Georgette Howington Poetry Feature + Open Mic

Georgette Howington is a closet poet and short story writer who came out three years ago.  Her poems are published in Iodine, Sleet and Poeming Pigeons, among others.  Several poems won Honorable Mentions at the North American Women’s Music Festival and Ina Coolbrith Poetry Contest in 2016.  As a naturalist and horticulturist, her niche is Backyard Habitat and secondary-cavity nesters.  She is a County Coordinator and Assistant State Program Director for the California Bluebird Recovery Program and an activist in the conservation community in the SF Bay Area for over 30 years.  Georgette is also a published garden and environmental writer. 

If a Homing Pigeon Were My Lover

Fluffed and preened on the shelf

I could not help but notice

your bobbing head and piercing eyes

twisting and turning to see if I was

looking at you the way you looked at

me in that wanting way as if my

human form was a pigeon too.

How unlike me it would be to take

off into the sky, fly across the expanse

in circles feeling the wind, gliding on

our wings, not arguing about who did

not fold the laundry, or if I am too tired

to have sex tonight or being pressed

to spend time with family I don’t like

and living from moment to moment

dining on seed offerings from the keeper

moving aside to let him do all the

cleaning and arranging of our coop

while all you and I do is fly, eat, and

think about making baby pigeons…

**** Published in Poeming Pigeons, “Poems about Birds”, 2015

 7 PM to 9pm Mondays (except some Holidays)

HIMALAYAN FLAVORS Restaurant 1585 University Ave. in Berkeley, 

(near the corner of California) Off-street parking available in parking lot adjacent to the restaurant. 

Hosts: Jim Barnard, Jan Dedrick, Nance Wogan,  Bruce Bagnell, Jeannette DeBoine (J.D.) 

Poetry Express is 15 years old this year. Thanks to all who have featured, attended, read during open mic, and contributed to our long run supporting poetry and poets. 

Notice:

Poetry Express regulars with coming features at other venues: Let us know during our meetings or email PoetryExpress@gmail.com (or tell Bruce at a PE session) and we will list them.  Thanks. 

Coming up at P.E.: 

In-depth and longer listings at http://poetryexpressberkeley.com includes pictures and sample poems. For post corrections, etc. please email Bruce at bagnell.bruce.a@gmail.com   or contact@poetryexpressberkeley.com

Get our Tweets: @ PoetryXpressB

The short list below:  BLANK SPACES DO NOT MEAN NO FEATURE, often we have outstanding invitations and are waiting for confirmation.

8/28/2017 Georgette Howington hosted by J.D

9/4/2017 BPAC Picnic http://www.bayareapoetscoalition.org/

9/11/2017 Tureeda Mikell hosted by Jim

9/18/2017 Lenore Weiss hosted by Bruce (Need a prompt? Use some English words that are not common anymore, examples "jargogles," "apricity, "monsterful," or look up some of your own -- you don't have to use those words.)

9/25/2017 Dave Holt hosted by J.D (Need a prompt? "Skin" -- you don't have to use that word.)

10/2/2017 hosted by Jan

10/09/2017 hosted by Jim

10/16/2017 Alan Harris hosted by Bruce (Need a prompt? "Man handle " -- you don't have to use those words.)

10/23/2017 Melinda Clemmons hosted by J.D (Need a prompt? "fish cry" -- you don't have to use those words. Comes from Thoreau -- "Who hears the fishes when they cry")

10/30/2017  Maverick Night hosted by Bruce, subject TBA

11/6/2017  Charlie McCauley hosted by Jan

11/13/2017 hosted by Jim

11/20/2017 Phyllis Meshulam, hosted by Bruce

11/27/2017 Elizabeth Alford hosted by J.D. (Need a prompt? "Key" -- you don't have to use that word.)

12/4/2017 Clark Kent hosted by Jan Need a Prompt?  “Superman,” or “Comics.”  you don’t have to use those exact words.

12/11/2017 hosted by Jim

12/18/2017 hosted by Bruce

12/25/2017 NO PE H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S hosted by Upta Yu

01/01/2018 NO PE H A P P Y    H O L I D A Y S hosted by Upta Yu

01/08/2018 hosted by Jim

01/15/2018 Fred Dodsworth hosted by Bruce

01/22/2018 hosted by JD

01/29/2018 hosted by Jan

03/19/2018 Naomi Quinonez hosted by Bruce

04/16/18 Michael Hoerman hosted by Bruce

!

PLEASE NOTE that blanks in the schedule are not necessarily open and available, often we have pending invitations waiting for confirmation for these dates.

NOTE: FOR MUCH MORE EXTENSIVE LISTINGS AND INFO USE OUR BLOG http://poetryexpressberkeley.blogspot.com/

  http://www.poetryexpressed.com/ for our on-line Magazine, published annually, Vol 2, Spring 2017 is out now.  The magazine features selected works from our sessions plus submissions from outside.

Poetry Express Announces Maverick nights, Poetry Contest, and Prompts.

Poetry Express is proud to feature a variety of poets on the first four Mondays of each month. See our PoetryExpressBerkely.blogspot.com site for the coming line-up, information, and more. All nights include open mic before and after the features. You can also find us on Facebook as Poetry Express Berkeley, and https://twitter.com/PoetryXpressB. If you wish to be on our email list please provide your email to one of our hosts or email us at poetryexpress@gmail.com

·         On the 5th Mondays of each month which has a 5th, we will have Maverick Night.  There are 4 such nights a year and each will have a special focus to make it interesting.

Poems read all sessions may be selected for publication in our poetry on-line magazine.

For more information on selection talk to the hosts. 

At yearly intervals Poetry Express will publish our on-line magazine. http://www.poetryexpressed.com/

We will also select an occasional submission from the larger universe.  We the poetryexpressed.com website About page for details.

Poetry Express gives permission to other poetry lists to share this 
announcement with their list members. Thank you for helping spread 
the word about us!