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Mary Mackey

Mary Mackey and Susan Kelly-DeWitt

18 MAY 2025 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading featuring Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Frangible Operas, and Mary Mackey, In This Burning World: Poems of Love and Apocalypse, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).


Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series. The featured books 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

Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new poetry collection is Frangible Operas. William O'Daly says, "…Susan Kelly-DeWitt is a seer at the height of her formidable artistic powers, gathering parallel realities, fractured light, music of blue flowers, syllables of leaves, stars fallen in nets we cast, and the unseen seeds of our imaginations, such that with every vulnerable song we experience the wholeness of what's sacred—grief, joy, love, hope in wonder. These exquisite poems, their stunning imagery, expansive and focused, witness "the wilderness inside us," even as they "pulse with the energy of the soul's primal blast." A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, her previous collections include Gatherer's Alphabet, Gravitational Tug, Spider Season, The Fortunate Islands, small press and online collections. She was a reviewer for Library Journal, editor-in-chief of the online journal Perihelion, Sacramento Poetry Center Program Director, a Poet in the Schools and a Poet in the Prisons, and a blogger for Coal Hill Review. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle, Northern California Book Reviewers Association, and a contributing editor for Poetry Flash. She is also an exhibiting visual artist and lives in Sacramento.
Mary Mackey's new poetry collection is In This Burning World: Poems of Love and Apocalypse. D. Nurkse says, "…a visionary epic that turns devastatingly intimate. William Blake is here as is Hiroshima, but the prophetic arc is Mary Mackey's alone. How do we negotiate an apocalypse when the enemy is the self, when we have known for centuries where our path leads?…Her poems are invested with the sacred energy of the natural world whose destruction she can't endure. Her book is incandescent. You won't forget it." Mary Mackey's previous books include Creativity: Where Poems Begin. She is the author of numerous collections including The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams: New and Selected Poems, 1974 to 2018, winner of 2019 Eric Hoffer Award for Best Book Published by a Small Press, Sugar Zone, winner of a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, and Travelers With No Ticket Home. She is also the author of fourteen novels including The New York Times bestseller A Grand Passion, The Village of Bones: Sabalah's Tale, and Widow's War. She is past president of PEN West, a Fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Professor Emerita of California State University, Sacramento.




Daily Listings

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1 JULY 2025 — tuesday

2 JULY 2025 — wednesday

3 JULY 2025 — thursday

  • Poetry Night open mic for poems, stories, and songs, air-conditioned venue, please limit your reading to two items or four minutes, whichever is shorter, with host Dr. Andy Jones, John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street, Davis, 7:00 (www.poetryindavis.com)

4 JULY 2025 — friday

5 JULY 2025 — saturday

6 JULY 2025 — sunday

7 JULY 2025 — monday

8 JULY 2025 — tuesday

  • Award-winning author and paramedic Joanna Sokol reads from her new book, A Real Emergency: Stories From the Ambulance, joined in conversation by Kevin Fagan, Mrs. Dalloway's Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, free admission, 7:00 (510/704-8222, www.mrsdalloways.com)

9 JULY 2025 — wednesday

10 JULY 2025 — thursday

  • Poem Jam: Kim Shuck, San Francisco Poet Laureate emerita presents contributing poets reading from their new anthology, Colossus: Water, Poem Jam takes place on the second Thursday of each month unless otherwise noted, San Francisco Main Public Library, Latino/Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, free, 6:00 (415/557-4400, on.sfpl.org/07-10-25)

11 JULY 2025 — friday

12 JULY 2025 — saturday

13 JULY 2025 — sunday

14 JULY 2025 — monday

15 JULY 2025 — tuesday

  • Jackie Thomas-Kennedy reads from her new novel, The Other Wife, joined in conversation by Carol Edgarian, Mrs. Dalloway's Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, free admission, 7:00 (510/704-8222, www.mrsdalloways.com)

16 JULY 2025 — wednesday

  • Crystal Haryanto presents her new book, The Glory of Giving Everything: The Taylor Swift Business Model, Mrs. Dalloway's Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, free admission, 7:00 (510/704-8222, www.mrsdalloways.com)

17 JULY 2025 — thursday

  • Poetry Night Reading Series presents Dane Cervine, Nine Volt Nirvana, and Adela Najarro, with host Dr. Andy Jones, air-conditioned venue, John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street, Davis, 7:00 (www.poetryindavis.com)
  • Poets Molly Fisk and Kim Shuck present poems from varied perspectives about wildfire, flooding and related catastrophes in California from the California Fire & Water anthology; they will be joined by six other contributors to the anthology, Gene Berson, Heather Bourbeau, Aileen Cassinetto, Susan Cohen, Alison Luterman, and Maw Shein Win, California Fire & Water anthology, San Francisco Main Public Library, Latino/Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, free, 6:00 (415/557-4400, on.sfpl.org/07-17-25)
  • Miranda S. Spivack reads from her new book, Backroom Deals in Our Backyards, a groundbreaking look at how ordinary people are fighting back against local governments to keep their communities safe, joined in conversation by Victoria Baranetsky, Mrs. Dalloway's Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, free admission, 7:00 (510/704-8222, www.mrsdalloways.com)

18 JULY 2025 — friday

19 JULY 2025 — saturday

20 JULY 2025 — sunday

  • Roberto Tejada, Why the Assembly Disbanded, celebrates the release of his new poetry collection, Carbonate of Copper: Poems, with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Forrest Gander, Mojave Ghost, limited seating, Kerouac Alley, between City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio Cafe, 257 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 1:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/forrest-gander-with-roberto-tejada)
  • Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading featuring Rachel Richardson, Smother, and Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Mothersalt, 2727 California Street, a Cooperative Art Gallery, Berkeley, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).

21 JULY 2025 — monday

22 JULY 2025 — tuesday

23 JULY 2025 — wednesday

  • Bridget A. Lyons reads from and presents her new book, Entwined: Dispatches from the Intersection of Species, joined in conversation by Leigh Marz, Mrs. Dalloway's Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, free admission, 7:00 (510/704-8222, www.mrsdalloways.com)

24 JULY 2025 — thursday

25 JULY 2025 — friday

26 JULY 2025 — saturday

  • Fourth Saturdays: Poetry at the Claremont Library presents Karen Greenbaum-Maya and Diosa Xochiquetzalcóatl, 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)
  • Sacramento Poetry Alliance presents the VOICES reading with Cold River Press, 1169 Perkins Way, Sacramento, refreshments, 4:00 (see Sacramento Poetry Alliance on Facebook)
  • Marin Poetry Center Traveling Show presents a poetry reading by Judy Wells, Dale Jensen, Carol Dorf, LeeAnn Pickrell, and Judy Bertelsen, with host Kathryn Jordan, North Branch of the Berkeley Public Library,1170 The Alameda (at Hopkins), Berkeley, free, 2:00 (marinpoetrycenter.org/mec-events-category/traveling-show)

27 JULY 2025 — sunday

28 JULY 2025 — monday

29 JULY 2025 — tuesday

30 JULY 2025 — wednesday

31 JULY 2025 — thursday

  • "The Jingwei Bird" is a program that explores the complexity of climate change and our relationship to the planet through multi-disciplinary performances with Del Sol Quartet and San Francisco poet laureate Genny Lim, weaving newly composed music by Asian-American composers with powerful bilingual poetry, using storytelling and mythology to deepen our understanding and awareness of the environment, San Francisco Main Public Library, Latino/Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, free, 6:00 (415/557-4400, on.sfpl.org/07-31-25)

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