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Poetry Flash Reading Series
Gillian Conoley and Dean Rader
10/8, Berkeley
more info


Bert Meyers Tribute: Eric Gudas, David Shaddock, Anat Silvera

22 JUNE 2023 — thursday

Poetry Flash presents a reading celebrating the publication of Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master, readers include poets Eric Gudas, David Shaddock, and Anat Silvera, the poet's daughter, in person, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 7:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).

Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.
Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master will be available at the event and online at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash(a portion of the proceeds support Poetry Flash).

Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master, the latest volume in The Unsung Masters Series, offers a large selection of his very best poetry alongside essays and appreciations from José Angel Araguz, Jim Bogen, Victoria Chang, Amy Gerstler, Garrett Hongo, Daniel Meyers, Barry Sanders, Ari Sherman, Maurya Simon, and Sean Singer, among others. The Unsung Masters Series exists to bring great but largely overlooked writers to new readers. This volume is edited by Dana Levin and Adele Williams.

"Bert Meyers is an American original—a brilliant poet whose use of tone and figurative language was so emotive, intelligent and nuanced, it became inimitable, became its own unique perspective on our world. I wouldn't be surprised if mid-twenty-first century scholars announce that in Bert Meyers we have overlooked the best poet of his generation." —Ilya Kaminsky
MORE ABOUT THE READERS

Eric Gudas is the author of Best Western and Other Poems, winner of the Gerald Cable Book Award, and Beautiful Monster, a chapbook. His work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, Poetry Flash, Los Angeles Review of Books, Raritan, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles.

David Shaddock is a poet and psychotherapist. His most recent poetry book is A Book of Splendor: New and Selected Poems on Spiritual Themes. He has a regular column in Poetry Flash, "Poetry and Healing," and is the author of Poetry and Psychoanalysis: The Opening of the Field (Routledge), and two books on relationships and couples therapy. He lectures widely on those topics, and maintains a private practice in Berkeley.

Anat Silvera, Bert Meyers's daughter, is one of the founders of Silvera Jewelry School in Berkeley. Before and after college she studied with artists and craftsmen, apprenticing as a metalsmith and learning how to create fine beadwork. She is the author of a book on her craft, and has exhibited her work all over the U.S., including as featured artist at the Oakland Museum of Art Collector's Gallery.

The son of Romanian and Polish Jewish immigrants, Bert Meyers (1928-1979) was born in Los Angeles. Always rebellious and a questioner of authority, he dropped out of high school and became a poet. For many years he worked at manual labor jobs, including printer's apprentice, until he became a master picture framer and gilder. Here he found satisfaction in craftsmanship and attention to detail, the same approach he used in composing his poetry. Throughout those years he continued to write, feeling that a poet should be immersed in the world, and should have real world things to write about. Meyers wanted to be self-taught. He read everything he could get his hands on and had a prodigious literary memory. He frequented the vibrant circles of LA poets at the time, with Thomas McGrath and others. His fellow poet and friend Robert Mezey said, "Bert Meyers belonged to no school or coterie and had no use for fashion. He was that rarest of creatures, a pure lyric poet. His poems are very much what he was—gentle, cantankerous, reflective, passionate and wise." Although he had never taken undergraduate classes, and had no high school diploma, in 1964 he was admitted to the Claremont Graduate School on the basis of his poetic achievements. By 1967 he had a Ph.D in English Literature and was hired to teach poetry and literature at Pitzer College in Claremont, where he taught until 1978. During his life as a professor, Meyers finally had the time to focus on his writing; he also had an important and lasting influence on his students, a new generation of poets and writers, including Dennis Cooper, Amy Gerstler, Garrett Hongo, and Mauyra Simon among others.

He published at least eight collections of poetry, including Early Rain (1960), The Dark Birds (1968), Sunlight on the Wall (1976), Windowsills (1979), The Wild Olive Trees (1979). Before he died, he selected the core poems of In a Dybbuk's Raincoat: Collected Poems (2007). His widow, Odette Meyers, son Daniel Meyers, and poet Morton Marcus shepherded the book into posthumous publication. Meyers's precisely framed poems are image driven and often quite short. Noting that "the image is unequivocally at the center of his work" in her introduction to In a Dybbuk's Raincoat, Denise Levertov lamented that "Bert Meyers death has deprived us of one of the best poets of our time." (Information from bertmeyers.com)




Daily Listings

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3 OCTOBER 2023 — tuesday

4 OCTOBER 2023 — wednesday

  • SOLD OUT: The Booksmith and Berkeley Arts & Letters present historian Heather Cox Richardson, discussing her latest book, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, in conversation with writer and activist Rebecca Solnit, Orwell's Roses, First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway, Oakland, 7:00 pm PDT (www.booksmith.com/event)

5 OCTOBER 2023 — thursday

  • Lunch Poems, UC Berkeley's noontime reading series, presents poet dg nanouk okpik, Corpse Whale, winner of the American Book Award, Morrison Library inside Doe Library, 101 Library Ct., University of California campus, Berkeley, free, 12:10-12:50 pm PDT (More information here: www.lib.berkeley.edu/visit/lunch-poems)
  • Poetry Night Reading Series features poet and translator William O'Daly, The New Gods, with classical guitarist Louis Valentine Johnson, hosted by Davis Poet Laureate Dr. Andy Jones, John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street, Davis, free, 7:00 pm PDT (More information here: www.natsoulas.com/poetry-night)

6 OCTOBER 2023 — friday

7 OCTOBER 2023 — saturday

  • Beyond Baroque presents a reading with Four Feathers Press, featuring poets Alicia Viguer-Espert, To Hold a Hummingbird, Jackie Chou, Finding My Heart in Love and Loss, and Lynne Bronstein, Astray from Normalcy, emceed by Don Kingfisher Campbell, Four Feathers Press publisher, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice Beach, Los Angeles, free, 2:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.beyondbaroque.org)

8 OCTOBER 2023 — sunday

  • Poetry Flash presents Gillian Conoley, Notes from the Passenger, and Dean Rader, Before the Borderless: Dialogues with the Art of Cy Twombly, reading from their new poetry collections, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).

9 OCTOBER 2023 — monday

10 OCTOBER 2023 — tuesday

  • Cobalt Poets presents a reading with featured poet Sigrid Saradunn, followed by an open mic, online via Zoom, free, 7:30 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html)
  • City Lights Books presents novelist Justin Torres, We the Animals, winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, discussing his new book, Blackouts, in conversation with novelist Jonathan Escoffery, If I Survive You, longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize; this event is part of the Litquake 2023 Festival, Main Room at City Lights Books, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, free, 6:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: citylights.com/events)

11 OCTOBER 2023 — wednesday

12 OCTOBER 2023 — thursday

  • San Francisco Public Library presents a reading that celebrates Iranian women and their current struggle, San Francisco Poet Laureate emerita Kim Shuck, What Unseen Thing Blows Wishes Across My Surface?, joined by special guests from Iranian American Women in Network, Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room A, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, free, 6:00-7:00 pm PDT (More information here: sfpl.org/events/2023/10/12/kim-shucks-poem-jam)

13 OCTOBER 2023 — friday

14 OCTOBER 2023 — saturday

  • Sacramento Poetry Alliance presents a poetry reading with Gail Entrekin, Walking Each Other Home, and Stewart Florsheim, Amusing the Angels, winner of the Blue Light Book Award, fSacramento Poetry Alliance, 1169 Perkins Way, Sacramento, free, 4:00 pm PDT (More information here: www.facebook.com/sacramentopoetryalliance)
  • Strawberry Creek Walk, led by Nevada County Poet Laureate emerita Chris (J.C.) Olander, with poetry, eco-dance by Sharon Coleman, and nature commentary by Elizabeth Dougherty, on an easy walk along beautiful Strawberry Creek, meet at Center and Oxford, on the edge of the UC Berkeley campus, Berkeley, free, 10:00 am PDT (510/525-5476; for updates, see: Poetryflash.org)
  • Celebrate Writers, Nature & Community at the 28th annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, in-person poetry and music alongside the Berkeley Farmers' Market, poets and speakers to be announced, to sign up for the We Are Nature Open Mic, email with WATERSHED OPEN MIC in the subject heading, to exhibit, email for arrangements, Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park, Berkeley, free, Noon-4:30 pm PDT (510/525-5476; To sign up for open mic or to exhibit, email: info@poetryflash.org; for more information: Poetryflash.org)

15 OCTOBER 2023 — sunday

16 OCTOBER 2023 — monday

  • City Lights Books presents an evening with The Third Thing Press, showcasing short readings and screenings from the press's genre-bending offerings, featuring Alissa Hattman, Sift, interdisciplinary artist Summer J. Hart, Carlos Sirah, The High Alive: an Epic Hoodoo Diptych, poet Diane Exavier, The Math of Saint Felix, media artist M Freeman, The Illuminated Space: A Personal Theory and Contemplative Practice of Media Art, and artists Rana San and Chelsea Werner-Jatzke, co-founders of the Cadence Video Poetry Festival, moderated by Anne de Marcken, editor and publisher at The Third Thing Press, online via Zoom, free, 6:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: citylights.com/events)

17 OCTOBER 2023 — tuesday

  • City Lights Books presents best-selling novelist Ayana Mathis, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, reading from her latest book, The Unsettled, online via Zoom, free, Noon PDT (Register to attend: citylights.com/events)
  • Poet and critic Norman Finkelstein, Further Adventures, and poet Peter Waldor, Understandings and Misunderstandings, read and celebrate the launch of their new books, Specs' Twelve Adler Museum Café, 12 William Saroyan Place, San Francisco, free, 7:00-9:00 pm PDT (More information here: www.specsbarsf.com)
  • Cobalt Poets presents a reading with featured poet Jasmine Elizabeth Smith, South Flight, followed by an open mic, online via Zoom, free, 7:30 pm PDT (Register to attend: www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html)

18 OCTOBER 2023 — wednesday

19 OCTOBER 2023 — thursday

20 OCTOBER 2023 — friday

21 OCTOBER 2023 — saturday

22 OCTOBER 2023 — sunday

  • Village Poets presents a reading by poets Ambika Talwar, 4 Stars and 25 Roses, and Susan Suntree, Eye of the Womb, with an open mic, Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, Los Angeles, suggested donation of $5 per person, 4:30 pm PDT (More information here: villagepoets.blogspot.com)

23 OCTOBER 2023 — monday

24 OCTOBER 2023 — tuesday

25 OCTOBER 2023 — wednesday

26 OCTOBER 2023 — thursday

  • The Center for Literary Arts presents best-selling author K-Ming Chang, Bestiary, longlisted for Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, reading from her latest work, including her recent book Gods of Want and forthcoming works Organ Meat and Cecilia, Hammer Theatre, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose, free, 7:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: hammertheatre.vbotickets.com/events)

27 OCTOBER 2023 — friday

28 OCTOBER 2023 — saturday

29 OCTOBER 2023 — sunday

30 OCTOBER 2023 — monday

31 OCTOBER 2023 — tuesday


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