Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, June 9th, 2018 at 2pm
Golden Notebook (Upstairs)

Dennis Wayne Bressack
Justin Bressack

Poets, father and son, Dennis Wayne Bressack and Justin Bressack will be the featured readers, along with an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets at Golden Notebook (Upstairs), 29 Tinker Street on Saturday, June 9th, 2018 at 2pm.

Note: WPS meetings are held the 2nd Saturday (2pm) of every month at Golden Notebook (Upstairs).

Golden Notebook (Upstairs)
29 Tinker Street
Woodstock, NY 12498
www.goldennotebook.com
845-679-8000

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:

Dennis Wayne Bressack - Dennis Wayne Bressack lives in Woodstock with his wife, Abby. They have 2 sons, Noah and Justin, and 4 grandchildren. He has been writing intensely personal, social, and political poetry, articles, and essays for over 50 years. Dennis is a member of The Woodstock Poetry Society and Calling All Poets and has been a featured reader at their meetings as well as many other venues in the Mid- Hudson Valley, New York City and New Jersey. He has been published in many anthologies, magazines and journals. He has self-published 7 chapbooks and recorded 2 music CDs. You can find samples of his poems, writings, songs and photos on his website, denniswaynebressack.com.



Fractured

I am lost in the muddied milieu of my fractured memories
of lies, deceit and redefinition of history.
I still can’t shake the broken promises of a life of love
replaced by guided tours of guilt and reckless condemnation.

Gilded idols don’t have to bear truths,
merely promulgate empty phrases of remorse,
pointless banter of “woe is me, I have survived,
I forgive you, aren’t I wonderful?”

You can’t compete with a mother who has lost children.
She is the recipient of angelic sainthood
while secretly puncturing the lifeless soul of the father,
burying him beneath an avalanche of death-wish commentary.

-Dennis Wayne Bressack

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Justin Bressack - Justin Bressack, from Woodstock, NY is a graduate student at the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Albany, NY. For several years, he has been writing very intense, personal, social and political poetry and has recorded some of those poems accompanying himself with a guitar. Justin has been published in Heyday and in The Literary Magazine of ACPHS. He is a member of The Woodstock Poetry Society and Calling All Poets and has been a featured reader at several venues in the Mid-Hudson Valley. His poetry appears on those web sites and regularly on his Facebook page.



She

He told me
"You always write about she."

I responded by saying
"And?"

So he then asked
"Who is she?"

I chewed it over.
Who is she.

She is
whoever you need her to be.

She is the past.

She is a lizard that crawls
on all fours.

She is a bad memory.

She is a spider that sticks to
your money
and hangs from
your wallet
and claws with
her nails
and sucks from
her mouth.

She is whoever comes to mind.

She is the prettiest thing
you can imagine.

She isn't that thing
lying next to
you.

She is a thought
an idea
a concept.

She is a play on words.

She is an art
an exact science.

She is who
never
gave you
back.

She is a mistake.
The firefly that got away.

She is a figment
of your
imagination
and she is real to the
touch.

She is a hope
a dream
a nightmare.

She is something
yet to come.

She is a future
waiting to happen.

She is not
who you think she is.

She never is.

She is the noise
that keeps
you
awake
and she too
is the picture that
puts you to
sleep.

She is
a spiritual teaching like that
of a cruel joke.

She is the reason you want
to die.

She is your soul's greatest
desire.

She is something you can
hold onto.

She is the dust.

You see, she could be a lot of things.

Hell. She could even be you.

So
after a few moments
chewing it over

I looked at him.

I then finally
said

"She happens, and you don't believe it."

He proclaimed
"What?"

Looking at me as if
wishing
for me
to reveal something more
to him.

As if
he wanted me to give him
some sort of divine
explanation

as to the way of things

and as to what
went behind all the world's
suffering

and to the reason
why

she
always
laughed at him.

As if I were some monk.

Some man of wisdom or
of courage.

As if
I knew the reason behind
a girl's laughter.

But the truth was, I didn't know it.

I couldn't even tell you
who she was

when I thought I could.

I just had nothing better
to write home
about.

I tried telling them
as much

but they didn't believe me.

Oh well.

I suppose that's just
because

He
was a different
story.

-Justin Bressack

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Developing WPS 2018 Schedule - all readings at Golden Notebook (Upstairs)
All of 2018 Events: Events

01/January 13th - Philip Pardi; Sparrow
02/February 10th - Frank Boyer; Philip Fried
03/March 10th - Cheryl Rice; Guy Reed
04/April 14th - Donald Lev; Mary Leonard
05/May 12th - Judith Saunders; Lucia Cherciu
06/June 9th - Dennis & Justin Bressack
07/July 14th - Marcia Slatkin; Therese L. Broderick
08/August 11th - Alison Koffler; Perry S. Nicholas
09/September 8th - Catherine Arra; Matthew J. Spireng
10/October 13th - Barbara Elovic; Carl Rosenstock; Richard Levine
11/November 10th - Janet Hamill; Teresa Costa
12/December 8th - TBA and Annual Business Meeting

Also, why not become a 2018 Member of the Woodstock Poetry Society?

Membership is $20 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. Or join online at: www.woodstockpoetry.com/become.html). Your membership helps pay for meeting space 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.

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