Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, June 14th, 2025 at 2pm
Woodstock Library

HYBRID: in-person and virtually via Zoom

Irene Sipos
Perry S. Nicholas

Poets Irene Sipos and Perry S. Nicholas will be the featured readers, along with an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets in person and streamed via Zoom on Saturday, June 14th, 2025 at 2pm(eastern).

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

Woodstock Library
5 Library Lane, Woodstock, NY 12498
(845)679-2213
www.woodstock.org

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:

Irene Sipos - Irene Sipos_bio



Irene Sipos_poemtitle

Irene Sipos_poem

-Irene Sipos

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Perry S. Nicholas - Perry S. Nicholas is a professor emeritus of English at SUNY at ERIE in Buffalo, N.Y. where he was awarded the SUNY Chancellor’s Award and the President’s Outstanding Teacher Award. He has published one textbook of poetry prompts, three full-length and six chapbooks of original poetry, along with two CDs of poetry. He has hosted 5 venues in the WNY area. You can see his work at perrynicholas.com.

His poems have appeared in Common Ground Review, Literary House Review, Caesura, Word Worth, Silver Birch Press, Snapdragon, Verse-Virtual, Slant, Feile-Festa, Louisiana Literature, Chautauqua Literary Journal, Chest, The Healing Muse, New York Quarterly, Great Lakes Review, Chronogram, and AHI. His poems have appeared on over twenty occasions in the Buffalo News. They also appear in the anthologies Right Here, Right Now, Resurrection of a Sunflower, Flash in the Dark, Le Mote Juste, and a Celebration of Western New York Poets.

Perry has judged the Just Buffalo poetry contest, the New York State Poetry Out Loud competition, the Word Worth fiction contest, and has been guest lecturer at Villa Maria College, Niagara Community College, Buffalo State College, Medaille College, Daemen College, and New York College in Athens, Greece. He has read his poetry in Plymouth, NYC, Woodstock, Albany, Schenectady, New Paltz, and Saratoga Springs. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize on four occasions.

During his recent retirement, he has been interviewed for both Stockbridge, MA Library and the Hellenic American Project for Queens College.



The Letter
        Inspired by Poet Ken Holland

The last letter, not of the alphabet,
but the letter you need to write, you know the one,
to your friends, family, exes and etceteras,

before you bow out, exit the stage, bite
the bullet or dirt, buy the farm, kick the bucket,
give up the ghost, join the Choir Eternal—

you know, check out, as in dead as a doornail.
Compose, then send it before you change your mind,
before Charon HA ron turns back the ferry for non-payment,

before you find yourself lying about its contents
like Bette Davis in the movie of the same name
that reveals the truth about why she killed her lover.

Once you begin your letter, there is no stopping,
and, really, who knows when you might sign off?
You’ll not be around to endure any inquiries

from those who wonder, too late, why you chose
to hold off so long, circle several long city blocks,
before you finally found the nerve to mail it.

-Perry S. Nicholas

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Developing WPS 2025 Schedule - now in-person at the Woodstock Library and via Zoom
All WPS Events: Events

01/January 13th - Guy Reed; Will Nixon
02/February 8th - Alison Koffler; Dayl Wise
03/March 8th - Charlie Cody; Mike Jurkovic
04/April 12th - Poetry Month Special Event (TBA)
05/May 10th - Roberta Gould; Vivi Hlavsa
06/June 14th - Irene Sipos; Perry S. Nicholas
07/July 12th - TBA; TBA
08/August 9th - TBA; TBA
09/September 13th - Jennifer Franklin; Lucia Cherciu
10/October 11th - Raphael Moser; TBA
11/November 8th - Linda McCauley Freeman; TBA
12/December 13th - TBA; TBA and Annual Business Meeting

Also, why not become a 2025 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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