Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, November 8th, 2025 at 2pm
Woodstock Library

HYBRID: in-person and virtually via Zoom

Bruce Weber
Linda McCauley Freeman

Poets Bruce Weber and Linda McCauley Freeman 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, November 8th, 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:

Bruce Weber - Bruce Weber_bio



I Like Being A Poet

I like being a poet.
No canvases and paints to carry to the sea.
No standing bass to lug on the crowded subway.
No stage required to anchor my theatrical sense & sensibility.
I can write under an open parasol
Gazing at a woodcut of a big wave by Hiroshigi
Or scribble nonsense rhymes in a tumult of broken memories.
I’m free to linger on an apostrophe
Or dangle in the air like a paper plane
Caught in a crossfire of wind and humidity.
I can dance across the page like Fred Astaire
My shoes never touching solid earth
My mind racing past the lifeguards of truth and honesty
Like an adventurer on the high seas
Or a blind cane tapper begging for coins on the 7th Avenue local.
I can do all of this with barely a chagrin
Or a riddled sphinx-like-stare in the heart of the jungle.
You can find me any day of the year
Before a smorgasbord of letters and scents and colors
Shifting back and forth on a perilous walk across the gangplank
A poet of high c’s and tremulous swims in rough waters
Rowing my way home with a pen and paper open to all things.

-Bruce Weber

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Linda McCauley Freeman - Linda McCauley Freeman is the award-winning poet of The Family Plot (Backroom Window Press, 2022) and The Marriage Manual (BWPress, 2024). Lines from one of her poems are displayed at the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery. She has an MFA from Bennington and was the former poet-in-residence at the Putnam Arts Council. She is also a swing dance teacher and runs Got2Lindy Dance Studios in the Hudson Valley.



Imagine Seeing
For James Baldwin, 1924-1987

I know you by your eyes.
We are in Paris, the Café
De Flore on the left bank.
My backpack heavy
against my knee, my neck
aches from the strain of carrying.
I am sharing one fried egg
with another weary American girl.
She eats the yolk. I cut up the white
into tiny pieces I can swallow.
We have been traveling forty days,
our money nearly gone. You are
at a small, round table
in the corner, a cloud of smoke
rising whispers above your head,
cigarette burning between the slim
fingers of your left hand. You have
an omelet and notebook in front
of you, both of which you peck at
occasionally, then you turn
your huge eyes back home
to Harlem, seeing a life
I do not live
no matter where I travel,
no matter where I sit.

-Linda McCauley Freeman

LINDA McCAULEY FREEMAN
The Marriage Manual: Poems (BWP, 2024)
The Family Plot: Poems (Backroom Window Press, 2022)
www.LindaMcCauleyFreeman.com
Facebook: @LindaMcCauleyFreeman
Twitter: @LindaMccFreeman
Linda McCauley Freeman | Directory of Writers from Poets & Writers (pw.org)

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

01/January 11th - 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 - Lee Slonimsky; Robert Charles Basner
08/August 9th - Matthew J. Spireng; Suzanne Cleary
09/September 13th - Jennifer Franklin; Lucia Cherciu
10/October 11th - Raphael Kosek; Raphael Moser
11/November 8th - Bruce Weber; Linda McCauley Freeman
12/December 13th - Cheryl A. Rice; Tom Bonville and Annual Business Meeting

Follow the WPS on Facebook: www.facebook.com/WoodstockPoetry/ and 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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