Build Community Through Poetry
Support Poetry Flash's year-round literary programs, events, and publishing.
PROGRAMS
John Sibley Williams
John Sibley Williams, Rusty Morrison, Alexis Sears
12 JUNE 2022 — sunday
Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Rusty Morrison, Beyond the Chainlink, John Sibley Williams, Scale Model of a Country at Dawn, Cider Press Review Book Award-winner and The Drowning House, Elixir Press Poetry Award-winner, with Alexis Sears, Out of Order, Donald Justice Poetry Prize-winner, online via Zoom, free, 3:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: please click here; you will receive an email with a link to join the reading)
Please join us for a Poetry Flash virtual reading on Sunday, June 12 at 3:00 pm PDT. We are excited to bring you this event via Zoom. To register for this reading, please click on the link in the calendar listing above. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.
This reading is co-sponsored by Moe's Books in Berkeley. Featured books for this reading are available at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash.
MORE ABOUT THE READERS
Rusty Morrison's most recent collection, Beyond the Chainlink, was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. Library Journal wrote, "As these eloquent, perfectly faceted poems attest, life is at heart our burningly patient negotiation with the everyday. We're followed by 'dangerous ideas,' risk the 'little hurt' of impulse, attempt to construct meaning (even in the backyard), and always, always desire ('This wanting, a pocket mirror I'll rub / until the silver backing rubs off.') James Laughlin Award-winner Morrison delivers poetry that feels affirmative, radiant, and lived." Her previous books include After Urgency, Tupelo's Dorset Prize-winner, the true keeps calm biding its story, winner of the Ahsahta Press Sawtooth Prize, James Laughlin Award, Northern California Book Award, and DiCastagnola Award. She is a recipient of a Civitella Ranieri fellowship, and other artist retreat fellowships. She was one of eight fellows in the 2020 UC Berkeley Art Research Center's Poetry and the Senses Program. Co-publisher of Omnidawn Publishers, she teaches and offers writing consultations.
Alexis Sears's debut collection is Out of Order, winner of the 2021 Donald Justice Poetry Prize. David Yezzi says, "If you have never read Alexis Sears, prepare yourself. Her poems draw blood. It's hard to think of a debut collection since Heart's Needle [by W.D Snodgrass] that is at once so deeply felt and so finely tuned. In her hands, form is the fist that delivers the blow, conveying the pure force of language. With so much at stake—identity, melancholia, a father's suicide in a distant place—feeling could easily overwhelm and blur, but Sears's poems remain precise and richly textured. Her poems do not succumb; they triumph, as we do, thrillingly, through them." She earned her BA in Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and her MFA in poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work has appeared in the Birmingham Poetry Review, Cortland Review, Northwest Review, Poet Lore, E-verse Radio, Hopkins Review, Literary Matters, Best American Poetry 2022, minnesota review, Cimarron Review, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She is poetry editor of the online literary journal, Up North Lit.
John Sibley Williams is the author of nine poetry collections, including Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Poetry Award). Susan Rich says, "To conjure is a recurring theme in this impressive collection—as if language holds the power to reconfigure a past, a mother, a child. And perhaps it can. Williams's words are that convincing." His books include The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award), As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). His collection, Sky Burial: New & Selected Poems, is forthcoming in translated form by the Portuguese press do lado esquerdo. A twenty-seven-time Pushcart nominee, Williams is the winner of numerous other awards, including the Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and is founder of the Caesura Poetry Workshop series. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Verse Daily, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly.
< previous month | show all AUGUST | next month >
9 AUGUST 2022 — tuesday
- Cobalt Poets presents a reading featuring poet Farnaz Fatemi, Sister Tongue, winner of the 2021 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, with open mic to follow, online via Zoom, free, 7:30 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html)
- The Bay Area Book Festival presents Literary Pub Trivia Night, a literary-themed trivia with drinks, emceed by Amy Schneider, forty-time Jeopardy! champion, the most successful woman to ever compete on the show and the first openly transgender contestant to qualify for Jeopardy's "Tournament of Champions," come for a fun evening of trivia, drinks, and prizes, in person, The Ivy Room, 860 San Pablo Avenue, Albany, $25, proceeds benefit the Bay Area Book Festival, 7:00-10:00 pm PDT (Purchase tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/89-literary-pub-trivia-prizes-special-guest-star-tickets-384151205597)
10 AUGUST 2022 — wednesday
- City Lights Books presents award-winning essayist and educator Kristen Ghodsee, Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence, discussing her new book, Red Valkyries: Feminist Lessons from Five Revolutionary Women, an exploration of the history of socialist feminism in Eastern Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, online via Zoom, free, 6:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: citylights.com/events)
- Mrs. Dalloway's presents poet and nonfiction writer Toni Mirosevich, Pink Harvest, winner of the First Series Award for Creative Nonfiction, reading and discussing her new book, Spell Heaven and Other Stories, a linked story collection about a gay couple drawn to a group of outsiders after their move to a new coastal town, in conversation with Janine Kovac, former professional ballet dancer and author of Spinning: Choreography for Coming Home, winner of the National Indie Excellence Awards, in person, Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, free, 7:00-8:30 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.mrsdalloways.com/events)
11 AUGUST 2022 — thursday
- San Francisco Writing Institute presents "Poetry Revision Workshop," led by poet Hollie Hardy, How to Take a Bullet, and Other Survival Poems, winner of the annual Poetry Center Book Award in 2016; the workshop will focus on deep revision of existing poems, attendees are welcome to write new poems to workshop, but it is not required, class time will be spent workshopping poems in small groups, this workshop can be taken on its own or as a follow-up to Hardy's previous workshop, "Generative Poetry," runs six-weeks, August 11-September 15, $425, 5:30-7:30 pm PDT (Sign up here: sfwriting.institute/events/poetry-revision-workshop)
12 AUGUST 2022 — friday
- Copperfield's Books presents storyteller and author Shugri Said Sahl, reading from and discussing her new book, The Last Nomad: Coming of Age in the Somali Desert, winner of the 2022 Gold Nautilus Award, Multicultural & Indigenous Category, the discussion will be followed by a Q&A and book signing, in person, Copperfield's Books, 140 Kentucky Street, Petaluma, free, 7:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.copperfieldsbooks.com/event/shugri-said-salh)
13 AUGUST 2022 — saturday
- Beyond Baroque presents a reading featuring poets Mathieu Cailler, Heaven and Other Zip Codes, winner of the 2021 Los Angeles Book Festival, Zara Lisbon, Baby's First Apocalypse, Kevin Ridgeway, Too Young to Know, and Jose Hernandez Diaz, The Fire Eater, all reading from new work, in person, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice Beach, Los Angeles, free, 8:00-10:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.beyondbaroque.org/calendar.html)
14 AUGUST 2022 — sunday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
15 AUGUST 2022 — monday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
16 AUGUST 2022 — tuesday
- Cobalt Poets presents a reading featuring poet and editor Rick Christiansen, with open mic to follow, online via Zoom, free, 7:30 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html)
17 AUGUST 2022 — wednesday
- City Lights Books presents best-selling novelist Elif Batuman, The Idiot, finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, discussing her new book, Either/Or, a continuation of beloved protagonist Selin and her quest for self-knowledge, online via Zoom, free, 5:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: citylights.com/events)
18 AUGUST 2022 — thursday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
19 AUGUST 2022 — friday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
20 AUGUST 2022 — saturday
- CalPoets presents the 2022 Poetry Symposium, an exciting day-long event including poetry readings, workshops, and presentations, teens and up welcome, featuring Luis J. Rodriguez, poet and founding editor of Tia Chucha Press, winner of the California Arts Council Legacy Fellowship and the Los Angeles Times Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award, and author of Borrowed Bones, online via Zoom, free, donations welcome, 9:00 am-9:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.californiapoets.org/events/calpoets-2022-virtual-poetry-symposium)
21 AUGUST 2022 — sunday
- Marin Poetry Center presents the 2022 Traveling Show, a multi-reading summer poetry event where members perform their own work, Part 5 features poets Lee Rossi, Wheelchair Samurai, Robin Lee, Gail Entrekin, The Art of Healing, Ella Eytan, Gabriel Rilleau, and Laurel Feigenbaum, Matrimony, with co-ambassadors Jackson Bramlette and Tashi Manchip, in person, Mill Valley Library, 375 Throckmorton Avenue, Mill Valley, free, 3:00-4:00 pm PDT (More information here: marinpoetrycenter.org/events)
22 AUGUST 2022 — monday
- City Lights Books celebrates the launch of Second Stutter Volume Five, an annual San Francisco literary journal focused on contemporary English language poetry and translation, with readings by Jimmy Santiago Baca, Immigrants in Our Own Land, Jaime Chavez, Tureeda Mikell, Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine, Norma Cole, Natural Light, Adrian Lurssen, Neowise, Ivan Argüelles, Ars Poetica, and Eleni Stecopoulos, Armies of Compassion, hosted by poet Solomon Rino, online, free, 6:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: citylights.com/events)
23 AUGUST 2022 — tuesday
- Cobalt Poets presents a reading featuring poet and artist Angélique Jamail, The Sharp Edges of Water, with open mic to follow, online via Zoom, free, 7:30 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html)
24 AUGUST 2022 — wednesday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
25 AUGUST 2022 — thursday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
26 AUGUST 2022 — friday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
27 AUGUST 2022 — saturday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
28 AUGUST 2022 — sunday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
29 AUGUST 2022 — monday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
30 AUGUST 2022 — tuesday
- Cobalt Poets presents a reading featuring poet and artist essa may ranapiri, author of the forthcoming book Echidna, with open mic to follow, online via Zoom, free, 7:30 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html)
31 AUGUST 2022 — wednesday
- No events listed for this date. Find out how to submit your event listing.
© 1972-2021 Poetry Flash. All rights reserved. | 