Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, September 8th, 2018 at 2pm
Golden Notebook (Upstairs)

Catherine Arra
Matthew J. Spireng

Poets Catherine Arra and Matthew J. Spireng 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, September 8th, 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.

*
Features:

Catherine Arra - Catherine Arra is the author of Slamming & Splitting (Red Ochre Press, 2014), Loving from the Backbone (Flutter Press, 2015) and Tales of Intrigue & Plumage (FutureCycle Press, 2017). A former English and writing teacher, Arra now teaches part-time and facilitates a local writers’ group at the Stone Ridge Library. Find her at www.catherinearra.com.

Amazon: Slamming & Splitting

http://flutterpress2009.blogspot.com/search/label/Catherine%20Arra

https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Intrigue-Plumage-Catherine-Arra/dp/1942371306/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1512938215&sr=1-1



Lakeside Condo with View of 8th Hole & Sand Traps

I.

 To rise

with sun
see sandhill cranes commune
feed on the green before canopied carts
& pastel shirts descend, dispersing
all in frantic flutter;

witness grand flight
in pairs, flocks, elegant long necks
wings stretched to purpose
high-pitched, rattling calls
of greetings, joy
the choreographed precision in landing;
serenely slow, supine, they mate for life
in red-capped royalty.

See the lone fishers: great white egrets,
ibis like stars shimmering in electric dawn
old man-shouldered blue heron long-legging the shoreline.

See the alligator named “Swims in Morning”
launch from marsh grass with submarine stealth
glide the distance of a new day.

Every year grand houses & coral rooftops
multiply, swallow scrub & flora
yet wild things adapt
allow, invite us by grace of being to look
up from civilized rush
to not run them down, bloodied feathers
on concrete where once they fed.

II.

 To aim

well, avoid sand traps set on a slant
two oblong trenches like teardrops, designed
to ensnare every boast, proclaimed intention
each practiced swing, competitive chuckle
& then
sand blast a way out; scratchy particles stick to sweat
golf buddies watch, side-glance down
while humiliation is raked smooth.

III.

 To pray

like the anhinga after a day of diving
snorkeling wetlands & waterways
snatching the tastiest catch to feed her young.
At dusk, a lone priestess
perched on a rock, storm drain, fence.
Golden neck snakes upward;
bat-like wings glisten, a velvet cape
flung open to dry in air still warm with sun.

Read the divinations in mink-marble-bronze
upon plumage, her back arched now
heart pressed to amber.

-Catherine Arra

*

Matthew J. Spireng - Matthew J. Spireng's book What Focus Is was published by WordTech Communications. His book Out of Body won the 2004 Bluestem Poetry Award and was published by Bluestem Press. He is also the author of five chapbooks, was first place winner in the 2015 Common Ground Review poetry contest and is an eight-time Pushcart Prize nominee.



Route 23 to Stamford

Here the old barns
collapse in on themselves
like rotting bodies after
the bloat is gone,
for sale signs planted
at the edge of the road,
pastures growing up full of
weeds and the first small trees.
Even where a family has
held on, house freshly painted
a bright white, driveway sealed,
a 50-foot ash spreads from
the open hole of a topless silo
announcing they long-ago turned
to another way, rented fields
for hay and sold some acreage
where raised ranches cluster like
a small herd grazing on a distant ridge.

-Matthew J. Spireng

First published in Oberon.

*

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.

(click here to close this window)