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Poetry Flash Reading Series


Bert Meyers Tribute: Eric Gudas, David Shaddock, Anat Silvera

22 JUNE 2023 — thursday

Poetry Flash presents a reading celebrating the publication of Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master, readers include poets Eric Gudas, David Shaddock, and Anat Silvera, the poet's daughter, in person, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 7:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).

Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.
Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master will be available at the event and online at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash(a portion of the proceeds support Poetry Flash).

Bert Meyers: On the Life and Work of an American Master, the latest volume in The Unsung Masters Series, offers a large selection of his very best poetry alongside essays and appreciations from José Angel Araguz, Jim Bogen, Victoria Chang, Amy Gerstler, Garrett Hongo, Daniel Meyers, Barry Sanders, Ari Sherman, Maurya Simon, and Sean Singer, among others. The Unsung Masters Series exists to bring great but largely overlooked writers to new readers. This volume is edited by Dana Levin and Adele Williams.

"Bert Meyers is an American original—a brilliant poet whose use of tone and figurative language was so emotive, intelligent and nuanced, it became inimitable, became its own unique perspective on our world. I wouldn't be surprised if mid-twenty-first century scholars announce that in Bert Meyers we have overlooked the best poet of his generation." —Ilya Kaminsky
MORE ABOUT THE READERS

Eric Gudas is the author of Best Western and Other Poems, winner of the Gerald Cable Book Award, and Beautiful Monster, a chapbook. His work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, Poetry Flash, Los Angeles Review of Books, Raritan, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles.

David Shaddock is a poet and psychotherapist. His most recent poetry book is A Book of Splendor: New and Selected Poems on Spiritual Themes. He has a regular column in Poetry Flash, "Poetry and Healing," and is the author of Poetry and Psychoanalysis: The Opening of the Field (Routledge), and two books on relationships and couples therapy. He lectures widely on those topics, and maintains a private practice in Berkeley.

Anat Silvera, Bert Meyers's daughter, is one of the founders of Silvera Jewelry School in Berkeley. Before and after college she studied with artists and craftsmen, apprenticing as a metalsmith and learning how to create fine beadwork. She is the author of a book on her craft, and has exhibited her work all over the U.S., including as featured artist at the Oakland Museum of Art Collector's Gallery.

The son of Romanian and Polish Jewish immigrants, Bert Meyers (1928-1979) was born in Los Angeles. Always rebellious and a questioner of authority, he dropped out of high school and became a poet. For many years he worked at manual labor jobs, including printer's apprentice, until he became a master picture framer and gilder. Here he found satisfaction in craftsmanship and attention to detail, the same approach he used in composing his poetry. Throughout those years he continued to write, feeling that a poet should be immersed in the world, and should have real world things to write about. Meyers wanted to be self-taught. He read everything he could get his hands on and had a prodigious literary memory. He frequented the vibrant circles of LA poets at the time, with Thomas McGrath and others. His fellow poet and friend Robert Mezey said, "Bert Meyers belonged to no school or coterie and had no use for fashion. He was that rarest of creatures, a pure lyric poet. His poems are very much what he was—gentle, cantankerous, reflective, passionate and wise." Although he had never taken undergraduate classes, and had no high school diploma, in 1964 he was admitted to the Claremont Graduate School on the basis of his poetic achievements. By 1967 he had a Ph.D in English Literature and was hired to teach poetry and literature at Pitzer College in Claremont, where he taught until 1978. During his life as a professor, Meyers finally had the time to focus on his writing; he also had an important and lasting influence on his students, a new generation of poets and writers, including Dennis Cooper, Amy Gerstler, Garrett Hongo, and Mauyra Simon among others.

He published at least eight collections of poetry, including Early Rain (1960), The Dark Birds (1968), Sunlight on the Wall (1976), Windowsills (1979), The Wild Olive Trees (1979). Before he died, he selected the core poems of In a Dybbuk's Raincoat: Collected Poems (2007). His widow, Odette Meyers, son Daniel Meyers, and poet Morton Marcus shepherded the book into posthumous publication. Meyers's precisely framed poems are image driven and often quite short. Noting that "the image is unequivocally at the center of his work" in her introduction to In a Dybbuk's Raincoat, Denise Levertov lamented that "Bert Meyers death has deprived us of one of the best poets of our time." (Information from bertmeyers.com)




Daily Listings

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26 JULY 2024 — friday

  • Green Apple Books welcomes journalist Jesse Katz for the release of his book, The Rent Collectors: Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant LA, Green Apple Books, 1231 9th Avenue, San Francisco, free, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.greenapplebooks.com/event/9th-ave-jesse-katz)

27 JULY 2024 — saturday

  • Calling all literary enthusiasts! The Beast Crawl Literary Festival showcases some of the Bay Area's most captivating voices throughout downtown Oakland, begin at 3:30 at COMMUNE, Beast Crawl information table: Leg 1 at 4:00 pm features readings by Poetry Flash, AfroSurrealist Writers Workshop, and Oakland Youth Poet Laureates; Leg 2 at 5:30 pm features readings by Black Freighter Press, Colossus Press, and Manic D Press; Leg 3 at 7:00 pm features readings by Paper Press, Celebration of Queer Poets, and Apocrypha Press; Leg 4 at 8:30 pm features an afterparty at COMMUNE and Binny's; there's an open mic at each Leg; start at Beast Crawl's headquarters for information, COMMUNE, 1716 Broadway, Oakland, free, 3:30 pm PDT (For more information, including maps, visit: www.beastcrawl.org/2024.html)
  • Beast Crawl Literary Festival presents a Poetry Flash 50+ Anniversary reading, featured readers include Sally Ashton, Listening to Mars; Judy Halebsky, Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged); Eliot Schain, The Distant Sound; and Rosalinda Monroy, Poetry Flash assistant editor and contributor; these are poets and writers who have all read for, worked on, or been published in Poetry Flash, hosted by Joyce Jenkins, editor, Poetry Flash, The Punchdown Wine Bar + Bottle Shop, 1737 Broadway, Oakland, free, Leg 1 at 4:00 pm sharp (For more information, including a map, visit: www.beastcrawl.org/blog/poetry-flash-2024)
  • Beast Crawl Literary Festival presents "The Erotic," a reading featuring Rusty Morrison, Risk, editor of Omnidawn Publishing; Richard Silberg, The Horses: New and Selected, associate editor of Poetry Flash; Steven Rood, Music from Behind a Stone Wall; Joyce Jenkins, Joy Road, editor of Poetry Flash, Feelmore Social Club, 1542 Broadway, Oakland, free, Leg 2 at 5:30 pm sharp (For more information, including a map, visit: www.beastcrawl.org/blog/the-erotic-2024)
  • Warwick's welcomes historical-fantasy novelist Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches to discuss her latest in the All Souls series, The Black Bird Oracle, offsite at IPJ Theatre, Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, 5555 Marian Way, San Diego, free, 2:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.warwicks.com/event/harkness-2024)
  • The Glendale Poet Laureate Program welcomes Summer Farah, I could die today and live again, Arthur Kayzakian, The Book of Redacted Paintings, and David Romero Diamond Bars 2, for a reading and workshop designed for all skill levels, Brand Library and Art Center, 1601 West Mountain Street, Glendale, free, 11:00 am PDT (For more information, visit: www.eventbrite.com/e/glendale-poet-laureate-poetry-workshop-reading-tickets-939958058857?aff=ebdssbdestsearch)
  • Marin Poetry Center's Traveling Show will visit Berkeley for an afternoon of poetry featuring readers: Judy Juanita, The High Price of Freeways, Judy Bertelsen, Susan Cohen, Democracy of Fire, Jeanne Wagner, Everything Turns Into Something Else, and Carol Dorf, Berkeley Public Library Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch, 1901 Russell Street, Berkeley, 2:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: marinpoetrycenter.org/programs/traveling-show-3)
  • The CODEX Foundation Logan Book Arts Center presents a two-day poetry printing workshop with Jonathan Gerkin; the class will honor Navajo poet Sherwin Bitsui, Flood Song, by teaching to print using one of his poems, CODEX Foundation, 1331 Seventh Street, Unit D, Berkeley, $320, 9:30 am PDT (For more information, visit: www.codexfoundation.org/events)
  • Westside Satellite for Writers presents a workshop, "Identity as an Act of Courage," participants will mine their history for ideas and learn how their personal identity informs the characters in their stories, hosted by writing coach Terrie Silverman and editor Robin Quinn, Virtual on Zoom, $15, 10:00 am PDT (For more information, visit: iwosc.org/events/westside-satellite-for-writers-identity-as-an-act-of-courage-a-writing-and-storytelling-interview-workshop/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=identity_as_an_act_of_courage_a_writing_and_storytelling_interview_workshop_on_saturday_july_27_part_of_wpn_education_series&utm_term=2024-07-17#iwosc-event-registration)

28 JULY 2024 — sunday

  • Marcus Books welcomes author Eisa Davis, Angela's Mixtape/the History of Light, for a discussion, reading, and book signing, Marcus Books, 3900 Martin L King Jr Way, Oakland, 1:30 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.instagram.com/marcus.books/?hl=en)
  • The CODEX Foundation Logan Book Arts Center presents a two-day poetry printing workshop with Jonathan Gerkin; the class will honor Navajo poet Sherwin Bitsui, Flood Song, by teaching to print using one of his poems, CODEX Foundation, 1331 Seventh Street, Unit D, Berkeley, $320, 9:30 am PDT (For more information, visit: www.codexfoundation.org/events)
  • Join Genie Cartier and special guests for "the Curve!" a special show that combines spoken word poetry, comedy, and acrobatics, Circus Center Theater, 755 Frederick Street, San Francisco, $18, 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-curve-an-acro-poem-tickets-929837768797?aff=ebdssbdestsearch)

29 JULY 2024 — monday

30 JULY 2024 — tuesday

  • ZYZZYVA Magazine presents Movie Night at the Roxie with novelists Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Fruit of the Drunken Tree, and R.O. Kwon, Exhibit; the featured film will be Secretary, Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, $15, 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: roxie.com/film/zzyva-movie-night-secretary)

31 JULY 2024 — wednesday

  • City Lights Bookstore welcomes poet and translator Daniel Borzutzky, The Performance of Becoming Human, discussing his latest book, The Murmuring Grief of the Americas, in conversation with Ricardo Alberto Maldonado, The Life Assignment, virtual on Zoom, free, 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/daniel-borzutzky-in-conversation-with-ricardo-alberto-maldonado)
  • Lyrics & Dirges reading series presents Anastasia Lê, Taneesh Kaur, Linette Escobar, Jessica Ke'mani, Abby Bogomolny, hosted by MK Chávez and Sharon Coleman, curated by Sharon Coleman, Pegasus Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, refreshments, 7:00-9:00 pm PDT (www.pegasusbookstore.com)
  • Vroman's Bookstore welcomes Melissa Mogollon for a discussion of her new novel, Oye, in conversation with Greg Mania, Born to Be Public, Vroman's Bookstore, 695 East Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.vromansbookstore.com/Melissa-Mogollon-discusses-Oye)
  • Green Apple Books welcomes author Willy Vlautin, The Night Always Comes, to celebrate the release of his new book, The Horse; Green Apple Books, 1231 9th Avenue, San Francisco, Free, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.greenapplebooks.com/event/9th-ave-willy-vlautin)

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