Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, December 14th, 2019 at 2pm
Golden Notebook (Upstairs)

George Wallace(postponed)
Robert Basner

and the Annual Business Meeting

Poet Robert Basner will be the featured reader, along with the Annual Business Meeting, and an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets at Golden Notebook (Upstairs), 29 Tinker Street on Saturday, December 14th, 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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Features:

George Wallace (postponed) - George Wallace is writer in residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace, author of 34 chapbooks of poetry, editor of Poetrybay and co-editor of Great Weather for Media. Based in LI and NYC, he travels internationally to perform his poetry, is a frequent visitor to Woodstock, and is winner of the Orpheus Award (Bulgaria) and the Alexander Prize (Greece) for his work.



I Am Fog

I am fog, fertile and slow. I am
water and wine, i ride on the wind
and I stalk the sky at dawn. I actually
pass through rock and soil, embracing
everything I touch, and claim the earth
for my own. Who says otherwise?
Oh you may say I cannot escape Earth,
well that's true enough - though who
on earth would want to? Earth, with
Its firm grip on Everything - grapes,
vines, animals, men; Earth, with its
pastures, parks and seams of gold;
its farm tracks muddled with spring.
Why, without Earth I would be lonely
as a star! That's why you'll find me
here, in the rivers where the great fish
go to spawn; here, in lovers' arms,
where human hope still grows; here,
at your bedroom window, looking in,
as free as dreamers' hearts are free.
Do I roam in your own dreams, child?
Yes! That's where you'll find me --
Or find me on the mountaintop
Where the snows of winter moan.

-George Wallace

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Robert Basner - Robert Charles Basner, Columbia University Professor Emeritus of Medicine, is an internationally recognized physician and biomedical scientist, researcher, educator, editor, and editorialist. His current projects include composing chamber music settings of the work of the great poet (and great friend) Lee Slonimsky. He has published verse in Columbia, Promethean, and Chronogram.

He lives in Rhinebeck with Marianne-wife of now 44 years- wise, beautiful, beloved. He is honored to read at the WPS.



Death Watch
(After Andrew Wyeth, his “Teel’s Island, 1954“)

Death watch You set on water,
for the by- Your- leave living

Who, sea songing, storm strickened,
dragged to their dread and drown

But I kept keel
in boat black wind abeam

And, unfathered, rowed
from rain ruining wake

To water wood could sweeten,¹
hauled the hull

On hill from harbor, where
sea swells were still sun

And left it, steer-stopped,
stiffening in long grass

As weather, ropes wrapping
dry leaf, and huddle

Hemlock hemmed, hearing
beetle² bore beneath oarlocks

Last love, but Lauding
death’s moment, when whether

Under earth, ash, or water,
versed or vowed

Mouth droughts, and words
are whiter than their dead

Notes:
1. Ecclesiasticus 38:2 and Exodus 15: 22-26
2. i.e., the Deathwatch beetle

-Robert Basner

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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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