Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, March 12, 2022 at 2pm (eastern)

via Zoom

Alison Koffler
Ken Holland

Poets Alison Koffler and Ken Holland will be the featured readers, followed by an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets virtually via Zoom on Saturday, March 12, 2022 at 2pm (eastern).

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.

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Features:

Alison Koffler - Alison Koffler’s poems often arise from where the human world and the non-human world intersect. She was the recipient of the Green Heron Poetry Award in 2011 and was the 2016 winner of the Bronx Council on the Arts’ BRIO Award for poetry, having won it as well as in 1993, 2000, and 2006. Her poems have appeared in such publications as Iris: A Journal for Women, Heliotrope, and Home Planet News, and were included in the anthologies lifeblood: the woodstock poetry society anthology, Chickaree Press, 2011, A Slant of Light: Contemporary Women Writers of the Hudson Valley, SUNY Press, 2013 and Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose by Bright Hill Poets and Writers, Bright Hill Press, 2017. She lives in the Bronx and Woodstock, NY with her husband, the poet Dayl Wise, and their dog, Cole. Together, she and Dayl co-founded the small independent press, Post Traumatic Press.



The Mantis

It was the night the storm
tore at the city
floods in the streets
whirling the parked cars
into driverless collisions
as the waters lunged down
the subway steps

but on the fourth floor
we felt fairly safe
though rain blasted
through the broken
air conditioner
to pool on our old
wooden floor

lightning flashed
between the blinds
as the city
reaped the damage
our human storm
unleashes on the planet

when I noticed her
clinging to the valance
with barbed forelimbs
gazing at me
with compound eyes
an enormous
pale green mantis

did she climb
the fire escape
to the fourth floor
ease into the room
through a crack
in the sash?

we rode out the night
as the thunder roared
safe in our human bed
while the mantis
bore witness
on the window blind

the morning was
a gift
of sudden sun
the waters receded
as people emerged
to clear away
what was broken
I gently caught
and carried her down
the four flights
to the street
and set her free
in the park

-Alison Koffler

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Ken Holland - Ken Holland, an award-winning poet, has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, and has had work widely published in such journals as Rattle, Tulane Review, Southwest Review, North Dakota Quarterly, The American Journal of Poetry and Tar River with poetry forthcoming in The MacGuffin and Sugar House Review. He’s won/placed in a number of contests, including those sponsored by Naugatuck River Review and the Stephen DiBiase competition. He lives and breathes in Fishkill, New York.



Soundings of Rain

      Light rain falls from
   the eave in soft synco-
     pation. I listen long
       enough to catch
     —here and there—
      A Night in Tunisia
         April in Paris
        Body and Soul

       Light rain on the
    skin of my daughter,
 newly born, the brilliance
  of her body, crying out
the sorrow inside her lungs
 —their strange gravity—

    Light rain a woman’s
  hand forever in the act
   of drawing away as if
 to shape her leaving upon
 your sleep, the slow glide
        toward loss

Light rain sliding between
seams of stone, the brief
 sheen of its passage, its
     low purling rhythm.

-Ken Holland

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WPS 2022 Schedule - all readings are now HYBRID: in-person & streamed via Zoom
All of 2022 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 8th - Bruce Weber; Jerrice J. Baptiste via Zoom
02/February 12th - Leigh Ann Christain; Mike Jurkovic via Zoom
03/March 12th - Alison Koffler; Ken Holland via Zoom
04/April 9th - The Hudson Valley Women's Writing Group via Zoom
05/May 14th - Roger Hecht; Saida Agostini via Zoom
06/June 11th - James Reitter; Jessica Cuello via Zoom
07/July 9th - Alison Woods; Matthew Burns via Zoom
08/August 13th - Arden Levine; Marjorie Maddox via Zoom
09/September 10th - Dennis Rush; Robert Charles Basner HYBRID: in-person & streamed via Zoom
10/October 8th - Joann Deiudicibus; Thomas Festa HYBRID: in-person & streamed via Zoom
11/November 12th - Cheryl Rice; Teresa Costa HYBRID: in-person & streamed via Zoom
12/December 10th - Anique Sara Taylor; Cate McNider and Annual Business Meeting HYBRID: in-person & streamed via Zoom

Also, why not become a 2022 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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