Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, March 13th, 2021 at 2pm

via Zoom

Guy Reed
Victoria Sullivan

Poets Guy Reed and Victoria Sullivan will be the featured readers, followed by an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets virtually via Zoom on Saturday, March 13th, 2021 at 2pm.

WPS meetings are held the 2nd Saturday (2pm) of every month.

Due to the ongoing pandemic - for now, all meetings will be held virtually via Zoom
The Zoom app can be downloaded here: Zoom Download Center

To attend: contact phillip@woodstockpoetry.com to receive Zoom info
If attending, please indicate if you would like to be on the open mike. Thank you.

The reading will be hosted by poet Phillip X Levine. All meetings are free, open to the public, and include an open mike.

*
Features:

Guy Reed - Guy Reed is author of Second Innocence (Luchador Press, 2020) and the chapbooks, The Effort To Hold Light (Finishing Line Press), Still Life With Acorn (Fool Head Press), and Until The Words Came, co-authored with Cheryl A. Rice (Post Traumatic Press). He’s published in journals, anthologies and contributed two poems, performing one, in a featured role for the film, I Dream Too Much (The Orchard). A Minnesota native, Guy’s lived in California, Oregon and currently resides in the Catskill Mountains with his wife and their children.



Astonishment

Only we can burn our own hearts
at the proper temperature.

A requirement of transgressions against
our individual consciousness. Yet,

it is human nature to act against
our will, our iron discipline, our firm
personal beliefs, even when we know.

There is a weakness not composed
of character, but built into the flesh
that desires sensation when
face to face with aging and death.

-Guy Reed

*

Victoria Sullivan - Victoria Sullivan is “Poet Laureate of the Woodstock Roundtable” on WDST. 100.1 FM, and she regularly performed improv poetry/spoken word with Peter Einhorn’s jazz band at Station Bar & Curio and the wine bar Early Terrible in Woodstock, NY prior to the pandemic. A member of the Goat Hill Poets, Sullivan has performed as a feature (& often at open mics) locally, including at CAPS, New World, the Harmony, Inquiring Minds, Chronogram, & other venues. Basically, she’s a fan of the poetry scene and is published in several anthologies, a number of journals, as well as four chapbooks of her work. She is in two theatre groups on zoom and has had short plays read on zoom during the past year.



The Evening News

Cut to the bone, the old man
cries, cut here and here.
Don’t fear the pain.
What is life but a series
of cruel surgeries?

And elsewhere soldiers
dance over their fallen
enemies, rifles held high,
screaming their victory songs,
While trampling on the bones
of the newly dead.

The old man watches,
lights a cigarette and scratches
at a wound that won’t heal.

Women in black carry photos
of their beloved sons and
husbands: are they lost?
Are they dead? Are
they in prison? The
women in black gesture
and wail. They have no one
to tell them where the men
have gone. The women
go on wailing ad
tearing their clothes.

If you’re looking for comedy,
my dear, you’ve come
to the wrong planet.

-Victoria Sullivan

*

Developing WPS 2021 Schedule - all readings held via Zoom
All of 2021 Events: Events

Due to the ongoing pandemic - for now, all meetings will be held virtually via Zoom
The Zoom app can be downloaded here: Zoom Download Center

To attend: contact phillip@woodstockpoetry.com to receive Zoom info
If attending, please indicate if you would like to be on the open mike following the featured readers. Thank you.

01/January 9th - Canceled
02/February 13th - Canceled
03/March 13th - Guy Reed; Victoria Sullivan via Zoom
04/April 10th - Judith Kerman; Leslie Gerber via Zoom
05/May 8th - Judith Saunders; Raphael Kosek via Zoom
06/June 12th - Elizabethanne Spiotta; William Seaton via Zoom
07/July 10th - Barbara Ungar; Lucia Cherciu via Zoom
08/August 14th - Irene Sipos; Perry S. Nicholas via Zoom
09/September 11th - Nine-Eleven 20 years later via Zoom
                             To present during this event - email: phillip@woodstockpoetry.com
10/October 9th - Jacqueline Ahl; Philip Pardi via Zoom
11/November 13th - Elizabeth Cohen; Mary Leonard via Zoom
12/December 11th - Amy Ouzoonian; Anique Taylor and Annual Business Meeting via Zoom

Also, why not become a 2021 Member or donate to the Woodstock Poetry Society?

Membership is $20 a year. (To join or donate, 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. Or join online at: www.woodstockpoetry.com/become.html). Your membership helps pay for our upgraded Zoom account, 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.

(click here to close this window)