Woodstock Poetry Society, July 12

Woodstock Poetry Society & Festival, as part of the Woodstock Arts Consortium is sponsoring the following poetry event as part of the Woodstock "Second Saturdays" Art Events. For a full listing of "Second Saturday" events, go to: www.woodstockartsconsortium.org.

Poets Baron James Ashanti and Bertha Rogers will be the featured readers when the Woodstock Poetry Society & Festival meets at the Woodstock Town Hall, 76 Tinker Street, on Saturday, July 12th at 2pm. Note: WPS&F meetings are held the 2nd Saturday of every month.  The readings will be hosted by Woodstock area poet Phillip Levine. All meetings are free, open to the public, and include an open mike.

Baron James Ashanti has widely been published nationally and internationally over a 40 year career.  He is listed in:  Who's Who in The World; Who's Who in America;  Who's Who in American Education; Who's Who in America, Writer, Editors & Poets;  Who's Who in North American Poetry;  The International Who's Who in Poetry; and The International Writer and Author's Who's Who.  He has read poetry along with Allen Ginsberg; Gwen Brooks; and Amiri Baraka.  In 2004 Mr. Ashanti did a reading tour of Ireland which included Beal Feirste (Belfast), Northen Ireland and the Yeats House, Sligeah (Sligo).  For most of the last decade his work has centered on Asia and Ireland.

Bertha Rogers's poems appear in journals and anthologies. She has published four collections of poetry, and her fifth collection, Heart Turned Back, will be published in 2009 by Salmon Poetry, Ireland. Her translation of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon epic poem, was published in 2000, and her translation of the riddle-poems from the Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book will be published in 2008.  Her poem “Rhomboid” won PhiloPhonema’s Lyric Recovery  Award in 2001, selected by Alfred Corn; and her poem “Truck Stand” was selected by John Ashbery for display in the Albany Airport to celebrate the Millay Colony’s 3Oth anniversary. In 2006 she was the recipient of an AE Ventures Grant for excellence in both poetry and visual art and for contributions to the field through the not-for-profit literary press and center she founded, www.brighthillpress.org.  In 2007 she was given the 2007 Teaching Artist Distinguished Service to the Arts in Education Field by Partners for Arts Education and the Association of Teaching Artists in New York. She also serves as program manager for the New York State Literary Web Site, www.nyslittree.org, publisher of the first Literary Map of New York State (2005), in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts.  Her web site is www.bertharogers.com.

Here's our upcoming schedule of featured readers:
8/9 - Gretchen Primack (rescheduled), Philip Pardi
9/13 - Roberta Allen, Naton Leslie
10/11 - Mary Kathryn Jablonski, Will Nixon

Also, why not become a 2008 Member of the Woodstock Poetry Society & Festival?
Membership is a nominal $15 a year. (To join, send your check to the Woodstock Poetry Society, P.O. Box 531, Woodstock, NY 12498. Include your email address as well as your mailing address and phone number.)  Your membership helps pay for hall rental, post-office-box rental, the WPS website, and costs associated with publicizing the monthly events. One benefit of membership is the opportunity to have a brief biography and several of your poems appear on this website.