Tompkins Corners
Poets' Corner

New poets and published writers alike join us each month to listen and share their work. When possible, we meet on our outdoor stage.
In case of inclement weather we will meet either or in our historic Carriage House or indoors. 
Picture
Open mic registration will be available on-site on the day of the reading. This event will be held outdoors, weather permitting.  Please spread the word and join us for this wonderful event!

Poets' Corner Open Mic
With Feature Lucia Cherciu
Sunday, November 19th, 3:00 pm $10

On Sunday, November 19th, at 3:00 pm, Tompkins Corners will welcome poet Lucia Cherciu as our featured poet. Lucia is the author of six books of poetry, including Immigrant Prodigal Daughter (Kelsay Books, 2023), Train Ride to Bucharest (Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), which received the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, and Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2016). Her work appeared in “Poetry,” “Antioch Review,” and many Romanian literary magazines.

Her poetry was nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. Cherciu is a Professor of English at SUNY / Dutchess Community College and served as the 2021-2022 Dutchess County, New York poet laureate. http://luciacherciu.webs.com.

Following Donna will be an open mic. Registration will be available on-site on the day of the reading. All writers are welcome! Weather permitting, this reading will take place on our outdoor stage. Check Poets’ Corner for updates. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased HERE or at the door.
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Poets' Corner Open Mic
With Feature Tony Howarth
Sunday, October 15th, 3:00 pm $10

Tompkins Corners welcomes back poet Tony Howarth.  Tony will read from his new book, The Griefs that Fate Assigns, which is a poetic chronological memoir which beginning at age 6, followed by the declaration of war, evacuation out of London and the upheavals which inevitably occurred including being brought to America and leading up to a shattering moment.  The “moment” is a surprise and will be revealed during the reading. 

Tony is the editor for dramatic writing of The Westchester Review. He is a playwright, director, former journalist, retiring in 1991 after twenty-eight years as a high school and college teacher of English and theatre. William Wordsworth helped him survive adolescence and inspired him to write poetry of his own. Early on, he was editor of the editorial page of The World-Telegram and Sun. His professional credits include a dozen plays and a musical presented off-Broadway. His play Thornwood was made into the award-winning indie film Slings and Arrows.  For many summers he directed musicals at the College Light Opera Company in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Poets' Corner Open Mic
With Feature Donna Masini
Sunday, September 17th, 3:00 pm $10

Poets’ Corner will welcome Donna Masini to our outdoor stage. The author of three books of poems, 4:30 Movie (W.W. Norton and Co., 2018), Turning to Fiction (Norton, 2004), and That Kind of Danger (Beacon Press, 1994), she has also written a novel, About Yvonne (Norton,1998).

Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies, including American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Poetry, Ploughshares, Paris Review, and Five Points. Of her poems, Adrienne Rich has said: “Donna Masini’s poems are on the wavelength of Whitman and Rukeyser but are inimitably her own: urban, sexual, working-class, passionate, marked by great moral intelligence and generosity.  She is one of the marvelous new poets this country is generating in a terrible time.”

Donna is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She has had fellowship residencies at Civitella Ranieri, Bogliasco and Yaddo and is a Professor of English/Creative Writing at Hunter College, CUNY. She lives in NYC.

Poets' Corner Open Mic
With Feature Stacey Z Lawrence
Sunday, August 13th, 3:00 pm $10

Tompkins Corners looks forward to welcoming Poet Stacey Z Lawrence to our stage. Shortlisted for the Fish Prize in 2019/2021 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2022, Stacey is also a poet for Writing the Land, a collaboration between poets & protected land. 

A widow & cancer survivor, Stacey is a veteran teacher of Poetry & English at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. Her first collection of poems, Fall Risk,  was released to advanced acclaim in August 2021 through Finishing Line Press. "Lawrence's first collection of poems, Fall Risk, renders, in beautiful and precise language, a testament to the human capacity for endurance and survival. At times intimate, at times cinematic, these are moving pieces marked by the poet's ability to capture us with fresh and brilliant detail…” - Catherine Doty

"It's so seldom a book of poems can contain both love poems and acceptance of grief. Take Stacey's poems to a couch, curl under your great-grandmother's quilt, and understand love and loss are one." - Nikki Giovanni.
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Poets' Corner Open Mic
With Feature Suzanne Cleary
Sunday, July 23rd, 3:00 pm $10

e are thrilled to welcome Suzanne Cleary to our Poets' Corner. She is the author of four full-length poetry collections. Her most recent books are Crude Angel (BkMk Press 2018) and Beauty Mark (BkMk 2013), which won the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, the Nassar Poetry Prize, and the Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. Keeping Time (2002) and Trick Pear (2007) were published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. Poets Marilyn Nelson and Robert Cording selected her collection Blue Cloth as winner of the 2004 Sunken Garden Poetry Festival chapbook competition.

Recipient of a Pushcart Prize and the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, her other honors include a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Her poems appear in anthologies including Best American Poetry, and in journals including Poetry London, The Atlantic Monthly, Southern Review, Georgia Review and many others. Suzanne has an MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University and a Ph.D. in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. A New York area resident for over thirty years, she teaches at the Creative Writing Program of Converse University. 

Irene O'Garden
Poet's Corner Featured Poet
Sunday, June 25tht, 3:00 pm $10

Irene O’Garden has won or been nominated for prizes in nearly every writing category from stage to e-screen, to hardcovers and children’s books, as well as literary magazines and anthologies.

Her critically-acclaimed play Women on Fire played sold-out houses at Off-Broadway’s Cherry Lane Theatre and her new play, Little Heart, won a Berilla Kerr Playwriting Fellowship and full development at the New Harmony Play Project. O’Garden won a Pushcart Prize for her lyric essay “Glad to be Human,” and Harper published her first memoir Fat Girl. Her second, Risking the Rapids: How My Wilderness Journey Healed My Childhood, was published by Mango in 2019. Fulcrum, published in 2017 by Nirala, is her first poetry collection.

O’Garden’s poems and essays have been featured in dozens of literary journals and award-winning anthologies and she has been honored with both an Alice Desmond Award and an Oppenheimer for her children’s books, which include Maybe My Baby, Forest What Would You Like, and The Scribble Bubbly Carwash.
Picture
Following our feature will be an open mic. Registration will be available on-site on the day of the reading. All writers are welcome!

Charles Coe
Poet's Corner Featured Poet
Sunday, May 21st, 3:00 pm $10

A poet, prose writer, teacher of writing, and musician (vocals and didgeridoo), Charles Coe has written four books of poetry: Picnic on the Moon, All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents, Memento Mori, and Purgatory Road, all published by Leapfrog Press. Known for his powerful readings and unusually warm and compassionate voice, Coe's poems speak to the heart and mind as well as the ear. 

He received a fellowship in poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and was selected in 2014 by the Associates of the Boston Public Library as a “Boston Literary Light.”  Coe retired in 2015 from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the state agency that funds arts and culture, and spent 2017 as an Artist-in-Residence for the city of Boston, creating a project that collected oral histories of people who live and work in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood.

​Coe’s poetry and prose have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, and his poems have been set to music by composers Julia Carey, Beth Denisch, and Robert Moran. He writes feature articles, book reviews, and interviews for Harvard Magazine, Northeastern University Law Review, and Best American Poetry. Coe is also a jazz vocalist, performing and recording throughout New England.
​Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Henry S. Taylor said of  Spirengs’s poems, “they are strong portrayals of failure and success, danger and safety, of doubt and certainty…which Spireng gets profoundly right time after time.”

Matthew J. Spireng
Poet's Corner Featured Poet
Sunday, April 2nd, 3:00 pm $10

Poets’ Corner welcomes featured poet Matthew J. Spireng, an award-winning poet who has published three full-length books of poetry. His collections include Good Work (Evening Street Press), winner of the 2019 Sinclair Poetry Prize, What Focus Is (WordTech Communications) and Out of Body, winner of the Bluestem Poetry Award.  

A prolific writer,  Spireng has also published numerous chapbooks, including Clear Cut, a signed, limited edition with photographs by Austin Stack, and Inspiration Point, which won the Bright Hill Press Poetry Chapbook Competition.  He has published over 1,200 poems in hundreds of magazines and anthologies nationwide, is an 11-time Pushcart nominee, and has won many awards for his writing.

A resident of Lomontville in upstate New York, where he still cuts and splits wood to keep his house warm, Spireng holds an MA from Hollins University and is a retired award-winning journalist.

Following Spireng will be an open mic. Registration will be available on-site on the day of the reading. All writers are welcome!

Christopher P. Gazeent
Poet's Corner Featured Poet
Sunday, March 12th, 3:00 pm $10

Poets’ Corner Open Mic will mark the beginning of their Fifth Season  by welcoming featured poet Christopher P. Gazeent and celebrating his fourth complete book of poetry entitled, The Fraudulent Mirror.

Gazeent is a prolific writer, host of poetry presentations throughout the Hudson Valley and one of Poets’ Corner’s founding members.  He has published several books, including Life’s Jejune Halls: Thoughts on the Shuddering of the Generational Chassis, Chimney Sweeps & Prophets, Febrile Desiderata and The Passion of Anywhere. 

Following Gazeent will be an open mic for those who wish to read. All writers are welcome! Our open mic has a reputation for supporting new and accomplished writers in a celebratory gathering of lovers of the spoken word.
​
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
"Christopher P. Gazeent is a young poet, composer, and multi-instrumentalist who is able to transfer his sensibilities as an accomplished musician in many genres to the spoken word.  He is on the forefront of a new generation who approach poetry in the timeless tradition of painting a picture in a musical fashion.  His work rouses the ear and eye, stimulates the mind, and enriches the spirit." 
-David Amram, author of Offbeat: Collaborating with Kerouac.
Picture

Poets' Corner 
OPEN MIC
Featuring Tony Howarth
Sunday, November 13th, 3:00 pm

Tompkins Corners ecstatically welcomes poet Tony Howarth. Wait 'til you meet him! Tony is the editor for dramatic writing of The Westchester Review. He is a playwright, director, former journalist, retiring in 1991 after twenty-eight years as a high school and college teacher of English and theatre. William Wordsworth helped him survive adolescence and inspired him to write poetry of his own. Early on, he was editor of the editorial page of The World-Telegram and Sun. His professional credits include a dozen plays and a musical presented off-Broadway. His play Thornwood was made into the award-winning indie film Slings and Arrows.  For many summers he directed musicals at the College Light Opera Company in Falmouth, Massachusetts. 
 
The tradition of the Firepit began last November with poet Anton Yakovlev and Open Mic readers offering their paper poetry to the fire pit to close out the season. Please join us for this transformative experience.
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Open mic registration will be available on-site on the day of the reading. In case of inclement weather, the reading will be held indoors. There is a $10 donation for attending the reading. Please spread the word and join us for this wonderful event!

Poets' Corner 
OPEN MIC
Featuring Denise Abercrombie
Sunday, Oct 16th, 3:00 pm

Denise Abercrombie. The director of Fine Arts at E.O. Smith High School in Storrs, CT, she has published her work in the Minnesota Review and in Phoebe: the journal of feminist scholarship, among many others, and has won the Curbstone Press and the Still River Writers’ prizes for poetry.

She has read her work widely, including as a featured poet at the 49th International Poetry Festival in Belgrade (2012) and Smederevo’s Poetry Autumn (2014). Denise occasionally performs and directs original and existing works with Stage Left Ensemble in small theaters, cafes, and prisons. She also helps coordinate Curbstone Foundation’s Poetry in the Julia de Burgos Park series in Willimantic, CT.

"Denise Abercrombie's poems connect us with nature and each other. Her words paint a beautiful, honest portrait of life." - Dave Hull, Tompkins Corners Poets' Corner, co-Director.

Poets' Corner 
OPEN MIC
Featuring Sean Singer
Sunday, September 18th, 3:00 pm

Sean Singer is the author of Discography (Yale University Press, 2002), winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, selected by W.S. Merwin, and the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America; Honey & Smoke (Eyewear Publishing, 2015); and Today in the Taxi (Tupelo Press, 2022). He runs a manuscript consultation service at www.seansingerpoetry.com

Open mic registration will be available on-site on the day of the reading. In case of inclement weather, the reading will be held in our historic Carriage House which is largely open to the outdoors. Check our TCCC Poets’ Corners Events for updates. There is a $10 donation for attending the reading.  Spread the word and join us for this wonderful event!


Ekphrastic Poetry Challenge Accepted!

Poetry in Response
to our "Ordinary Wonders" Photography Exhibit

These poems were read in person at the Aug 20th artists reception and copies are at the exhibit until October 1, 2022

i.e., an ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.
Ken Holland, an award-winning poet nominated thrice for the Pushcart Prize,  has won/placed in numerous contests, including those sponsored by Naugatuck River Review and the Stephen DiBiase competition ~ will be our feature.  The reading will be on our outdoor stage and will be followed by an open mic for those who sign up to read. All writers are welcome!
 
Ken Holland’s poems have been widely published in such journals as Rattle, Tulane Review, Southwest Review, North Dakota Quarterly, The American Journal of Poetry and Tar River with poetry forthcoming in The MacGuffin and Sugar House Review, and several others.  Ken’s work spans what he calls “the broad pond of poetry,” claiming that he “sometimes gets to the other side, but more often falls into the muddy waters.” He lives in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York.
B. Fulton Jennes, Poet Laureate of Ridgefield, CT,  serves as poet-in-residence at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Her poems have appeared in Comstock Review, Tupelo Quarterly, The Night Heron Barks, Limp Wrist, Anti-Heroin Chic, SWIMM, Pareidolia Literary, Tar River Poetry, Extreme Formal Poems: Contemporary Poets, Extreme Sonnets II, and many other journals and anthologies. Her collection Mammoth Spring (from which she read at Poets' Corner last fall) was a finalist for both the Two Sylvias Wilder Prize and the Small Harbor Press Laureate Prize.

​ At our July reading, she'll share work from her chapbook Blinded Birds (Finishing Line Press, 2022), which traces the journey of three generations of women through the anguish of depression and addiction.
Firas Sulaiman is a Syrian poet with multiple publications in Arabic including several volumes of poetry, two collections in English (Forgetting and Her Mirror is an Unarmed Hunter), and a collection in Spanish. He has also published two collections of short stories, two books of aphorisms, experimental fiction, and numerous articles. In addition to appearing in several anthologies, Firas’ work has been featured in several literary magazines as well as having been translated into many languages; he has also participated in many international poetry festivals. He currently lives with his wife in New York.
 
 
Samantha Kostmayer Sulaiman is a writer, editor, educator, and translator from New York City. She graduated from Columbia University, CUNY, and the American University in Cairo with degrees in history, forced migration, and law; Samantha is currently completing her Ph.D in philosophy. She is writing a volume of short stories and her translations have appeared in The Wolf, The Manhattan Review, Washington Square, and various anthologies. Her writing has appeared in English, Swedish and Croatian
​
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Raphael Kosek returns to TCCC to celebrate the release of her new chapbook, Harmless Encounters, which won the 2021 Jesse Bryce Niles Chapbook Contest. An Open Mic will follow.

Raphael Kosek’s poems and nonfiction appeared in Poetry East, Southern Humanities Review, and many other journals. Her new chapbook, HARMLESS ENCOUNTERS, won the 2021 Jesse Bryce Niles Chapbook Contest. AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY was released by Brick Road Poetry Press (2019). ROUGH GRACE won the Concrete Wolf Chapbook Prize (2014).   Her lyric essays won first place at The Eastern Iowa Review and Bacopa Literary Review, and her poems and CNF have received Pushcart Prize nominations. She served as the 2019-2020 Dutchess County, NY Poet Laureate.  www.raphaelkosek.com
​
This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Michael Steffen’s fourth poetry collection, Blood Narrative, has recently been published by Main Street Rag Press. He is the award-winning author of three previous poetry collections:  No Good at Sea (Legible Press, 2002), which won the Legible Press Poetry Prize, Heart Murmur (Bordighera Press, 2009), which won the Bordighera Poetry Prize, appearing as a bilingual edition in both Italian and English, and Bad Behavior (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2012), which won the Brick Road Poetry Prize. While a resident of Pennsylvania, Michael was granted a 2002 Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and has had poems appear in literary publications such as Poetry, Potomac Review, Chiron Review, Poet Lore, and the American Journal of Poetry. 

Sign up for open mic before we begin at 3:00. In case of inclement weather, the reading will take place on our indoor stage. Masks may be required.
$5 donation. Spread the word!
Mary Newell will help us celebrate the start of the Poets’ Corner’s 4th season, at Tompkins Corner as featured poet reading on our indoor stage. She will be followed by our open mic for those who sign up in advance to read. All writers are welcome!  Come at 2:30 to sign up.
 
Mary Newell authored the chapbooks Re-SURGE (Trainwreck Press 2021) and TILT/ HOVER/ VEER (Codhill Press 2019) as well as poems in journals including Talisman, BlazeVox, Spoon River Poetry Review and Poetry, and in several anthologies. She has published essays including “When Poetry Rivers” (Interim journal 38.3). She is co-editor of Poetics for the More-than-Human-World: An Anthology of Poetry and Commentary and the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Ecopoetics.
 
Newell (MA Columbia, BA Berkeley) received a doctorate from Fordham University with a focus on environment and embodiment in contemporary women’s writing. A former Assistant Professor, she curates the Hudson Highlands Poetry Series and teaches occasional poetry classes.

Past Events ~ 2021

Anton Yakovlev will be traveling from NJ to be our fabulous feature this month.  His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Criterion, and more. And he will be the first to toss his poetry into the fire!

Something about FIRE has evoked a burning desire in our poets!  We will be reading outdoors staying toasty around the fire pit. After Anton, the mic opens for those who wish to read.

Anton Yakovlev’s latest poetry chapbook is Chronos Dines Alone (SurVision Books, 2018), winner of the James Tate Prize. He is also the author of Ordinary Impalers (Kelsay Books, 2017) and two prior chapbooks. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Criterion, The Hopkins Review, The Stockholm Review of Literature, Measure, upstreet, and elsewhere. His translations from Russian have appeared in Exchanges, Circumference, Lunch Ticket, Yes Poetry, National Translation Month, and On the Seawall, among others. The Last Poet of the Village, a collection of translations of poetry by Sergei Yesenin (1895-1925), was published by Sensitive Skin Books in 2019. Anton is a former education director at Bowery Poetry Club. He co-hosts the Carmine Street Metrics reading series in Manhattan and the Rutherford Red Wheelbarrow reading series in Rutherford, New Jersey.
D. Adam Boaz is a professional educator. He has been teaching literature and poetry for over 20 years. A childhood spent in the South, a Quaker education in Rhode Island, teacher training in the inner city, and years spent living on Cape Cod have offered him internal rhythms and sense memories that shape his work. He published his latest collection of poems, Voices From the Second Life, in August of 2021. It chronicles perspectives gleaned from a journey that includes racism, addiction, competition, disillusionment, and the eventual arrival at places of gratitude.

Check out this video with Adam and his students reciting poems from December 2020 King School Poets.
B. Fulton Jennes will be this month's featured poet.  Immediately following will be our open mic for those who have signed up to read.  All writers are welcome!
Jennes  is Poet Laureate of Ridgefield, CT and is the poet-in-residence for the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.  Her poems have appeared in the Comstock Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Night Heron Barks, Tar River Poetry, Stone Cane, and more.  In 2021, her poem "From the Room of an Unknown Girl" was awarded the Leslie McGrath Prize for Poetry by Helix magazine: another poem, "Other Hungers", won the Bea Gonzalez Prize for Poetry.  Find her work online.

Blinded Birds, a chapbook, will be published by Finishing Line Press in the spring of 2022.  A graduate of SUNY Albany, Jennes has an MS in Education and is currently a student of Jennifer Franklin, Rachel Hadas, Joan Houlihan, and Martha Rhodes.
Bill Christophersen will be this month's featured poet.  Immediately following will be our open mic for those who have signed up to read.  All writers are welcome!

Bill Christophersen is author of the poetry collections ​Where Truth Lies, Tableau with Crash Hemet, The Dicer's Cup and Two Men Fighting in a Landscape.  His poems have been published in Rattle, RHINO, Hanging Loose and Poetry magazine.  Bill was also a frequent book reviewer for the New York Times Book Review and other publications.  Formerly, a professor at Fordham University and currently a fiddling member of several well-known string bands, Bill resides in Manhattan. 
Dr. Lucia Cherciu will be this month's featured poet. She'll be followed by an open mic for those who have signed up to read. All writers are welcome!

Ms. Cherciu is a Professor of English at Dutchess Community College and the 2021 Duchess County poet laureate. She is the author of five books of poetry: Train Ride to Bucharest (Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), which received the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2016), Lalele din Paradis / Tulips in Paradise (Editura Eikon, 2017), Altoiul Râsului / Grafted Laughter (Editura Brumar, 2010), and Lepădarea de Limbă / The Abandonment of Language (Editura Vinea, 2009).

She writes both in English and in Romanian. Her poetry was nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net. Her work appeared in “Antioch Review,” “Connecticut Review,” “Poetry East,” and in many Romanian literary magazines, such as “Timpul,” “Hyperion,” “Contrapunct,” and “Astra. Her web page is http://luciacherciu.webs.com. Her Twitter handle is @CherciuLucia.
Alison Woods will be this month's featured poet. She'll will be followed by an open mic for those who have registered to read. All writers are welcome!

Alison Woods has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and was a finalist in the Lyric Recovery Festival at Carnegie Hall. She is the author, most recently, of a full-length book of poetry, Bless This Home, by Finishing Line Press - a personal chronicle that explores the roles of daughter, wife, single mother and lover and her quest to find a “blessed home” out of the troubled specters of her past. Her first collection, Dark Forest, won the New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition.

Woods’ poems have been published widely in literary journals including The Paris Review, Poetry East, Western Humanities Review, Rattapallax and The Connecticut River Review, among many others. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University in New York City and currently lives in Dobbs Ferry, New York.
Tompkins Corners welcomes Raphael Kosek as the featured poet at our Poets’ Corner Open Mic.   Following Raphael, the mic opens to all who wish to read, with a five-minute limit.  Pre-registration is required to read but not to attend. Writers of all kinds are welcome!
Raphael Kosek’s poems have appeared in such venues as Poetry East, Catamaran, Southern Humanities Review, and Briar Cliff Review. 

Her latest chapbook, Rough Grace won the 2014 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Prize. Her lyricessays won first prize at Bacopa Review (2017) and Eastern Iowa Review (2016).  She won the Bacopa Review’s 2019 poetry contest.   American Mythology, a finalist at Brick Road Poetry Press, was released in 2019. 
Garrison Keilor has chosen two poems from it for The Writer’s Almanac.

Her poems and essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She has taught English at Marist College and Dutchess Community College where her students kept her real. She has served as the 2019-2020 Dutchess County NY Poet Laureate.  www.raphaelkosek.com
Eric ZORK Alan, a 11x National Slam Poet competitor.  Mr. Alan will tell you he  is probably best known for standing on chairs.  He is also known for gratuitously dropping names... like that he is the only poet ever to have his book [appropriately called “I am NOT a poet”] blurbed by Davy Jones, Dobie Gray & Wild Cherry. Zork has Featured at the hottest poetry venues in America including Chicago’s legendary Green Mill where slam started.  He has toured across America visiting High Schools and colleges in his mission to make more poets. He has produced and been featured in a series of "PG Safe Slam" DVDs from the National Poetry Slam to help get Slam poetry into the schools in an educational friendly and appropriate manner.  He also performs at and hosts ZorkSlams [student-based events] at Barnes & Noble Bookstores Nationwide. He hosts Westchester County, NY's largest poetry series and slam master for the PSI Westchester Slam series @ The White Plains Public Library. 

Find more on ZorkYouTube 
 Jonathan Andersen’s most recent full-length collection of poetry, Augur (Red Dragonfly Press, 2018), was the recipient of the David Martinson-Meadowhawk Prize and a finalist for the 2019 Connecticut Book Award in Poetry. Other books include Stomp and Sing (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2005), and, as editor, Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other U.S.A. (Smokestack Books, 2008). He has been a featured reader throughout the eastern United States, the United Kingdom, and Serbia, including at the Ledbury Poetry Festival, the 49th International Festival of Literature in Belgrade, and the 42nd Smederevo Poetry Autumn. His poems have appeared in many print and online publications, including Blue Collar Review, The Café Review, Chiron Review, Counterpunch, Exposition Review, Freshwater, HeART, Here, New Square, North American Review, The Progressive, and Rattle, among others. For twelve years he was a high school English and special education teacher, and since 2008 he has been a professor of English at Quinebaug Valley Community College in Danielson and Willimantic, Connecticut.
WEBSITE: www.jonathanandersenpoet.com
ORDER BOOKS: http://jonathanandersenpoet.com/index.php/order-books/

Past Events ~ 2020

Poet Gold ~ A rare talent who grabs you by the heart and says “Recognize” – Poet, author, performer, songwriter, community “Artivist” and speaker, Bettina “Poet Gold” Wilkerson is pushing the boundaries of poetry and the spoken word. Living with a chronic illness since childhood, Poet Gold, or as she is affectionately known as “Gold”, brings a soul-searching insight about the human existence, love, dreams, challenges, and triumph.
Appointed the 2017 and 2018 NYS Dutchess County Poet Laureate, Poet Gold is the recipient of numerous awards. With countless recitations, she has opened for Grammy-nominated artists and has spoken at renowned organizations such as Omega Institute and Self Employment in the Arts.
Presently she is the co-host for the iHeart Radio podcast “Finding Out with Pete and The Poet Gold”.  Her distinct voice will be heard, playing the role of God, in the upcoming animated short film “The Creation” poem by James Weldon Johnson, directed by award winning animated film maker, Steve Leeper.
Poet Gold is an activist of the heart. Her words inspire to explore the essence of humanity.
To learn more about “Poet Gold” visit one of her pages in social media: Facebook, Linkedin, Podcast, IG
Jo Pitkin, a Hudson Valley native is author of the chapbook, The Measure, and four full-length books of poetry--Cradle of the American Circus: Poems from Somers, New York; Commonplace Invasions; Rendering; and Village: Recession. She is also the editor of the anthology Lost Orchard: Prose and Poetry from the Kirkland College Community. Her award-winning poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies including The New York Review of Books, Little Star, Quarterly West, Salamander, Southern Humanities Review, Terrain.org, Crab Orchard Review, Mom Egg Review, Stone Canoe, A Slant of Light: Contemporary Women Writers of the Hudson Valley, Even the Daybreak: 35 Years of Salmon Poetry, Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose by Bright Hill Poets & Writers, and Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace. Jo lives within walking distance of the Hudson River where she works as a teaching artist at The Poetry Barn and as a freelance educational writer specializing in K through Grade 12 student and teacher materials. www.jopitkin.com
John A. McKenna is a public affairs specialist in the mass media and nonprofit space. He is founder of KENNASCOPE, a consulting company operating at the intersection of content creation and social impact, launching MusicUnits which introduces, develops and promotes music therapy within healthcare and wellness centers. Appointed Executive Director of Operation Respect, he leads innovative efforts to promote peace building and conflict resolution through creative and positive forms of expression, including music. In such capacity he led the mission in the presentation and performance of student-songwriters from Parkland, Florida, amplifying their voices in the wake of the mass shooting in their community.


M.A. Scott’s poetry has recently appeared in Sugar House Review, Heron Tree, The Mid-American Review, and Pretty Owl Poetry, and is forthcoming in Gargoyle Magazine and Moon City Review. M.A. is also a classical clarinetist, collage artist, and tarot enthusiast, as well as host of HVWC's monthly Submission Sunday. She grew up in Rhode Island and currently lives in New York's Hudson Valley where she likes to spend time with trees. 

Amy Holman is a poet, literary consultant, teacher, and artist living in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of a collection, Wrens Fly Through This Opened Window (Somondoco Press, 2010), four chapbooks, including the prizewinning Wait for Me, I’m Gone (Dream Horse Press, 2005), as well as a reference guide for writers. Both poems and an essay have been nominated by magazine editors for Pushcart Prizes, and a poem once landed in The Best American Poetry. Recent poems have been accepted at BigCityLit, Blueline, Chiron Review, concis, Gargoyle, and great weather for MEDIA’s 2019 anthology, Birds Fall Silent in the Mechanical Sea. She is currently in that spiral of shuffling and revising poems for a new collection.
More about our July Feature:

SUSANA H. CASE is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Dead Shark on the N Train in 2020 from Broadstone Books. Drugstore Blue (Five Oaks Press) won an IPPY Award in 2019. She is also the author of five chapbooks, two of which won poetry prizes. Her first collection, The Scottish Café, from Slapering Hol Press, was re-released in a dual-language English-Polish version, Kawiarnia Szkocka by Opole University Press and she now serves on the Slapering Hol Press Advisory Committee. Poems by Case have appeared in Calyx, Catamaran, The Cortland Review, Portland Review, Potomac Review, Rattle, RHINO and many other journals. Case is a Professor and Program Coordinator at the New York Institute of Technology in New York City.
Susana H. Case website: https://susanahcase.com/
New—Dead Shark on the N Train:
http://broadstonebooks.com/Susana_H_Case.html
More about Ann Graue
Our feature on June 14th -

Anne Graue the author of Fig Tree in Winter, available from Dancing Girl Press. Her poems have appeared in The Westchester Review, American Tanka, Random Sample Review, The New Verse News, The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly and The Plath Poetry Project.  Additional poetry is forthcoming in Blood and Roses: An Anthology In Honor of Aphrodite and Rivet: The Journal of Writing that Risks.  She has reviewed literary magazines and poetry chapbooks for New Pages.

Past Events ~ 2019

2019