Stockmal Reading

GREGORY STOCKMAL READING

The Gregory Stockmal Reading was established in 2009 by the Worcester County Poetry Association in cooperation with Carol Stockmal. The purpose of the reading is to continue the efforts of Greg Stockmal to honor American poet Stanley Kunitz and his legacy in Worcester. The reading is an important part of this legacy, recognizing Stanley Kunitz as teacher and leader of his self-described “tribe” of poets, friends, and family by sponsoring Worcester-area readings by poets for whom Stanley Kunitz has been an inspiration.

Each year the Worcester County Poetry Association partners with a local college or university to present a poet who had a connection to poet Stanley Kunitz. Kunitz (1905-2006) was born in Worcester and went on to receive many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Medal of Arts, and was to become Poet Laureate of the United States (1974, 2000).

Where: RAZZO HALL, TRAINA CENTER, CLARK UNIVERSITY (92 DOWNING ST.)

When:  THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 26 7:30-9:30 PM

Mary Bonina was finalist for the Goldfarb Fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) which has since awarded her several residencies, including one at the VCCA retreat, Moulin a Nef, in Auvillar, France. Publications include My Father’s Eyes: a Memoir and the poetry collections—Living Proof, Clear Eye Tea, and the newly-released collection Lunch in Chinatown, all from Červená Barva Press, which will also publish her novel, My Way Home, in 2025. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Lowell Review, Poets and Writers, Lily Poetry Review, Salamander, Mom Egg, Ovunque Siamo, Adelaide, and many other journals, and her work has been included in several anthologies, including Voices of the City from the Rutgers University Center for Ethnicity, Culture, and Modern Experience, with Hanging Loose Press. Bonina’s poem, “Drift,” won the Boston Contemporary Authors Prize and is engraved on a granite monolith, a permanent public art installation outside a busy subway station. Her collaborations with composers of art songs and new music premiered at Longy School of Music of Bard College and elsewhere, and for the exhibition “Breath and Matter” at Boston Sculptors Gallery, twenty-four collaborations between poets and sculptors, her poetry was featured with B Amore’s sculpture. She earned her M.F.A. in the Program for Writers, Warren Wilson College. Her website is www.marybonina.com

Sorcery

On this island hummingbirds drink

from blue banana flowers, and orchids

in the cloud forest attach themselves

to every tree, making you fall for them,

leading to confusion and forgetting

who you are you begin to think:

am I a flower, a bird,

or maybe I’m a tree?

On this island you will find

The Valley of Desolation and also

the sometimes dried up Boiling Lake.

You will hear, too, the dove,

its awful sad cry, because

in the rainforest, even the sadness

of a dove has more muscle.

And the pigeon with a red neck coos,

comforting the trembler,

and the pearly-eyed thrasher.

MARY BONINA

From Clear Eye Tea: Poems, copyright 2010 by Mary Bonina. Used with permission of Cervena Barva Press. Artwork by Donna Pomponio.