Paul Clemente, Michael Jurkovic, Donald Lev, Mary Panza, Cheryl Rice to Read at Half Moon Books on Saturday, March 5

On Saturday, March 5, five local poets (Paul Clemente, Michael Jurkovic, Donald Lev, Mary Panza, Cheryl Rice) will be reading at Half Moon Books (North Front Street) in Kingston. Host Rebecca Schumejda has sent along the following info on this great reading series in the Hudson Valley:

Five Local Poets: Paul Clemente, Michael Jurkovic, Donald Lev, Mary Panza, Cheryl Rice to Read at Half Moon Books,North Front Street, Kingston, Saturday March 5^th at 6:30 pm, for info: 331-5439 or email Rebecca Schumejda at rschume@hotmail.com

Paul Clemente, a PW listed poet is a scientist with the NYSDEC. He is young enough to have missed Woodstock and old enough to remember the mothballed WW II fleet that was moored for years in the Hudson River's mountainous Haverstraw Bay. Paul is the host of Read for Food, a not-for-profit reading series which raises food and money for food pantries. He lives in the Valley with his wife and two sons. Paul’s artwork will also be showcased!

Michael Jukovic, currently co-director of Calling All Poets, co-president of the Howland Cultural Center & producer of the Voices of the Valley & the Alive and Alone at The Howland CD Series. His poems have appeared nationally & internationally in over one hundred literary magazines & four national anthologies. His first chapbook, Purgatory Road, was published by Pudding House Press in 2010 & is available at this reading.

He loves Emily most of all.

Donald Lev, born in New York City, attended Hunter College and worked in the wire rooms of the Daily News and the New York Times, drove a cab for twenty years, and operated the Home Planet Bookshop on the Lower East Side. His earliest published poems were in 1958, his first small press magazine, HYN Anthology, first appeared in 1969, the same year he appeared as the Poet in Robert Downey, Sr.’s classic film, Putney Swope. In 1979, he and his late wife, the poet Enid Dame, founded the newsprint literary review, Home Planet News, which he continues publishing. The latest collections of his poetry are The Darkness Anove: Selected Poems 1968-2002 (CRS Red Hill Outloudbooks, Claryville, NY, 2008), and a chapbook, Only Wings: 20 Poems of Devotion (Presa Press, Rockford, MI, 2010).

Mary Panza is Vice President of Albany Poets and the last of the famous international play girls.

Poet and writer Cheryl A. Rice's work has appeared in Baltimore Review, Chronogram, Florida Review, Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, Home Planet News, Hudson Valley Life, Kingston and Woodstock Times, Mangrove, Metroland, Poughkeepsie Journal, The Temple, Tri-County Woman, and in the anthologies Wildflowers, Vol. II (2002: Shivastan Publishing), Riverine (2007: Codhill Press) and For Enid, With Love (2010: NYQuarterly). Rice was the founder and host of the Sylvia Plath Bake-Off, held each year in Kingston, NY, the world's only known combination open mic/baked goods competition. She was one of many local poets featured at the first Woodstock Poetry Festival in August of 2001, and hosted an open mike during the 2002 edition. Rice attended SUNY New Paltz and the University at Albany, and has studied with the poets Joan Murray, Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Sharon Olds. She lives in the Hudson Valley.