Here’s the July 27th, 2019 Featured Reading by Bethanie Humphreys and Heather Judy, Rene Marie and Jeanine Stevens

Bethanie Humphreys Heather Judy

Renee Marie Jeanine Stevens

Here are the Open Mic’ers from July 27th, 2019 Writers On the Air.

Aeisha, Carol Lynn, Gena, Jennifer, Laura, Lynette, Mike, Shannon, Susan, Tj, Tom, Todd, Vicki

Part 1 Aeisha carol lynn gena Jennifer laura lynette

Part 2 mike Shannon susan tj tom todd vicki

Bio: For more information about our July Featured Readers , Read below.

Bethanie Humphreys is a writer, editor, and mixed-media visual artist. Her poetry, short fiction, and art have appeared in various publications in the U.S. and U.K. including: Artemis, Nonbinary Review, The Found Poetry Review, American River Review, and Sacramento Voices.   She serves as board member for the Sacramento Poetry Center and co-curator for the SPC Art Gallery. She was Editor-in-Chief of the 2015 American River Review, and is currently Associate Editor for Tule Review.

She is a Squaw Valley Community of Writers Poetry Workshop Alumni, has a Bachelors in Spanish from CSU, Sacramento, and a Creative Writing Certificate in Literary Publishing from American River College. She is also a California Certified Naturalist, and certified in the Amherst Writer’s and Artists Method.

Her chapbook, Dendrochronology, was published by Finishing Line Press in June, 2019, and is available for $14.99.

Bethanie’s Sample Poem:

I think I dreamed we were birds

Yardstick ruler strapped

across our shoulders

feathers dyed jewel-tones

taped in streamer-fashion

along measurements

that no longer matter

Bio:

Heather Judy is a poet and artist living in Sacramento. She earned her MFA in Poetry from Mills College in 2009. Before attending Mills, she received her BA in English from CSU, Sacramento where she won the 2005 Bazzanella Award for first place in poetry. Her poems have appeared in Tule Review, The California Quarterly, Flatmancrooked’s Thin Volume of Contemporary Poetry, and others. She is a Sacramento Poetry Center board member, an Associate Editor and Art Director for Tule Review, and co-curates for the Sacramento Poetry Center Art Gallery. Her chapbook, Inosculation, was a semi-finalist for the CutBank Chapbook Contest in 2018.

Heather’s Sample Poem:

PUEDO BAILAR

They danced in the street, bare breastbones, crouching,

aprons nestled low. She held her lover, wing

lifted, right arm round lover’s waist, palm resting in

her smallness. They danced in blood, a banner hung

behind them: Puedo bailar. Black hightops sung

against dove stone, sandals treading hymns. Young

heads bowed, eyes, closed, brows together, no sin

between them. Nectar drips and shifts, bodies glint.

They dance in sheets, bare breasts, bones clinging,

open, nestled low, lovers folding into wings.

Bio:

Jeanine Stevens is the author of Limberlost and Inheritor (Future Cycle Press) and Sailing on Milkweed (Cherry Grove Collections). Her latest chapbook, Citadels, was published by Folded Word Press, 2019. Winner of the MacGuffin Poet Hunt, The Ekphrasis Prize, Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference, and WOMR Cape Cod Community Radio National Poetry Award. Jeanine studied poetry at U.C. Davis and California State University, Sacramento. Poems have been published in Evansville Review, Forge, Chiron Review, Pearl, Stoneboat, Connecticut River Review, Verse Wisconsin, The Curator and North Dakota Quarterly. She also enjoys Romanian folk dance and working with collage. Jeanine is Professor Emeritus at American River College having taughtAnthropology, Psychology and Women’s Studies for thirty two years.

Jeanine’s Sample Poem:

New Delhi

She is the brick wall that defines her,

the thin arms under the sari.

She is the madras pattern

of marigold orange and olive green.

She is the littered ground,

the ground scattered with bricks and refuse.

One brick is her table. She entertains

simply. There are no spoons,

only hands to mix grains and river water.

The street is her open window,

her furniture, the battered chair tipped

on its side, a cupboard of sorts for bent pans.

She is the smoke stained wall

and crouches under a large sign

in English, “Choice Shampoo.”

She is the big toe that grips the ground.

Nearby, are bits of denim,

foreign labels, and one bright, upright yellow pear.

Back straight, she does not slouch,

looks directly at the camera in a half smile.

She is the pierced diamond

carried in the side of her nose

and the red spice she holds to mix

with her evening meal. She is

the memory of golden flocks on hilly flanks,

the darkness of things being burnt,

surrounded by things already burnt.

Her only book, a book of matches,

her tablet: the wall, her pen: bits of charcoal.

She doesn’t worry if her seeds

are not planted by the spring equinox.

            ~after a photograph, National Geographic

Bethanie will have copies of her new book-Dendrochronology

Members of Writers On the Air Meetup are encouraged to RSVP (Yes or No).
Please go to writersontheair.com for more information.
Recordings made during the open mic are played on accesssacramento.org/KUBU 96.5 LP-FM radio on Mondays, 7am-8am.
The Writers On the Air Show podcast can be heard at Itunes/IConnect Podcast, either at the website or as a subscriber.