Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, December 11th, 2021 at 2pm

via Zoom

Amy Ouzoonian
Richard Loranger
and Annual Business Meeting

Poets Amy Ouzoonian and Richard Loranger will be the featured readers, along with the Annual Business Meeting, followed by an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets virtually via Zoom on Saturday, December 11th, 2021 at 2pm (eastern).

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:

Amy Ouzoonian - Amy Ouzoonian is the CEO of MoodConnect, a Wellness Solution for businesses and organizations. She is also a poet and single mom living in Phoenix, AZ with her daughter and two cats: Molly and Raven. She has resolved to not interact physically with anyone outside of the people in her home until Covid-19 is over, since people in the U.S. are so divided about what to do to prevent this terrible virus from spreading further and so it's wonderful to have the opportunity to read poetry with friends in Woodstock and to feature her recent work.




Victoria

September rain fell on
Victoria Sams tiredofitall
She had her fill
of being angry
sad, tired,
And pleasing everyone
Just to keep them around.

Vicky Sams went to sleep
Every night to the sound
Of her prayers
That her eyes would not
Open
Hoping that this would be
Her last single mom struggle.

Day came when she packed up her
Kid, a loaf of bread, and a gift
"To whom ever finds me"
In her purse.
Everyone piled into the blue
Toyota to feed some ducks
At Merrytown Lake.
She gave the bag of bread
To her child
Traced her finger on the smile
That quickly disappeared to feed geese
And honked at the feathers flying
And feasting.

Away from it all
Vicky snapped up a pill
That she knew would do
The job fast.
She popped it between her lips
Like a coughdrop or a candy
And let the sweet dissolve
Watching clouds come in
Covering
The rage of bad decisions
Now a softness.

Floating to wet grass, Vicky's hands
felt flowers. Dandelions and their poofy
Seeds all around.
A mess of wishes tangled in her hair.

When the bread was gone
The geese took shelter
Under a bridge.
The child ran to greet the rain
Vicky lay still and tears splattered
Her open eyes.

The child was gone.
Sun broke through,
Then colors stretched their
Joy across the sky.

Vicky lay peaceful as
Hungry birds picked
at her unflinching body.

-Amy Ouzoonian

*

Richard Loranger - Richard Loranger is a multi-genre writer, performer, musician, visual artist, and all-around squeaky wheel, currently residing in Oakland, CA. He is the founder of Poetea, a monthly literary conversation group. His newest book Unit of Agency, which he describes as a collection of his human struggle/protest culture/social justice/pissed-off leftie poems, is just out from Collapse Press (www.collapsepress.com), as of October, 2021. He’s also the author of Be A Bough Tit, Sudden Windows, Poems for Teeth, The Orange Book, and ten chapbooks, and has work in over 100 magazines and journals. You can find more about his work and scandals at www.richardloranger.com.



Samples from Unit of Agency:

Earth Punk

Call me Earth Punk and step away if you don’t. I’m not here for the fashion. I’m not here for the hair. I’m not here for the scene or the being seen. I’m here for the passion. I’m here for the song. I’m here for the truth and noise and anger and politics. I’m here for the dirt. For digging in dirt. For the politics of dirt. Digging the loam, the must, the marrow, digging the mirror of the mind, the unkempt world, digging the space between molecules, the space between us, the lines and lack of lines, the borderless, the endless flow and interchange, the pulsing skinless fallacy of I.

I’m here for the digging. I’m here for the roots and air, the striving outward, the grappling. I’m here for the suck of wind, the information of sun, for the finding of the dew. I’m here for the rain. For the sheer cleansing drench of rain. For the pounding soaking rain that drums away difference, that drains away spite. That deionizes the sky and land. That deionizes us, turns friction into grass, melts conflict into luscious soil, feeds life. I’m here for the taste of it, the taste of earth in my cells, the scent of lightning, the hair-raising audacity of trees. The resoluteness of trees. Got conflict? Got oppression? Got strife? Yes! Lie face down between old roots and take a deep draught. Then decide a course of action.

The politics of earth are no different than the human melee. Yes, we love each other, and yes, we fuck each other up, always have and always will just like moon ocean rock leaf ice flame rain dust. But unlike our muddled monkey-thoughts, the ideology of soil is relatively pure – live and rot, become, transmit, transform. Sure, you can cage life, sell the air, pretend to own the sun, rip and tear and die writhing in inexorable need, or you can be the vine that twines and stays. Eat dirt, sisterbrothers. Drink sky, my friends. Wrap yourselves in lakes and stone. These are not commands. I’m Earth Punk. I don’t command. I don’t even ask. These are what you do every day. These are what you are. Dig?

Military Husband Jaw Sonnet

I stir my store-bought yogurt
tiredly over the sink,
watching the pre-formed cup-shape
held by the viscous sweet-sour glop
dissolve under the churning steel of the spoon.
It rises first in a peak well past the lip of the cup –
I think of glaciers and glacial ridges –
then plummets backward into cream.
I’m not worried about the possibility
that it could crest the lip and drop,
leaving me with a splattered mess instead of breakfast.
Later in life I drive my beat-up old van
across the beach and into the ocean,
just because I always wondered
what that would feel like.

The ad on my Android reads:
“Military Husband Jaw Dropped
After Seeing Her Transformation”.
I pause for a moment over that missing “’s”,
wondering whether its absence might be a result of
rushed work, vernacular, or purposeful manipulation,
but I am mostly taken by the photo below
of a well-known black American actress,
at least well-known by those aware of black American actresses,
who is also noted for being a proud woman of size,
or a big gorgeous girl as I would put it.
Beneath her glowing face the ad continues:
“Husband didn’t even recognize his wife
after returning from Afghanistan........”,
followed by a red “Read the Story” button
and the TIME® Magazine logo without the ®.
Since this woman is not actually a “military wife”
but in fact a gorgeous black American actress of size,
I wonder what her fictitious husband had supposedly
been doing in Afghanistan, exactly what transformation
had purportedly occurred, and whether that dropped jaw
was meant to be a sign of good or bad things to come.
I don’t click on the ad.

Later that day I read that a local sports team
has once again won the championship,
and that cheering crowds have taken to the streets,
overturning cars, smashing store windows, looting
and destroying property, and setting things on fire.
They are presided over by hordes of the local constabulary,
who, coincidentally, just the week before,
had presided over a large protest and street action
involving many of the same residents in much the same location,
at which time they had controlled the crowd with
flash-bangs, tear gas, shields, beatings, and mass arrests.
On this occasion, however, they are hanging back,
and some can even be seen cheering along with the crowd.
It is their team too, after all.
And another car lights up, another car owned
by a struggling working class man who depends on it
to feed his family, a man who might be in that crowd himself.

Just because it gives you a hard on
doesn’t mean you should do it.

-Richard Loranger

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; Richard Loranger 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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