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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.




Daily Listings

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19 MAY 2025 — monday

20 MAY 2025 — tuesday

  • Oakland Poetry Slam, monthly on the third Tuesday, Tamarack, 1501 Harrison Street, Oakland, 6:30-10:30 pm PDT (For more information, visit: tamarackoakland.com)
  • Shelby Van Pelt discussed her debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, which traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus, with novelist and short story writer Karen Joy Fowler, We are all completely beside ourselves, Kepler's Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/shelby-van-pelt)

21 MAY 2025 — wednesday

  • Ron Chernow, whose novel Alexander Hamilton was adapted into the Broadway play Hamilton, will discuss his book, Mark Twain, in conversation with Jonathan Bass, Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, $80, 7:30 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.cityarts.net/event/ron-chernow)
  • The ZYZZYVA Issue 129 Celebration and 40th Anniversary Kick-off, Issue 129 contributors reading include Katherine Franco, writer and futurist Dominica Phetteplace, fiction novelist Marian Palaia, and poet D.A. Powell, emceed by ZYZZYVA Editor Oscar Villalon, limited seating, Kerouac Alley, between City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio Cafe, 257 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/zyzzyva-issue-129-celebration-40th-anniversary-kick-off)

22 MAY 2025 — thursday

23 MAY 2025 — friday

  • The Tritone Poetry Series features poets José Vadi, Chipped: Writing From a Skateboarder's Lens, Hector Son Of Hector, and Christine No, Whatever Love Means, Tamarack, 1501 Harrison Street, Oakland, 6:00-8:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: tamarackoakland.com)

24 MAY 2025 — saturday

25 MAY 2025 — sunday

  • Michelle Tea celebrates the release of Witch: Anthology, which she edited, with readings and rituals featuring Lily Burana, Kathe Izzo, Molly Larkey, Shelley Marlow, Brooke Palmieri, Mia Tsang, and Sarah Yanni, limited seating; Secret location will be emailed to you after registration, San Francisco, 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/michelle-tea-and-friends)

26 MAY 2025 — monday

27 MAY 2025 — tuesday

  • Director, actor, essayist, playwright and screenwriter Ralph Remington reads from his book, Penetrating Whiteness: What Racism Really Is and What We Can Do About It, both onsite and online, see website for Zoom registration, City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/ralph-remington)

28 MAY 2025 — wednesday

  • Nonfiction author Sophie Lewis reads from her book, Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation, both onsite and online, see website for Zoom registration, City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/sophie-lewis)

29 MAY 2025 — thursday

  • Poetry Flash presents a book launch for Dan Alter, who will read from his new collection Hills Full of Holes; he'll be joined in the celebration by Judy Halebsky, Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged), and Maw Shein Win, Percussing the Thinking Jar, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 7:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).

30 MAY 2025 — friday

31 MAY 2025 — saturday

  • Sixteen Rivers Press presents a poetry reading with Rosa Lane, Called Back, and Camille Norton, A Folio for the Dark: Poems, Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, Berkeley, 3:00-5:00 pm PDT (sixteenrivers.org)

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