Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, April 10th, 2021 at 2pm
via Zoom
Judith Kerman
Leslie Gerber
Poets Judith Kerman and Leslie Gerber
will be the featured readers, followed by an open mike when the Woodstock
Poetry Society meets virtually via Zoom on Saturday, April 10th, 2021
at 2pm.
WPS meetings are held the 2nd Saturday (2pm) of every month.
Due to the ongoing pandemic - for now, all meetings will be held virtually
via Zoom
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.
*
Features:
Judith Kerman - Judith Kerman, a.k.a. Reb Kugel, the Rubadubdubber
Rebbe, is a Jewish Buddhist Quaker clown in passionate pursuit of the Cheshire
cat called Truth. She has published ten collections of poetry, most recently
Aleph, broken; Poems from My Diaspora, published in 2016 by Broadstone
Media, and three books of translations of Cuban and Dominican women’s
poetry and fiction. She was a Fulbright Scholar in the Dominican Republic
in 2002. Kerman founded Earth’s Daughters magazine in Buffalo, NY (1971
to present) and runs Mayapple Press, located in Woodstock, NY. Her next book
of poetry, Definitions, will be published by Fomite Press in May
2021.
Blues
—adjective; noun—
\ 'blüz \
1. Shards of sky fallen from some nest.
2. Early Picasso.
3. Gainsborough’s beautiful boy, satin and lace.
4. Indigo, a dyestuff grown by
slaves sweating in the sun.
5. I remember new denims, too stiff
to wear before washing.
Now blue jeans are a luxury item,
the more tattered, the better.
6. Truck-driver language.
7. An old man, blue-black, his voice a carpenter’s rasp.
His callused fingers talk to steel
strings.
He knows all about grief,
Come back, sweet mama, come back.
-Judith Kerman
*
Leslie Gerber - Leslie Gerber was born in Brooklyn in 1943
and attended Brooklyn College. He graduated with a B.A. in Creative Writing
but went to work as a cataloger for the Strand Book Store to support his new
family. In 1970 he moved to Woodstock and started a mail order classical record
business, which he ran for 39 years while writing thousands of music reviews
and articles. He began writing poetry in 1999 and has since had three books
published. The latest is Losing Tara: An Alzheimer’s Journey,
a collection of poems devoted to his late wife’s long illness; it includes
poems dictated by her. He still lives in Woodstock with his dog Winnie and
eagerly awaits the reopening of local venues for live poetry readings.
Latvian Sprats
A small round can of tiny fish
with a transparent plastic top.
Sprats, it said in large type
but I had to search for the country: Latvia.
The fish were soft and tasty
with crunchy tails.
They came from Latvia, which has a city,
Riga, and nothing else I know
so I closed my eyes and looked hard
and saw a small girl in dirty clothes
lying awake on a cot in a dark room
shivering with hunger.
Outside the room a wild boar
paced impatiently on a threadbare rug
its eyes green fire
its jaws steaming.
I opened my eyes and saw
the girl had the face of my children.
I was about to rush to her
but she whispered,
Do not come. If you were here
you would see so many in the streets
you would shrivel into ugly dust.
Stay home and buy more fish
so that my father can have work
and give me bread.
Buy cans and leave them on the street.
When someone takes one
follow her home and give her your money.
Then the image faded
and I could not remember
where I had bought the fish.
*
Developing WPS 2021 Schedule - all readings held via Zoom
All of 2021 Events: Events
Due to the ongoing pandemic - for now, all meetings will be held virtually
via Zoom
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 following the featured readers. Thank
you.
01/January 9th - Canceled
02/February 13th - Canceled
03/March 13th - Guy Reed; Victoria Sullivan via Zoom
04/April 10th - Judith Kerman; Leslie Gerber via Zoom
05/May 8th - Judith Saunders; Raphael Kosek via Zoom
06/June 12th - Elizabethanne Spiotta; William Seaton via Zoom
07/July 10th - Barbara Ungar; Lucia Cherciu via Zoom
08/August 14th - Irene Sipos; Perry S. Nicholas via Zoom
09/September 11th - Nine-Eleven 20 years later via Zoom
To
present during this event - email: phillip@woodstockpoetry.com
10/October 9th - Jacqueline Ahl; Philip Pardi via Zoom
11/November 13th - Elizabeth Cohen; Mary Leonard via Zoom
12/December 11th - Amy Ouzoonian; Anique Taylor and Annual Business Meeting via Zoom
Also, why not become a 2021 Member or donate to the Woodstock Poetry
Society?
Membership is $20 a year. (To join or donate, 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 our upgraded Zoom account, 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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