Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, July 13th, 2019 at 2pm
Golden Notebook (Upstairs)

Post Traumatic Press
(Dayl Wise, Alison Koffler, Guy Reed, Sharon Israel, T. G. Vanini)

Poet and Publisher Dayl Wise along with a group of his published poets (Alison Koffler, Guy Reed, Sharon Israel, and T. G. Vanini) 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, July 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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Post Traumatic Press - Post Traumatic Press (www.posttraumaticpress.com) is a small independent press founded in 2000. Our original mission: to give voices to veterans and noncombatants whose lives have been affected by the trauma of war. Since 2003 we have also published other authors whose work we admire.

We publish handsomely-produced chapbooks and the occasional perfect bound trade paperback. We are pleased to publish writing that expresses something poignant and meaningful about the human condition.

Features:

Dayl Wise - Dayl Wise is said to be a swell guy and is an honorary member of the China Beach Surf Club. With his wife, the poet Alison Koffler, he is the co-founder of Post Traumatic Press. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, and he is the author of Poems and other stuff (Post Traumatic Press, 2004) and Basic Load (Post Traumatic Press, 2009).



Ode to Boots

You covered my feet,
weathered over time,
a badge of battle,
no spit-shine tip to look into,
no reflection of that lost child.
Your laces always tight,
a mother’s knot.
How far did we travel
before they cut you off?
Others came home,
not you, discarded
like a pair of unwanted slippers
piled in a bloody heap
of clothing and bone.

-Dayl Wise

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Alison Koffler - Much of Alison Koffler’s work inhabits the territory where the world of humans and other beings intersect. Her poems have been published in numerous publications and she is the 4-time winner of the BRIO Award from the Bronx Council of the Arts. She has also won the Poetry Teacher of the Year Award from McGraw-Hill and Poets’ House and the Green Heron Poetry Award. She lives in Woodstock and the Bronx with her husband, the poet Dayl Wise and is the co-founder of Post Traumatic Press.



Zoological/Society/Meeting

We must realize, the lecturer says,
that human beings are a part of nature,
there is talk of funding, several videos—
Captivity, even in a zoo like ours, he tells us,
can render some species depressed and lethargic.
One clip shows volunteers
wrapping thawed rats in brown paper
for a cageful of bored condors to pick apart.
The dedicated scientists take notes,
the whales breach, exploding spray
as they always have. Local folk with guns
guard the perimeter of the game park,
keeping the animals safe.
We call this preserving nature.

I want to apologize to my dog.
It’s a stupid world we humans have made.
It’s bizarre when you think about it,
riding down the elevator at five
in the morning, taking another being
out to pee on the end of a strap.
Calm in her sit-stay, she knows the routine,
waits patiently for the door to open,
trotting out into the world at heel.

Who is she in those other moments,
when she turns, ears sharply cocked,
from the hiking trail into the woods,
leaping the fallen timber, drunk on the forest’s
invisible floods of scent, scouring the duff
for squirrel or field mouse? She knows in her bones
that each little brute’s a rank, salty crunch.

Maybe she’s left me standing,
listening into the forest for the rattle of her collar,
scanning the wood line anxiously,
but there she is, good dog, bounding through
the brush, she’s abandoned her chase, dashing back
with shining, chestnut eyes. What if I called her
and she didn’t come? What if she returned to me,
the inveterate vegetarian, proudly carrying
some bleeding, dead thing? Who is she,
slave or strange daughter-substitute?

She doesn’t know where we’re going
when she springs happily into the car.
As I drive, she leans against the passenger door,
her head tilted solemnly, lost in animal meditation,
or her own thoughts, whatever they are.

Remember the biologist’s dogs, killing
a deer in bloody snow, then cozying up
in front of the fire with his child?
Remember the moment when King Kong,
splayed like Jesus in his stanchions,
is driven mad by bright lights
and the roaring of the crowd? The King,
who being fictional, is really a part of us
wrenches himself loose,
tearing up Times Square,
running amok out into the streets.

They remade that movie.
We want to believe that the monster,
huge and battle-scarred, and the blonde,
bare-legged in her windblown chiffon rags,
will have their moment, sitting side by side,
gazing out over city or forest,
that love, inarticulate as usual,
will finally have its way.

It was very quiet in the auditorium, after the videos.
The audience strained to see; the woman attendants
came down the aisle, holding the baby gorillas up and out
like a pair of Torahs, patting their little
diapered tushies consolingly. They tried to cling
to their keepers, I suppose they had no choice,
but babies never do. I got a good glimpse
of one small, bright-eyed face, a hand
like a tiny, black-vinyl glove. The two women
carried their charges onto the stage, and stood
dwarfed by the size of the hall. A corner
of the audience applauded, loud.
One of the babies twisted in terror, struggling
in her keeper’s arms. The human ocean hushed itself,
a tidal wave of empathy,
a thousand eyes stared, rapt, silent.

-Alison Koffler

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Guy Reed - Guy Reed is co-author, with Cheryl A. Rice, of the chapbook, Until The Words Came (Post Traumatic Press). Author of the poetry chapbook, The Effort To Hold Light (Finishing Line Press), Guy has read his work on the podcast, The Strange Recital (thestrangerecital.com), and contributed poems to journals and films. He co-wrote and directed the short film, How The World Looks Now in 2018 and is currently working on a new film about the Esopus Creek. More information can be found at guyedwinreed.com.



Revision

I took the devil out of my poem,
he was clogging my voice box with decaying spiders.
I took the devil out of my poem,
but I left in the neck kissing and ear nibbling because it’s angelic.
I took the devil out of my poem
because pus filled my eyes.

Though they make nothing happen, I wanted talk of poems.
Every poem is a love poem. I was tired of talk about nothing.
I took the devil out of my poem
because we see death every day and can do nothing
except waltz; life-two-three, death-two-three.

I took the devil out of my poem
because those who die unjustly return with murder on their minds.
I took the devil out of my poem
because Vincent Van Gogh died on a Tuesday.
I took the devil out of my poem
because he despises innocence,

because he loves love, but he only loves with intent.
I took the devil out of my poem
because I hate the sound of grinding words against my teeth,
he turns them to dust along with my books, my fingers, my pens
and bricks of my convictions.

I took the devil out of my poem
because the God-fearing keep putting him back in there,
there is no caesura the devil cannot fill
with vanity and pride.
I took the devil out of my poem
because the suicides are enough to break the heart.

-Guy Reed

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Sharon Israel - Sharon Israel hosts the radio program Planet Poet–Words in Space, an edition of The Writer's Voice on WIOX 91.3 FM in the Catskills. As a poet and soprano, Sharon collaborates with composer Robert Cucinotta on works for voice, live instruments, and electronics. She was an early recipient of Brooklyn College's Leonard Hecht Poetry Explication Award. Her poem “Melodrama at the Biograph” was nominated for Sundress Publication’s “2016 Best of the Net.” Sharon’s debut chapbook Voice Lesson was published by Post Traumatic Press in 2017. She is certified in the Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) method.



Red Coat

He taught her to dance and now she lived for Swing
and liked him (he looked so good doing the Lindy)
but he was ravenous for her
his junkyard dog days gone gone gone
and she was that gorgeous his Lena his Lena
his own Vivian Leigh - - not knowing
the gorgon years to come would turn his hair
make his eyes stone crazy as he smelled her skin

because at fourteen she had fallen
for someone else who was kind and wild
and stole something and went to Juvie
and moved away and that was that
except they remained tangled up - -
invisible branches dense
with songless birds sending
secret signals to their other selves.

Maybe that’s why
she walked in her sleep
spent mornings in her darkened room
wore pink nightgowns pinned up the sides
and why he became his own Iago
putting their wedding picture facedown
in a drawer and burning her red coat
(too whorish) in the incinerator.

-Sharon Israel

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T. G. Vanini - T. G. Vanini is a musician, poet and mathematician who has resided in Woodstock for three decades. His book of poems, Dear Cloudface, was published by Post Traumatic Press in 2018. He performs his songs and song-poetry with The Princes of Serendip.



Dusk

The red fox shivers as she slips across the lawn.
No-one’s there to see her, or so she hopes.
No-one’s there to see her but the lumbering porcupine
who pauses to note the quick light steps,

then dawdles on, unimpressed
by any flash of grace or show of skill
that serves no need now. He’ll save his finesse
for dealing with fear and for finding a meal

and for his prickly lover who’s prowling the thickets
of deep silence at the roots of his eyes
but who’ll never discover his cache of secrets
no matter how long or how hard she tries.

And now he reaches the red-berried thorn bush
where the wild woods meet the mown lawn.
He dips and snuffles his nose to acknowledge
the mute brotherhood of the spine.

The porcupine lives on Bee Tree Hill;
he’s heading there now and thrusts into the woods.
The dull but still green leaves of the mountain laurel
will close behind him as the daylight fades

and the cold burns the eyes of the red fox.
She’s grinning now as well as shivering
because her teeth are a clamp for a grey mouse.
She’s bringing it home to her children.

-T. G. Vanini

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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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