David Shaddock

David Shaddock and Dawn McGuire

11 OCTOBER 2026 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents an evening of poetry by David Shaddock, Tehachapi Pass, and Dawn McGuire, American Dream with Exit Wound, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, NOTE SPECIAL TIME: 7:00 pm (poetryflash.org).

The featured books will be available at the reading; some are available at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash. This event will be posted on the Poetry Flash YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UClwdR-uPFNz7XxbBbLcnoEA. Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.

MORE ABOUT THE READERS

David Shaddock is a poet and psychotherapist. His new poetry book is Tehachapi Pass. Kate Daniels says, "In these times, David Shaddock's ability to find meaning and consolation in the small events and encounters of our lives is an invaluable gift. With his consciousness sharpened and expanded by his longtime practice as a psychotherapist, he boldly but tenderly examines the dire challenges of living through this moment in time, packing insight after insight into a tonally diverse collection of forty-four sonnets. His subjects range from the mundane to the catastrophic, encompassing domestic life in long term marriage, to climate change, to meditations on grief and loss, to, in the book's final section, personal retellings of the Psalmist's longing for, and arguments with, God." His previous collections include A Book of Splendor: New and Selected Poems on Spiritual Themes. He is also the author of Poetry and Psychoanalysis: The Opening of the Field, and two books on relationships and couple therapy. He lectures widely on those topics, and maintains a private practice in Berkeley.

Dawn McGuire's most recent poetry collection is American Dream with Exit Wound. Carol Muske-Dukes says, "McGuire's poems intercept the reader in an 'emergency room' of language, then roll in the crash cart, starting with this heart-shock title: American Dream with Exit Wound. McGuire is inspired by her work with post 9/11 vets, by her brain research as a neurologist and her immersion in myth. You will take your life in your hands as you read these super-charged poems—and you will…'come to' with an exit wound: by which I mean to say a whole new consciousness of what poetry is, what poetry can do, and how poetry urgently matters." Dawn McGuire is a neurologist and author of three previous poetry collections, Sleeping in Africa, Hands On, and The Aphasia Cafe. Her poems have appeared in various literary magazines and anthologies, including Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and Journal of American Neurology. Her awards include the 2013 Indie Book Award for Poetry, Troubadour Prize (UK), National League of American Pen Women, and the 2011 Sarah Lawrence/Campbell Corner Academy of Language Exchange Poetry Prize for "poems that treat larger themes with lyric intensity." She grew up in eastern Kentucky and was educated at Princeton University, Union Theological Seminary, and Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. She lives and works in northern California.