Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, August 8th, 2026 at 1pm (new time)
Woodstock Library
Cheryl Rice
Judith Kerman
HYBRID: in-person and virtually via Zoom
Poets Cheryl Rice and Judith Kerman will
be the featured readers, along with an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets in person and streamed via
Zoom (and www.facebook.com/phillip.levine/)
on Saturday, August 8th, 2026 at 1pm(eastern).
WPS meetings are now held the 2nd Saturday (1pm) of every month. New time.
Woodstock Library
10 Dixon Ave, Woodstock, NY 12498
(845)679-2213
www.woodstock.org
The Zoom app can be downloaded here: Zoom
Download Center
To attend virtually: contact phillip@woodstockpoetry.com
to receive Zoom info
If attending via Zoom, 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:
Cheryl Rice - "Long Islander by birth, CHERYL A. RICE
has lived in New York’s Hudson Valley for over forty years. Her work
has been appeared in Chronogram, Home Planet News, Florida Review, Misfit
Magazine, Trailer Park Quarterly, Ragged Lion Journal, and Long Island
Quarterly, among others. RANDOM WRITING, Rice’s workshop “for
new and used poets,” has been offered for over twenty years at such
venues as the Poetry Barn in Hurley and the AIR Studio Gallery in Kingston.
She earned a BS at SUNY New Paltz, and half of an MA at the University at
Albany."
For Updates on the Poetry World of Cheryl A. Rice, go to: http://flyingmonkeyprods.blogspot.com/
Running With The Bulls
This is not a new concept for any woman
used to being out among them.
Papa watched from a balcony, waving his red beret,
sipping whiskey like orange juice at brunch,
but we who have travelled the streets of commerce,
done our 9 to 5 necessities, are never surprised.
Officially, women weren’t even allowed in Pamplona
for the race until 1974, right around the time
we could have our own bank accounts, or
purchase birth control without a note from our husbands.
I have friends who carry the shame of abortion
like a midnight tattoo in a place only
lovers and morticians will see.
I have been in exam rooms with those bulls,
disguised in white jackets, gold watches,
clipboards to record our every remark.
I’ve been advised to avoid bread and pasta at the same meal,
while nicotine stains glowed in the forks of their hooves.
They run with cigarettes dangling from a ringed mouth
while my sisters and I try to keep up,
uteruses weighing us down, flapping
vaginal lips splitting the air like the fins of a ’57 Chevy,
ovaries thumping in time like maracas in the
land of our unforgiving bodies.
-Cheryl Rice
*
Judith Kerman - Judith Kerman is a poet and multi-artist
(singer, performer, and crafter). She has published eleven books and chapbooks
of poetry, most recently Definitions (Fomite Press, 2021), along with three
books of translations. Committed to publishing and literary communitybuilding,
she founded Earth’s Daughters magazine in 1971 and went on to establish
Mayapple Press in 1978, which she continues to run today. Kerman earned her
Ph.D. in English from the University of Buffalo. As a Fulbright Scholar to
the Dominican Republic in 2000, she translated the poetry and fiction of Dominican
women and designed a website for the Museo del Hombre Dominicano, expanding
access to underrepresented voices and histories. After a career in university
teaching and administration, she retired to Woodstock, NY, where she remains
an active force in the literary world by overseeing Mayapple Press, coordinating
online poetry workshops, and leading annual writers’ retreats. Find
her online at judithkerman.com.
Trying to Sleep
All night,
beeps of
call bells. Never quite dark in the halls,
doors wide open.
Everyone's asleep, I think, but me. I toss,
flail, rearrange my sheets,
grimace as the woman across the hall calls out,
“Help me get up!” again and again.
I grope for earplugs
jam them in,
know this will go on
like last night, until she
manifests in her doorway, a wobbling apparition in her
nightgown. The floor nurse takes her to bed again—through
open doors, I hear their voices. Then,
peace. She’s
quiet a while. I try to
rest, hope to sleep, but know
soon she’ll start again.
Ten minutes, fifteen. Did I sleep?
Up the hall at the nursing station,
voices, low for awhile, then louder.
When will someone bring her
Xanax? My feet itch from
yellow hospital socks. Where is
Zen mind when I need it?
-Judith Kerman
*
WPS 2026 Schedule - now in-person at the Woodstock Library and via
Zoom
All WPS Events: Events
01/January 10th - Ethan Sirotko; Janet Kaplan
02/February 14th - Tina Barry; Zelda aka Judith Z. Miller
03/March 14th - Michael Cohen; Rhonda Rosenheck note: new time 1pm
04/April 11th - Poetry Month Special Event - "Poetry as Resistance"
05/May 9th - Marianna Boncek; Richard Parisio
06/June 13th - Leslie Gerber; William Seaton
07/July 11th - Allen Shadow; Carol Graser
08/August 8th - Cheryl Rice; Judith Kerman
09/September 12th - Philip Pardi; Wendy Kagan
10/October 10th - Arden Levine; Raphael Moser
11/November 14th - Denise La Neve; Robyn Hager
12/December 12th - Kemp Battle; Marnie Andrews and Annual Business Meeting
Follow the WPS on Facebook: www.facebook.com/WoodstockPoetry
and why not become a 2026 Member of the Woodstock Poetry Society?
Membership is a tax deductible $20 a year. (To join, send your check to the
Woodstock Poetry Society, P.O. Box 531, Woodstock, NY 12498. Please include
your email address. 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.
Note that WPS is a registered 501c3 (and NYS Charity).
One benefit of membership is the opportunity to have a brief biography and
several of your poems appear on this website. Numerous bios, poems, and pictures
of past and present WPS members are available here: www.woodstockpoetry.com/members.html
and here: www.woodstockpoetry.com/poems.html.
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