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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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14 APRIL 2026 — tuesday

15 APRIL 2026 — wednesday

16 APRIL 2026 — thursday

  • The Altadena Library hosts their first ever Adult Literacy Book Club, a limited supply of books will be available on a first-come, first serve basis, Bob Lucas Memorial Library and Literacy Center, 2659 Lincoln Avenue, Altadena, adults 19 or older, free, 10:30 am (altadenalibrary.libnet.info/event/15871101)
  • With beguiling stories and images Peter Maravelis explores the multilayered histories of legendary City Lights Bookstore; renowned for its role in the cultural and literary life of San Francisco and the nation, as both bookstore and a publisher, San Francisco Public Library, Latino/Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, free, 6:00 pm (sfpl.org/events/2026/04/16/presentation-insurgent-beatitudes-history-city-lights)

17 APRIL 2026 — friday

18 APRIL 2026 — saturday

  • Join "Last Days Poet" to share your poetry, write a poem during a poetry movement exercise, and meet other poets, Robbie Waters Library Meeting Room, 7336 Gloria Drive, Sacramento, free, 1:30 pm (Registration via email simone@lastdayspoet.com)
  • Join poet Jamie Asaye FitzGerald for a generative workshop: "World Within a Poem: From Micro to Macro and Back Again," hosted by Sehba Sarwar and Lester Graves, Bob Lucas Memorial Library and Literacy Center, 2659 Lincoln Avenue, Altadena, free, 11:00 am (altadenalibrary.libnet.info/event/16133533)
  • Walker Brents III talks on topics TBA, Bird & Beckett Books and Records, 653 Chenery Street, San Francisco, free, 7:00 pm (birdbeckett.com/events)

19 APRIL 2026 — sunday

20 APRIL 2026 — monday

21 APRIL 2026 — tuesday

  • Join local poets reading their contributions to the poetry anthology Catching Fire: The Los Angeles Wildfires, featuring Susan Auerbach, Mary Anne Berry, Teresa Mei Chuc, Spencer Griffin, Richard Modiano, Riot Renwick, Maryrose Smyth, Loma Alta Park Gymnasium, Multipurpose Room, 3330 Sunset Ridge Road, Altadena, free, 6:00 pm (Registration required at altadenalibrary.libnet.info/event/16123059)

22 APRIL 2026 — wednesday

23 APRIL 2026 — thursday

24 APRIL 2026 — friday

25 APRIL 2026 — saturday

  • Small Press Traffic presents Terrence Arjoon, Sophia Dahlin, and Ronaldo V. Wilson with introductions by Ebti, Jacob Kahn, and Kristen Nelson, event takes place at Et al., 2831 a Mission Street, San Francisco, free, doors open at 6:30 pm, reading starts at 7:00 pm (Registration required: www.smallpresstraffic.org/event/terrence-arjoon-sophia-dahlin-ronaldo-wilson)
  • In celebration of twenty years of the Altadena Libraries' Altadena Poets Laureate Program, and as the Closing Event for the After the Fire Series, the Altadena Library presents "Poetry & Cookies," a reading with an open mic, featuring writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, poets published in Altadena Poetry Review 2026, indie publishers and their poets, with art activities by the Altadena Library and Armory Center for the Arts, and the announcement of the Altadena Poets Laureate 2026–2028, hosted by Sehba Sarwar and Lester Graves Lennon, Bob Lucas Memorial Library and Literacy Center, Bob Lucas Parking Lot, Bob Lucas Reading Court, 2659 Lincoln Avenue, Altadena, adults nineteen or older, free, 3:00 pm (altadenalibrary.libnet.info/event/16132810)

26 APRIL 2026 — sunday

27 APRIL 2026 — monday

28 APRIL 2026 — tuesday

29 APRIL 2026 — wednesday

30 APRIL 2026 — thursday


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