffee House, 1126 14th St, Modesto, CA, 95354, United States
Woven Words Tiny Poem Contest — Reading & Reception
You’re invited to a poetry reading to celebrate the publication of Woven Words, an anthology of short poems featuring the work of Stanislaus County youth poets.
Hosted by Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate Valentina Zeff
📅 Wednesday, May 20, 2026 | 5:30 PM 📍 Queen Bean Coffeehouse 1126 14th St., Modesto, CA 95350

About the Program
The Stanislaus County Youth Poet Laureate program is administered by Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center (MoSt Poetry) with partners MJC Library & Learning Center & MJC School of Language Arts & Education, Stanislaus County Office of Education, Stanislaus County Library, and Stanislaus Library Foundation.

Second Tuesday Poetry: Brad Buchanan and Paloma Contreras
2026-06-09 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Second Tuesday Poetry
An Evening of Poetry featuring Brad Buchanan & Paloma Contreras
Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2026 Time: 7:00 pm | Doors open 6:30 pm Location: Bookish Modesto Admission: Free and open to the public Refreshments available for purchase.
BRAD BUCHANAN
Brad Buchanan is a retired English professor and poet laureate–endorsed writer who earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University and chaired the English Department at Sacramento State University. His poetry, fiction, and scholarly articles have appeared in more than 200 journals, and his first two poetry collections received Writer’s Digest awards. A two-time blood cancer survivor and stem cell transplant recipient, he is the author of eight books, including a medical memoir and four collections of poetry. His latest poetry collection, Birds of Poverty Ridge, was published by Finishing Line Press earlier this year. His website is bradthechimera.com.

PALOMA CONTRERAS

Paloma Contreras is a young poet who loves reading and teaching adults. She is currently studying for a graduate degree in Translation to translate written art for a living. Paloma is a member of the Stanislaus Grito de Mujer® team. Grito de Mujer is an international, United Nations-supported month-long program of readings, art events, and workshops to raise awareness of gender-equity issues.

MoSt Summer Poetry Workshop--Using Your Voice: Reading Poems Aloud to Share Their Essence
2026-06-13 13:00 - 15:00 | Salida Public Library, 4835 Sisk Road, Salida, CA, 95368, United States
MoSt Summer Poetry Workshop——Salida Library——June 13, 2026——1:00 to 3:00 p.m.
Using Your Voice: Reading Poems Aloud to Share Their Essence
How do we let the language in a poem come alive and share its truths when we read it aloud? How do we create an energy that lets people want to listen? (Hint: practice, practice, practice…). Join MoSt board member Gary Thomas for this generative workshop writing poetry drafts while exploring a poem’s voice and our voices——without using “Poet Voice.” Intrigued? Writing supplies will be provided, but feel free to bring your favorite pen, pad, tablet, and vocal warmups!

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
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Merced poets Mai-Linh Hong and Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco.
Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Time: 7:00 pm; doors at 6:30 PM
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. Event is free; refreshments and books available for purchase at Bookish!

MAI-LINH 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.

Second Tuesday Poetry presents Poems That Found Us Open Mic
2026-08-11 19:00 - 20:30 | Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Roseburg Ave, Modesto, CA, 95350, United States
Poems That Found Us
An Open Mic Reading
What poem has stayed with you? What lines do you return to again and again?
Join us for an evening where readers share poems by other poets—words that have meant something, sparked something, changed something. Each reader brings one poem– one voice and 3-4 minutes of space to read the poem.
Whether you’re a longtime poetry lover or curious about the form, whether you’ve found your poem already or you’re still looking, you’re welcome to joins us.
Event free; books and refreshments available for purchase.
August 11, 2026 | 7:00 PM
Bookish Modesto

MoSt Poetry's Saturday at the Carnegie with featured readers Carolyn Miller & Lenore Myers
2026-08-15 14:00 - 16:00 | Carnegie Arts Center, 250 N. Broadway, Turlock, CA, 95380, United States
Join host Gary Thomas for the latest edition of MoSt’s Poetry at the Carnegie readings on August 15 at 2:00 p.m. at the Carnegie Arts Center, 250 North Broadway Avenue in Turlock, CA. Our featured poets are Sixteen Rivers Press poets Carolyn Miller and Lenore Myers (both with new books out!) followed by our Open Mic time. This event is free and open to the public, and light refreshments will be provided.
Carolyn Miller lives in San Francisco, where she writes, paints, and works as a freelance book editor. Her books of poetry are After Cocteau and Light, Moving, both from Sixteen Rivers Press; Route 66 and Its Sorrows from Terrapin Books; and four limited-edition letterpress chapbooks from Protean Press. Her poems have been featured on Poetry Daily and The Writer’s Almanac and have appeared in Smartish Pace, SALT, ONE ART, The Southern Review, and The Gettysburg Review, among other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems: American Places. Her honors include the James Boatwright III Award for Poetry from Shenandoah and the Rainmaker Award from Zone 3.
About Random Universe: “Carolyn Miller’s new poetry collection is a remarkably inclusive work, with a playfulness in form and structure that feels wonderfully inventive. In these pages, she takes on ekphrastic responses to Cy Twombly’s art, “mistranslations” of Milosz and Tranströmer, and her own translation of an ancient Egyptian text. She creates list-poems of “Lost Language” and “New Lines for Fortune Cookies” and writes about the lives of objects. And through it all, she shows her remarkable talent for writing about sensuous joy, joy that is earned, though haunted by history and the poet’s place in it. I am glad to sit at the banquet table of her Random Universe and feast.” —Julia B. Levine, author of Lullaby for the Sixth Extinction
LENORE MYERS was born to artist parents who tried to live as semi-bohemians in the suburbs. When that fell apart, the author spent her childhood and youth moving between different towns in Northern California. After spending more years moving around the United States and abroad, she returned to the greater Bay Area to be near family while raising her son. Her chapbook, Regards to Balthus, was published by Seven Kitchens Press in 2023. Her poems and essays appear in a variety of literary journals.

About Afterimages: “Conventional forms of ekphrasis are often little more than poetic descriptions of art. But there is nothing conventional about Lenore Myers’s Afterimages. The poems in this fabulous collection go beyond description, beyond the page, beyond the canvas, beyond looking and seeing, beyond interpretation and reflection, beyond decoding. They participate in what we might call an expanded ekphrasis that takes the dialogue between art and poetry to new levels of interactivity. This is a book that asks big questions about how we perceive and process the acts of making art and engaging with its aftereffects. Art lasts. It lingers. In our heads and in our hearts.” —Dean Rader, author of Before the Borderless: Dialogues with the Art of Cy Twombly

MoSt Summer Workshop - Biographical Poetry
2026-08-22 13:00 - 15:00 | Salida Public Library, 4835 Sisk Road, Salida, CA, 95368, United States
Biographical poetry combines fact with imagination to depict an aspect or overview of an actual person’s life. In this MoSt Poetry Summer Workshop, we’ll read and discuss examples of biographical poetry featuring historical figures and selected authors’ ancestors. Workshop participants will write first drafts in response to poetry prompts offered by facilitator Linda Scheller, MoSt Poetry board member and the author of two collections of biographical poetry, Fierce Light and Laurels. Emerging poets, experienced writers, and everyone in between is welcome, and there’s no need to register in advance for this free workshop. Please join us Saturday, August 22nd, 2026 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Salida Public Library, 4835 Sisk Road, Salida CA 95368.
