Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, January 10th, 2026 at 2pm
Woodstock Library

Ethan Sirotko
Janet Kaplan

HYBRID: in-person and virtually via Zoom

Poets Ethan Sirotko and Janet Kaplan will be the featured readers, along with an open mike when the Woodstock Poetry Society meets in person and streamed via Zoom (and www.facebook.com/phillip.levine/) on Saturday, January 10th, 2026 at 2pm(eastern).

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

Woodstock Library
10 Dixon Ave, Woodstock, NY 12498
(845)679-2213
www.woodstock.org

The Zoom app can be downloaded here: Zoom Download Center

To attend virtually: contact phillip@woodstockpoetry.com to receive Zoom info
If attending via Zoom, 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:

Ethan Sirotko - Ethan Sirotko was born and braised in the Bronx. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of SUNY Binghamton and attended Boston College Law School. He has written several books of poetry (Aching In The Nebulae; and Searching For The Butterfly); plays (The Bachelor Party; An Even Three; and The Last Act); screenplays (Real Escape; etc); flip-books (Love/War; and Seriously/Humor Me) and a book of short stories (Distant Selves). He studied acting at HB Studio; the Gene Frankel Media Center For Performing Arts (MCPA); the George Morrison Studio; and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He has acted in several off-off Broadway plays and created a new definition of the micro-second when he appeared on the tv soap opera, Search For Tomorrow. He is a photographer and artist and created the photo-card company, ESPhotos. He is also an undercover trial attorney. His play, The Last Act was a finalist in the international playwriting contest held by the National Yiddish Theater - Folksbiene.



Orchid In The Basement

The metallic chipping radiator heat, deep
with all days inside that need
touch - a kind ungiven - and the
crisp days of twisting
country roads in Fall sojourns
unwind themselves inside me
and the cold of a winter blizzard
ensconces me in a warm hug
radiator heat and the slowly
unsheathing miracle of spring
unfolds like splendid origami
of the soul, its dissolution creative
and fire in the veins and loins
supplant the radiator heat
and in the summer the natural heat
is cooled by the humming conditioner
solidifying liquid bodies evaporating
in the City mug and in the late summer
by the night beach under the cooling
starry expanse, my soul returns
hearthed in its need for warmth,
bundling itself up and some nights lying
by a friend’s fireplace caressed red by
the too near to the fire heat and it is
hard to find the right position for
the right love and I return to my
urban life of angles and curves and
jutting skyward concrete
spired magician’s fretted fingers pass me
like a coin across its knuckles,
disappear me in its hold, and I wait
for the good deep warmth of the
hissing kiss of the radiator

-Ethan Sirotko

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Janet Kaplan - Janet Kaplan's poetry books are Ecotones (2022; shortlisted for the Sexton Prize and published by The Black Spring Press Group Ltd., London), Dreamlife of a Philanthropist (2011; Sandeen Prizewinner from the University of Notre Dame Press), The Glazier’s Country (2003; Poets Out Loud Prizewinner from Fordham University Press), and The Groundnote (1998; Alice James Books). Her honors include grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Bronx Council on the Arts, and fellowships and residencies from the VCCA, Yaddo, Ucross, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies (An Introduction to the Prose Poem, Firewheel Editions, 2007; Lit from Inside: 40 Years of Poetry from Alice James, Alice James Books, 2012; and Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose by Bright Hill Poets & Writers, 2017). She has served as Poet in Residence at Fordham University and as a member of the creative writing faculty at Hofstra University, where she edited the digital literary magazine AMP. She is currently an editor and co-publisher of PB&J Books, a cooperative literary press. Forthcoming from PB&J Books in 2024 is & Then, a prose abecedarian in deadpan.



From Dreamlife of a Philanthropist:

I’ve known great happiness. “Pound” abbreviated “lb,” the word “salary” drawn from “salt.” I’ve un- earthed a wealth of examples like these, shy ex- amples that don’t want to be discussed. Some people are happy lying low. They’re happy as foun- tains of Cambrian-era RNA. Others shake their fists. Their eyes well with tears. Shall I crawl beneath my mother’s feet because cabbages no longer grow on Broadway? It’s Sri Lanka now but the tea’s still called Ceylon. Some elements come together to form com- pounds; then you can’t get back to the elements to save your life. Not without the proper, very expensive tools.

-Janet Kaplan

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WPS 2026 Schedule - now in-person at the Woodstock Library and via Zoom
All WPS Events: Events

01/January 10th - Ethan Sirotko; Janet Kaplan
02/February 14th - Tina Barry; Zelda aka Judith Z. Miller
03/March 14th - Michael Cohen; Rhonda Rosenheck
04/April 11th - Poetry Month Special Event - "Poetry as Resistance"
05/May 9th - Marianna Boncek; Richard Parisio
06/June 13th - Judith Kerman; William Seaton
07/July 11th - Allen Shadow; Carol Graser
08/August 8th - Cheryl Rice; Leslie Gerber
09/September 12th - Philip Pardi; Wendy Kagan
10/October 10th - Darcy Smith; Raphael Moser
11/November 14th - Denise La Neve; Robyn Hager
12/December 12th - Kemp Battle; Marnie Andrews and Annual Business Meeting

Follow the WPS on Facebook: www.facebook.com/WoodstockPoetry and why not become a 2026 Member of the Woodstock Poetry Society?

Membership is a tax deductible $20 a year. (To join, send your check to the Woodstock Poetry Society, P.O. Box 531, Woodstock, NY 12498. Please include your email address. 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. Note that WPS is a registered 501c3 (and NYS Charity).

One benefit of membership is the opportunity to have a brief biography and several of your poems appear on this website. Numerous bios, poems, and pictures of past and present WPS members are available here: www.woodstockpoetry.com/members.html and here: www.woodstockpoetry.com/poems.html.

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