Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, July 10th, 2021 at 2pm

via Zoom

Barbara Ungar
Lucia Cherciu

Poets Barbara Ungar and Lucia Cherciu will be the featured readers, followed by an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets virtually via Zoom on Saturday, July 10th, 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.

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Features:

Barbara Ungar - Barbara Ungar’s fifth full-length collection, Save Our Ship, won the Richard Snyder Memorial Prize and will be forthcoming from Ashland Poetry Press in 2019. Prior books include: Immortal Medusa, one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Books of 2015, and co-winner of the Adirondack Center for Writing Poetry Award; Charlotte Brontë, You Ruined My Life; and The Origin of the Milky Way, winner of the Gival Prize, a Silver IPPY, and a Hoffer award. An English professor at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, NY, she lives in Saratoga Springs with her son. She has published poems in Chronogram and many other journals; in the last millennium, she lived in Woodstock and read at Tinker St. Café as Psyche. www.barbaraungar.net.



Shooting Into The Hurricane

Some guy posted
Shoot at Hurricane Irma,
stunned when tens
of thousands signed up.

A sheriff tweeted DO NOT
shoot @ Irma. You won’t make it
turn around & very dangerous
side effects. We laughed,

gave you the Darwin Award,
said you put the duh in Florida
for shooting at the hurricane
when the bullet boomeranged

back into your brain.
We felt better about our laughter
when you turned out to be fake.

We laughed but keep following
fake-news you, our bellwether,
off the Wile E. Coyote cliff—

-Barbara Ungar

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Lucia Cherciu - Dr. Lucia Cherciu is 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 Lepadarea de Limba / 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 luciacherciu.webs.com. Her Twitter handle is @CherciuLucia..



Infinite Verbs

Except verbs,
everything else
is sleep of vowels,
fretting of chimes.

Doubt sifts the sky like snow,
brings in silence
of Gregorian songs,
syntax of prayer
we can’t translate.

We wonder if this
is what we want:
postponed fear,
elusive bread.

We latch the door,
try to keep out cursing words,
and patch the gaps
with adjectives
and cups of tea.

The only thing we have is verbs;
everything else is squandered summer
running through our fingers
as we brace ourselves
for the sundry sounds of cold,
emptiness crackling
in the gaping stove.

-Lucia Cherciu

“Infinite Verbs” was published in Train Ride to Bucharest (Main Street Rag, 2017).

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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.

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