
Linda Watanabe McFerrin
Jacqueline Berger and Linda Watanabe McFerrin
14 NOVEMBER 2024 — thursday
Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Jacqueline Berger, Left at the Ruin, and Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Post-Apocalyptic Valentine, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 7:00 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. This event will be posted on the Poetry Flash YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UClwdR-uPFNz7XxbBbLcnoEA.
MORE ABOUT THE READERS
Jacqueline Berger's new book of poems is Left at the Ruin. Mark Wunderlich says "This is a book that understands poetic power lies in ambiguity and not in moral certainty, and shows us the unique power of poetic language to help us understand ourselves" Her previous collections include The Day You Miss Your Exit; The Gift That Arrives Broken, winner of the Autumn House Poetry Prize; Things That Burn, winner of the Agha Shadid Ali Poetry Prize, and The Mythologies of Danger, winner of the Bluestem Award and Bay Area Book Reviewers Award (now the Northern California Book Award). Her poetry has appeared in several anthologies including American Poetry: The Next Generation. Her work has appeared in Old Dominion Review, Rhino, River Styx, Nimrod, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. She is professor emerita at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, California, and lives on the California Central Coast.
Poet, travel writer, novelist and editor Linda Watanabe McFerrin's new book of poems is Post-Apocalyptic Valentine. Cole Swensen says "…these are poems that listen even more loudly than they speak, and that generosity gives this collection its distinctively heart-felt edge—it's a tour de force of compassion." Linda Watanabe McFerrin's previous collections include Dead Love, a novel, which won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction; The Hand of Buddha, a short story collection; and Navigating the Divide: Selected Poetry and Prose. She co-edited Hot Flashes, the sexy little stories & poems series of anthologies. McFerrin has judged the San Francisco Literary Awards, Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence, and Kiriyama Prize. She served as a visiting mentor for the Loft Mentor Series, and has been guest faculty at the Oklahoma Arts Institute. Founder of Left Coast Writers, she has led workshops in around the world and across the United States.


Daily Listings
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17 SEPTEMBER 2025 — wednesday
18 SEPTEMBER 2025 — thursday
19 SEPTEMBER 2025 — friday
- City Arts and Lectures presents Arundhati Roy reading from and discussing her new memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, a soaring account of how the author became the person and writer she is, shaped by circumstance and her complex relationship to her extraordinary mother, in conversation with award-winning reporter Deepa Fernandes, Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, $59, 7:30 (www.cityarts.net/event/arundhati-roy-2)
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
- Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Bruce Isaacson, Porpoisefully Wrong, and Paul Corman-Roberts, Bone Moon Palace, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 7:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).
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
- Rumi's Caravan returns to Berkeley for recitations of world poetry, featuring an improvised poetic conversation with music, the presentation quotes from the works Rumi, Hafiz, Mary Oliver, Kabir, Wendell Berry, Neruda, Rilke, Robert Bly, Yeats, Naomi Shihab Nye, William Stafford, Maya Angelou, Leonard Cohen, Seamus Heaney, Denise Levertov, Antonio Machado, May Sarton and others, ticket sales support the work of the Middle East Children's Alliance; The Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison Street, Berkeley, $30 Advance or $35 Door, 7:30 pm (rumiscaravan.com)
29 SEPTEMBER 2025 — monday
30 SEPTEMBER 2025 — tuesday
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