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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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17 MAY 2025 — saturday

18 MAY 2025 — sunday

  • 50th Annual Mendocino County Spring Poetry Celebration, honoring Mendocino County Poets Gordon Black, Sharon Doubiago, Bill Bradd, and Dan Roberts for their poetry and contributions to the local poetry community Michael Riedell will host; all poets are invited to read their poems, time limit is four minutes each poet per session; there are two sessions, poets may sign-up to read once in each session, potluck between readings, bring a dish to share; the reading will be recorded and most of it will eventually be broadcast on Dan Roberts' Rhythm Running River show on KZYX, where the poems will be played alternating with world music and archived on www.outfarpress.com; JD Center, 208 Dana Street, Fort Bragg; free admission, First Session: sign-up at Noon, reading at 1:00 pm; Second Session: sign-up at 5:00 pm, reading 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, email: bookem@pacific.net)
  • 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).

19 MAY 2025 — monday

20 MAY 2025 — tuesday

  • Oakland Poetry Slam, monthly on the third Tuesday, Tamarack, 1501 Harrison Street, Oakland, 6:30-10:30 pm PDT (For more information, visit: tamarackoakland.com)
  • Shelby Van Pelt discussed her debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, which traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus, with novelist and short story writer Karen Joy Fowler, We are all completely beside ourselves, Kepler's Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/shelby-van-pelt)

21 MAY 2025 — wednesday

  • Ron Chernow, whose novel Alexander Hamilton was adapted into the Broadway play Hamilton, will discuss his book, Mark Twain, in conversation with Jonathan Bass, Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, $80, 7:30 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.cityarts.net/event/ron-chernow)
  • The ZYZZYVA Issue 129 Celebration and 40th Anniversary Kick-off, Issue 129 contributors reading include Katherine Franco, writer and futurist Dominica Phetteplace, fiction novelist Marian Palaia, and poet D.A. Powell, emceed by ZYZZYVA Editor Oscar Villalon, limited seating, Kerouac Alley, between City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio Cafe, 257 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/zyzzyva-issue-129-celebration-40th-anniversary-kick-off)

22 MAY 2025 — thursday

23 MAY 2025 — friday

  • The Tritone Poetry Series features poets José Vadi, Chipped: Writing From a Skateboarder's Lens, Hector Son Of Hector, and Christine No, Whatever Love Means, Tamarack, 1501 Harrison Street, Oakland, 6:00-8:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: tamarackoakland.com)

24 MAY 2025 — saturday

25 MAY 2025 — sunday

  • Michelle Tea celebrates the release of Witch: Anthology, which she edited, with readings and rituals featuring Lily Burana, Kathe Izzo, Molly Larkey, Shelley Marlow, Brooke Palmieri, Mia Tsang, and Sarah Yanni, limited seating; Secret location will be emailed to you after registration, San Francisco, 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/michelle-tea-and-friends)

26 MAY 2025 — monday

27 MAY 2025 — tuesday

  • Director, actor, essayist, playwright and screenwriter Ralph Remington reads from his book, Penetrating Whiteness: What Racism Really Is and What We Can Do About It, both onsite and online, see website for Zoom registration, City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/ralph-remington)

28 MAY 2025 — wednesday

  • Nonfiction author Sophie Lewis reads from her book, Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation, both onsite and online, see website for Zoom registration, City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/sophie-lewis)

29 MAY 2025 — thursday

  • Poetry Flash presents a book launch for Dan Alter, who will read from his new collection Hills Full of Holes; he'll be joined in the celebration by Judy Halebsky, Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged), and Maw Shein Win, Percussing the Thinking Jar, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 7:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).

30 MAY 2025 — friday

31 MAY 2025 — saturday

  • Sixteen Rivers Press presents a poetry reading with Rosa Lane, Called Back, and Camille Norton, A Folio for the Dark: Poems, Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, Berkeley, 3:00-5:00 pm PDT (sixteenrivers.org)

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