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Poetry Flash Reading Series


Andrena Zawinski

Andrena Zawinski and Jerry Ratch

18 FEBRUARY 2024 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a reading by poet and flash fiction writer Andrena Zawinski, Born Under the Influence, and novelist and poet Jerry Ratch, A Body Divided, memoir, who will read some of his poems accompanied by live music, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm PST (poetryflash.org).


Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.
Featured books for this reading will be available for signing at the event and at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash.

MORE ABOUT THE READERS

Jerry Ratch's most recent poetry books are Follow Your Heart, or Your Dreams, Abundance: Selected Poems, and A Few Guilty Pleasures: New Poems. The author of eighteen book of poetry, he is also the author of seven books of prose, including Wild Dreams of Reality, a novel, and A Body Divided, a memoir, the story of a one-armed boy growing up in a two-fisted world, in the time of polio. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said of it, "A gritty and valiant story…I would be glad to recommend it." Richard Ford wrote about Wild Dreams of Reality, "The almost, but not quite innocent directness of Ratch's savvy little novel is irresistible to me. I read it in a sitting. I'm glad real writers still want to write books this way." Jerry Ratch's poems have been published in Antioch Review, Beatitude, Carolina Quarterly, Ironwood, Louisville Review, Maryland Literary Review, Milvia Street Journal, Negative Capability, Slant, and elsewhere. Most of his titles are available as Kindle Books from Amazon, or through his website: www.jerryratch.com. He lives in Oakland.
Andrena Zawinski's new poetry collection is Born Under the Influence; her recent flash fiction collection is Plumes and Other Flights of Fancy. Born Under the Influence, through a wide range of craft from narrative free verse through European and Asian forms, grapples with the trials, anger, rebellion, survival, and joys influenced by gender, class, nature, pop culture, and contemporary history. Mary Mackey says of her work, "Andrena Zawinski is a poet of rare talent and radical empathy who combines the straightforward, take-no-prisoners, blue collar directness of a steelworker's daughter in her narratives, along with the rules of formal verse, creating lines which blossom into poems of memory, rebellion, longing, righteous anger, and—above all—survival. These poems are tough, smart, and beautifully crafted." Andrena Zawinski has also published three previous full-length poetry collections, four chapbooks, and edited two anthologies. Her work has received accolades for lyricism, form, and social concern including a Kenneth Patchen Poetry Prize and PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she makes her home in Alameda, California.




Daily Listings

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12 JUNE 2026 — friday

  • Indigenous Voices Literary Series presents Elise Paschen, Osage author of Blood Wolf Moon, poems, in conversation with Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate Emerita and the event curator; Paschen will read her poems and share stories about her famous mother, prima ballerina Maria Tallchief, travels in Europe, and Osage culture; the film Killers of the Flower Moon takes its title from Paschen's poem "Wi'-gi-e," which references late springtime frosts in the Osage lunar cycle; Paschen is the former Director of The Poetry Society of America, raised in Chicago, she returns to Oklahoma's Osage reservation for annual dances; The 222 Series in the Paul Mahder Gallery, 222 Healdsburg Avenue, Healdsburg, $20, 7:00 pm (For more information, contact Erin Partridge, 707-473-9150, the222.org/product/indigenous-voices-series-elise-paschen)
  • Skylight Books welcomes UC Riverside MFA Program presenting a night of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction celebrating graduating Creative Writing students, Skylight Books, 1818 North Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, free, 6:30 pm (RSVP recommended: www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-uc-riverside-mfa-reading-0)

13 JUNE 2026 — saturday

14 JUNE 2026 — sunday

15 JUNE 2026 — monday

16 JUNE 2026 — tuesday

17 JUNE 2026 — wednesday

18 JUNE 2026 — thursday

19 JUNE 2026 — friday

20 JUNE 2026 — saturday

21 JUNE 2026 — sunday

22 JUNE 2026 — monday

23 JUNE 2026 — tuesday

24 JUNE 2026 — wednesday

25 JUNE 2026 — thursday

26 JUNE 2026 — friday

27 JUNE 2026 — saturday

  • Fourth Saturdays Poetry at the Claremont Library presents a reading by Nancy Lynée Woo, poet and teaching artist, and Ron Koertge, Pandora's Kitchen: Poems, award-winning poet and young adult novelist, Helen Renwick Library, 208 North Harvard Avenue, Claremont, free, 2:00 pm (www.claremontlibrary.org/monthly-poetry-readings.html)

28 JUNE 2026 — sunday

29 JUNE 2026 — monday

30 JUNE 2026 — tuesday


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