Woodstock Poetry Society
Featured Reading and Open Mike
Saturday, March 14th, 2026 at 1pm (new time)
Woodstock Library
Michael Cohen
Rhonda Rosenheck
HYBRID: in-person and virtually via Zoom
Poets Michael Cohen and Rhonda Rosenheck
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, March 14th, 2026 at 2pm(eastern).
WPS meetings are now held the 2nd Saturday (1pm) of every month. New time.
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.
*
Features:
Michael Cohen - Michael Cohen is a psychologist and poet.
Born in Yonkers, NY in 1950, he has lived in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter
for over 30 years. He attended Harpur College (SUNY Binghamton) and studied
poetry with Milton Kessler & Basil Bunting. Michael’s poetry publications
include In this Sea, a chapbook published by The New School Press,
and he is co-author with Ruggiero De Ritis of The Infinite Tie/La Cravatta
Infinita, a bilingual English/Italian collection of their poetry. Michael
is founder of the NYC-based Wednesday Nights Poets; the creative advisor to
Live from Mount Olympus, a podcast series of the Greek Myths; and a frequent
reader at various poetry event venues. He received his PhD in Psychology from
the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and conducts applied
research for which he’s widely published. He is currently the Director
of Counseling at an international college in NYC and has previously taught
at Yale University and Brooklyn College.
Just Like the Stitched-Together Man Blues
We are the hollow men
-T.S. Elliot
I’m going back to New York City I do believe I’ve had enough
-Bob Dylan
We are men of pieces stitched together
Like a Scarecrow’s patchwork coat
Threaded with ligament and tissue, veins
And arteries drained of red-matted blood
The pieces, chapters of Life, torn remnants
Of poor students Mastered in stealth
Doctored in stolen books and food, inept at Love
Romantic of Friendship, drowning in Desire
Kept afloat by the life-rafts of poetry
And the magic of Possibility
Sewn to fabric swarths of mind and soul
Explorers, liars, cowards, and writers
Keenly aware of lack of talent and ability
Lovers looking over left shoulders
Listening through walls and un-swept floors
To the cries and sighs from the rooms next door
Observers, clinicians, listeners, questioners
Always outside, dirty noses pressed against the rain wet glass
Doubting ourselves as husbands, fathers, soldiers
‘He was not made for this world’
Whispered behind our ever turned backs
‘We will watch him fail, fall’ as we dig out
From the muddy roadside ditches, hands bloodied
By the shards of broken cheap green beer bottles
The forever countless mass of hollow men
Modern Frankenstein, Ancient Prometheus
-Michael Cohen
NYC 2025
*
Rhonda Rosenheck - Rhonda Rosenheck’s poetry ranges
from tiny forms to meandering reflections. She writes crime poems, liturgy,
tongue twisters, character snapshots, confessionals, “form translations,”
and more. In 2024, she edited and published Thriving: An Anthology,
for which she was awarded a NYSCA Individual Artists grant. In 2025, she created
the inspiration game, Cards Poetica. Her project collection The
Five Books of Limericks: A chapter-by-chapter re-reading of the Torah and
chapbook Looking were traditionally published, as was her humor book,
Yiddische Yoga: OYsanas for Every Generation. A few of Rhonda’s
poems have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies. Her poem “Makerspace"
was theatrically performed at the Glimmer Globe Theater, Cooperstown, NY.
She has been a featured reader at events in NYS, MA, ME, and online. Rhonda
was a resident poet at the Fish Factory Creative Centre in Iceland and a resident
at Prospect Street Writers House in Vermont. She coedits Capital Region
Poems on Wheels (keepsake cards delivered with meals on wheels) and hosts
Poetry & Prose at La Perla in Averill Park, NY. A lifelong denizen of
suburbs and cities, she now lives along a dirt road in rural Rensselaer County
and spends much of her time saving trees from invasive vines. She is on the
board of her rural “farmers’ shul,” and The Big Top Group.
She recently served on the board of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild.
All the Wonders
One cup of his hand-ground coffee
is the entire ocean.
That I find it at my bedside
is all the wonders brought to me.
Learn this,
I whisper between sips
while warming my hands.
One tiny kindness
upsets the vast cruel order.
Each tender touch
undams a deluge
of blessings.
-Rhonda Rosenheck
*
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 note: new time 1pm
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.
(click here to close this window)