Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, September 9th, 2023 at 2pm
Woodstock Library

HYBRID: in-person and virtually via Zoom

Barbara Ungar
Lucia Cherciu

Poets Barbara Ungar and Lucia Cherciu will be the featured readers, along with an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets in person and via Zoom (and streamed live on Facebook: www.facebook.com/WoodstockPoetry) on Saturday, September 9th, 2023 at 2pm(eastern).

WPS meetings are held the 2nd Saturday (2pm) of every month.

Woodstock Library
5 Library Lane, Woodstock, NY 12498
(845) 679-2213
www.woodstock.org

*** We ask all people who wish to attend in person to self-test for Covid within 24 hours prior to the event. Self-test kits are reasonably priced and available at nearly every pharmacy. ***

The Zoom app can be downloaded here: Zoom Download Center

To attend virtually: 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:

Barbara Ungar - Barbara Ungar’s sixth book, After Naming the Animals, is forthcoming in June 2023. Prior books include Save Our Ship, Immortal Medusa, and Charlotte Brontë, You Ruined My Life. She has work forthcoming or recently published in Scientific American, Crazyhorse, and Small Orange. Her work has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Bulgarian. A professor of English at The College of Saint Rose, she lives in Saratoga Springs, New York.
www.barbaraungar.net





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Lucia Cherciu - Lucia Cherciu is a Professor of English at Dutchess Community College and served as the 2021-2022 Dutchess County Poet Laureate. She is the author of six books of poetry, including Immigrant Prodigal Daughter (Kelsay Books, forthcoming 2023), Train Ride to Bucharest (Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), which received the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2016), Lalele din Paradis / Tulips in Paradise (Editura Eikon, 2017), Altoiul Râsului / Grafted Laughter (Editura Brumar, 2010), and Lepadarea de Limba / The Abandonment of Language (Editura Vinea, 2009). Her work was nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and three times for Best of the Net. Her web page is http://luciacherciu.webs.com.



The Apple Trees from Home

I didn’t know I already had everything.
Abundance and fear. Abundance of fear.

I defied darkness. I had my health.
I prayed to remember. I prayed to forget.

I followed the light, sought the light in others.
Tried to name the four kinds of pears

grafted on my grandparents’ pear tree.
Dreamed all night I was picking

summer apples, cherries, plums
from all our fruit trees I left behind. Why

did you leave, asks my mother.
Don’t worry, time will pass

and soon you’ll come home again,
my father used to say. I didn’t

tell them I wanted to stay.
I should have called more often.

I followed the routine. Feigned a routine.
I fasted. I ate my restlessness.

I pined for a white porch that evaded me.
I longed for a hundred kinds of grapes.

I listened to the lingering litany of birds
I couldn’t name and I laughed.

Published in Immigrant Prodigal Daughter (Kelsay Books, forthcoming 2023)

-Lucia Cherciu

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Developing WPS 2023 Schedule - February-December readings Hybrid: in-person and now at the Woodstock Library and via Zoom (and streamed live on Facebook: www.facebook.com/WoodstockPoetry)
All WPS Events: Events

01/January 14th - Danielle Woerner; Virginia Konchan (via Zoom only)
02/February 11th - Alison Koffler; Dayl Wise
03/March 11th - Allison Argueta; Brianna Heller
04/April 8th - Darcy Smith; Dennis Wayne Bressack
05/May 13th - Jerrice J. Baptiste; Mary K O'Melveny
06/June 10th - Irene Sipos; Perry S. Nicholas
07/July 8th - Kateri Kosek; Raphael Kosek
08/August 12th - David Messineo; Will Nixon
09/September 9th - Barbara Ungar; Lucia Cherciu
10/October 14th - Bracha Nechama Bomze; Reagan Upshaw
11/November 18th - George Quasha; Sam Truitt 3rd Saturday
12/December 9th - Lisa St. John; Lissa Kiernan and Annual Business Meeting

Also, why not become a 2023 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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