Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, April 13th, 2019 at 2pm
Golden Notebook (Upstairs)
Brian Liston
Lissa Kiernan
Poets Brian Liston and Lissa Kiernan
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, April 13th, 2019 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:
Brian Liston - Born in Brooklyn, NY in August 1980, Brian
returned with his parents to Saugerties, NY, shortly after his birth. When
Brian was 3 he taught himself how to read and shortly thereafter was diagnosed
with autism. He attended the Center for Spectrum Services, a special school
for children with autism in Kingston, NY for four years. From there, he attended
Mt. Marion Elementary School in Saugerties, NY and moved on to Saugerties
Junior/Senior High School.
Upon graduation Brian enrolled in Ulster County Community College, which he
graduated from in 2009. It was there that he met his friend the late Larry
Berk, the Head Librarian at Ulster. When Larry was a featured reader at the
Society, Brian felt compelled to hear him, and he has been coming to the Society's
readings ever since. Brian’s Charley poems are dedicated to Larry’s
memory since 2010.
He credits Larry Berk, his late Grandfather Patrick Liston and Mikhail Horowitz
as his poetic inspirations. His poetic publishing credits include Chronogram,
The Awakening and includes getting his signature poem “Autistic
Superkid” in Riverine: An Anthology of Hudson Valley Writers published
via Codhill Press. He has been a featured reader in the Hudson Valley as well,
most notable the defunct Cross Street Atelierin Saugerties, The Cubbyhole
in Poughkeepsie and The Colony Cafe in Woodstock.
Autistic Superkid
I am and have always been
The autistic superkid
I am one of the first
But not the last
And I am always trying to improve
I am an ambassador of two worlds
Half-citizen of Earth; Half citizen of Wallbrook
This is how I truly am
Even though it's not how I look
-Brian Liston
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Lissa Kiernan - Lissa Kiernan is the author of the cross-genre
book Glass Needles & Goose Quills (2017) and the poetry collection
Two Faint Lines in the Violet (2014), a finalist for the INDIEFAB
Book of the Year Award and Julie Suk Award for Best Poetry Book by an Independent
Press. Individual poems have been widely published, anthologized, and nominated
for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes. Kiernan founded and directs the Poetry
Barn library and literary center. She holds her MFA from the Stonecoast
Program in Creative Writing and her MA from The New School in New York City.
She and her husband reside in West Hurley, New York with a fluctuating number
of felines. lissakiernan.com
At the Door
I was a blank page the night you invited me to waste
time with you in the alphabet of fractured forests,
half-torn trees. You knew all their names: ash, black-
elder, cherry, devilwood, elderberry. The moon
was a golden sheath of Swiss or ripe with blue-
veins, according to what crossed it, aroused by the night
breeze. You tickled me half to death, called me “Red”
roughly, reduced me to your equal. More fox than wolf—
anyone with eyes the better to see you with
would see you as more trap than catch: hard, lithe, ex-
Army man prone to tears of the tankard. And Grandpa,
what big eyes you had, something half-dead or was it still-
born in those otherwise fields of succory blue, steeling
my resolve to save you? You were stealth on padded feet,
showing up unawares from the den where you slept,
scruff of puce stubble bristling the hollows beneath
your cheekbones. You stood calm as an untroubled tree,
rigid as the spine of an unopened book—listening to me
listening to your slurred, impenetrable breathing.
-Lissa Kiernan
“At the Door” was originally published by the Unterberg Poetry Center at the
92nd St. Y’s Podium Literary Journal.
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Developing WPS 2019 Schedule - all readings at Golden Notebook (Upstairs)
All of 2019 Events: Events
01/January 12th - Darcy Smith; T. G. Vanini
02/February 2nd (1st Sat) - Leny Brown, Roger Mitchell
03/March 9th - Bruce Weber; Celia Watson Seupel
04/April 13th - Brian Liston; Lissa
Kiernan
05/May 11th - Howie Good; Reagan Upshaw
06/June 8th - Jack Hopper; Jessica Hornik
07/July 13th - Post Traumatic Press Publishing (Dayl
Wise+)
08/August 10th - Kate Reese Hurd; Thomas Bonville
09/September 14th - Carol Graser; Mary Kathryn Jablonski
10/October 12th - Ken Holland; Susan Sindall(NA)
11/November 9th - Jerrice J. Baptiste
12/December 14th - George Wallace; Robert Basner and Annual Business Meeting
Also, why not become a 2019 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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