NAME, M/DD NAME, M/DD NAME, M/DD NAME, M/DD Express %26 Inspire Development %26 Publication
join our mailing list

Get selected timely event updates and news about Poetry Flash in your email inbox.

Andrena Zawinski

Andrena Zawinski and Jerry Ratch

18 FEBRUARY 2024 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a reading by poet and flash fiction writer Andrena Zawinski, Born Under the Influence, and novelist and poet Jerry Ratch, A Body Divided, memoir, who will read some of his poems accompanied by live music, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm PST (poetryflash.org).


Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.
Featured books for this reading will be available for signing at the event and at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash.

MORE ABOUT THE READERS

Jerry Ratch's most recent poetry books are Follow Your Heart, or Your Dreams, Abundance: Selected Poems, and A Few Guilty Pleasures: New Poems. The author of eighteen book of poetry, he is also the author of seven books of prose, including Wild Dreams of Reality, a novel, and A Body Divided, a memoir, the story of a one-armed boy growing up in a two-fisted world, in the time of polio. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said of it, "A gritty and valiant story…I would be glad to recommend it." Richard Ford wrote about Wild Dreams of Reality, "The almost, but not quite innocent directness of Ratch's savvy little novel is irresistible to me. I read it in a sitting. I'm glad real writers still want to write books this way." Jerry Ratch's poems have been published in Antioch Review, Beatitude, Carolina Quarterly, Ironwood, Louisville Review, Maryland Literary Review, Milvia Street Journal, Negative Capability, Slant, and elsewhere. Most of his titles are available as Kindle Books from Amazon, or through his website: www.jerryratch.com. He lives in Oakland.
Andrena Zawinski's new poetry collection is Born Under the Influence; her recent flash fiction collection is Plumes and Other Flights of Fancy. Born Under the Influence, through a wide range of craft from narrative free verse through European and Asian forms, grapples with the trials, anger, rebellion, survival, and joys influenced by gender, class, nature, pop culture, and contemporary history. Mary Mackey says of her work, "Andrena Zawinski is a poet of rare talent and radical empathy who combines the straightforward, take-no-prisoners, blue collar directness of a steelworker's daughter in her narratives, along with the rules of formal verse, creating lines which blossom into poems of memory, rebellion, longing, righteous anger, and—above all—survival. These poems are tough, smart, and beautifully crafted." Andrena Zawinski has also published three previous full-length poetry collections, four chapbooks, and edited two anthologies. Her work has received accolades for lyricism, form, and social concern including a Kenneth Patchen Poetry Prize and PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she makes her home in Alameda, California.




Daily Listings

< previous month  |  show all SEPTEMBER  |  next month >


16 SEPTEMBER 2025 — tuesday

17 SEPTEMBER 2025 — wednesday

18 SEPTEMBER 2025 — thursday

19 SEPTEMBER 2025 — friday

20 SEPTEMBER 2025 — saturday

21 SEPTEMBER 2025 — sunday

  • The 28th annual Petaluma Poetry Walk is an annual poetry festival founded in 1996, this year features 26 poets at eight venues: 11:00 am, Hotel Petaluma, Ballroom, 205 Kentucky Street: Sixteen Rivers Press kicks off the Walk with Judy Halebsky, Moira Magneson, and Patrick Cahill, with event presenter Terry Ehret; Noon, Keller Street CoWork, Main Lounge, 140 Keller Street: Unsolicited Press Poets, Cathryn Shea, LeeAnn Pickrell, and Kerry Donoghue, with event presenter Daedalus Howell; 1:00 pm, The Phoenix Theater, 201 Washington Street: Found Poets in The Round, Grayson Thompson, Original Giotis, and Bernice Espinoza, with event presenter Josh Windmiller; 2:00 pm, The Big Easy, 128 American Alley: Black Lawrence Press Poets, Cassandra Dallett, Tureeda Mikell, and Paul Corman-Roberts, with event presenter Ingrid Keir; 3:00 pm, Copperfield's Books, 140 Kentucky Street: The Headliners, Dorianne Laux, Life on Earth, and Joseph Millar, Shine, with event presenter Kary Hess; 4:00 pm, Usher Gallery, 1 Petaluma Blvd. North: the Translator Poets, Nancy Morales, Terry Ehret, Amanda Moore, with event presenter Dave Seter, Sonoma County Poet Laureate; 5:00 pm, The Petaluma Historical Library and Museum, 20 4th Street: The Library Youth Poets, Meg Hamill, Lisa Zheng, and Anaya Ertz, with event presenter John Johnson; 6:00-8:00 pm, Aqus Café, 189 H Street (this location is the farthest, you might want a ride for this venue): The Grande Finale: The Shape of Love with Jennifer Barone, Justin Cole Demeter, Ingrid Keir, Sonoma County Poet Laureate Dave Seter, Kelechi Ubozoh, Bill Vartnaw, with event presenter Kary Hess; all in walking distance across Petaluma, all free, 11:00 am to 8:00 pm (For more information, visit: petalumapoetrywalk.org)

22 SEPTEMBER 2025 — monday

23 SEPTEMBER 2025 — tuesday

24 SEPTEMBER 2025 — wednesday

25 SEPTEMBER 2025 — thursday

26 SEPTEMBER 2025 — friday

27 SEPTEMBER 2025 — saturday

  • Fourth Saturdays: Poetry at the Claremont Library presents a reading by the Fourth Saturdays Team, the organizers of the series: Lucia Galloway-Dick, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Genevieve Kaplan, and George Hammons, Claremont Helen Renwick Library, 208 N. Harvard Avenue, in the Claremont Village, Claremont, free, 2:00 (909/621-4902, www.claremontlibrary.org/monthly-poetry-readings.html)
  • The Sitting Room presents a Round Table Discussion on "The Poetry of Marianne Moore: Just Fiddle or Genuine?" led by Sonoma County Poet Laureate Dave Seter, bring your own favorite poems by Moore or poems of hers that you find challenging, The Sitting Room, Cotati, 2:00-4:00 (Registration required, sittingroomlibrary.org/events)

28 SEPTEMBER 2025 — sunday

29 SEPTEMBER 2025 — monday

30 SEPTEMBER 2025 — tuesday


< previous month  |  show all SEPTEMBER  |  next month >

© 1972-2021 Poetry Flash. All rights reserved.  |