POETRY READINGS

POETRY READINGS

Poems performed by professional actors.

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POETRY READINGS
  • Poetry Reading: “Kaleidoscopic Portraits”, by Tierney Chapman

    https://youtu.be/SdXX45Ec4lo

    Voice Over: Val Cole

    POEM:

    Holy water smells like fresh herbs
    or maybe it was the older women in the back pews
    with the flower laced hats, and rosemary scented skin.
    Skin so thin, the stained glass saints
    stained the paper thin veins.
    I didn’t like church much as ...

  • Poetry Reading: For My Piece, by Manuel Valdez

  • Poetry Reading: You’re Pretty Strong, For a Girl, by Cathy Hollister

    Performed by Val Cole

    POEM:

    I was a scrappy little thing,
    short, no-fuss hair,
    T-shirts & jeans,
    questionable hygiene
    the term then was tom-boy
    I don’t know what they call independent, strong-willed, opinionated little girls now

    He was the neighborhood bully
    big and smug, followed by toadies
    ...

  • Poetry Reading: THE LOST THINGS, by Nicholas Fowler

    Performed by Val Cole

    POEM:

    We’ve broken things and smashed them,
    torn them to pieces,
    burned them and buried them.
    Words left unspoken,
    Love left unmade.
    You took everything that I had,
    and then you left me where I laid.

    You soaked me with your love,
    but then you hung me out to dry,
    leaving m...

  • Poetry Reading: STAGES, by Jessica Wheeler

    Performerd by Val Cole

    POEM:

    heeler
    It cowers in the corner,
    newly born.
    I turn my spite-soaked back,
    riddled with resentment
    and pull the thin veil
    to sink beneath its cover.
    I will not watch it crawl,
    but it breathes,
    a shadow
    at the edge of my own
    threatening to merge.
    It waits, as I do
    for...

  • Poetry Reading: Inside and Outside, by Huang Guosheng

    Performed by Val Cole

    POEM:

    In the far and remote village of the west of Canton Province,
    When my mother conceived me,
    I curled up inside her tummy,
    My mother bulged outside.

    After I was born, crying,
    I often slept in a cradle bearing a mosquito net.
    My mother sang baby songs ceaselessly, squ...

  • Poetry Reading: I live in America, by Leigh Hancock Ode

    Performed by Val Cole

    Poem:

    Where other countries went from laughing at us, to serious concern
    Wondering how many bridges we’ve got left to burn
    For the sake of ONE religion and ONE book
    but hey, weren’t prayers good enough for Sandy hook?

    I live in America
    The land of the free
    Unless you’re ...

  • Poetry Reading: ELECTIONS, by Saskia Griffith

    Performed by Val Cole

    The elections drama is thick in the air,
    The candidates are battling it out,
    with a war of words against each other.
    America, the greatest amongst all they say.
    Yet, they cannot get their affairs together.
    Why lecture another country about their political affairs, when they...

  • Poetry Reading: THE KISS, by Thomas Johnson

    Voice over by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    The most passionate kiss
    that I ever saw
    –and the longest!–
    happened at the wedding
    when Leonard O’Neal took a wife.
    The bride’s Swedish father,
    stern and adamantly opposed
    to the whole affair,
    though provoked,
    was restrained by awe
    at what he saw.

    The lady w...

  • Poetry Reading: not a nude beach, by Tanner McClelland

    Voice over by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    Out of its cooler,
    a bottle sweats embarrassed
    before the hot sun.

  • Poetry Reading: MY MIND IS AN ASYLUM, by Shannon Lynette

    Voice over by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    The morbid star
    That rises high above
    Awakens me from internal slumber

    I am a night serpent
    Becoming one with the shadows
    Who lurk on lonely windowpanes

    My mind is an asylum
    It was cursed the day
    The dead walked among the fire

    Ashes to ashes
    Ashes to ashes
    ...

  • Poetry Reading: INHERITANCE, by Filiz Fish

    Voice over by Val cole

    READ POEM:

    My mom likes to say she gave me her tongue—
    not the muscle
    but the ability to move worlds with it.
    She anointed me with her fury,
    her impatience,
    the power to gaze within your opponent
    and pluck their greatest insecurity
    from their chest.
    She birthed me in her...

  • Poetry Reading: IN THE HOUSE OF WILLIS, by Frank Weber

    Narrated by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    We drove for two hours
    to the badlands of Cleveland
    searching the streets and the alleys
    just to find our way
    to find a safe way
    into The House of Wills.

    We were met with armed guards
    all meant to protect us
    milling the grounds and
    defending the building and
    th...

  • Poetry Reading: I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE FINE, by Sydney Severson

    Narrated by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    Two weeks before you died-
    You were joking, laughing, and seemed alright.
    I thought you would be fine.

    We talked and joked and watched the skyline-
    From your hospital bed at half-light
    Two weeks before you died.

    As the day wound down, I saw no sign-
    And when w...

  • Poetry Reading: HONORARY ALIEN, by James Ph. Kotsybar

    Voice over by Val Cole

  • Poetry Reading: FOR SALE, by Laura Bota

    Voice over by Val Cole

    READ POEM:

    After much deliberation, Radu concluded his name was Merlin.
    Merlin was the greatest wizard of all.
    Radu had first been Houdini, the Master of Illusions,
    But all that magicians worked with was perception after all.
    Reality remained unchanged.
    A wizard, on the ...

  • Poetry Reading: BASTARD MINE, by Lakshmi Vinayan Subha

    Voice over by Val Cole

    Read POEM:

    He wasn’t adopted but made,
    Not in a womb but psyche.
    My son was a misborn,
    I never met his father.

    I was still married to my past,
    Yet I nurtured my son.
    Who feeds on my thoughts,
    Sparing nothing at all.

    While I drained every day.
    He bloomed to a manchineel...

  • Poetry Reading: A PLACE OF NO HOPE, by Sharnta Bullard

    Voice over by Val Cole

    Read Poem:

    I arrived at a destination that was far away from home.
    It was more like isolation. I felt alone!
    Drowning, watching water surround me on every side,
    called my parents every day and often cried.
    I searched for ways to escape this place,
    because with each passi...

  • Poetry Reading: WHERE I’M FROM, by Sheila Evans

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    I’m from a Southern backyard —
    Magnolia grandiflora sporting huge white blooms
    Honeysuckles spilling over the fence
    Red roses soaked with the aroma of tea
    Hollyhocks springing up yearly into flowering towers.

    I’m from a Southern backyard —
    Mud pies being made beneat...

  • Poetry Reading: This Poet is Pregnant with Loss, by Elly Katz

    https://youtu.be/uzix0NNftPU

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM: I am an immigrant, nomadic desperate for home,
    to hammer myself into existence
    out of pain in depths of yearning—
    for what it’s too immense to bookend in language,
    perhaps only indicted by silence inserting itself
    into the form,
    the only s...

  • Poetry Reading: The Complete History of Our First Kiss, by Gary Beaumier

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    The old trees bend protectively around us
    as we rest on the park bench in our winter wear
    your faltering mind following the course of the river that is close and sure and deep

    even now I can still find your younger face and remember the pillowy softness
    of your lips...

  • Poetry Reading: THE BLACK SHUTTLE IS PASSING OVERHEAD, by Lawrence Bridges

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    i. THE BLACK SHUTTLE IS PASSING OVERHEAD

    ii. The Chumash (California) referred to meteors as Alakiwohoch,
    which simply meant “shooting star.” They believed a meteor was a
    person’s soul on its way to the afterlife.

    iii. The black shuttle is passing overhead, sent ea...

  • Poetry Reading: THE ALTITUDE OF PEARS, by Lawrence Bridges

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Today is a day both rare and familiar. Tragic months before
    another comes around. This will be the past that makes the
    future proceed. Only what of the lack of true possession?
    What of the decline spotted once again in our ascent, that
    we heard in what was said in tir...

  • Poetry Reading: THE AHA Moment, by Margie B. Klein

    Narrated by Val Cole

    POEM:

    Beauty is what we’re here for.
    To utilize our sense of wonder
    To create a path of wonder for others.
    Be awake in the now and
    Find that connection to the universe
    To dig deep and discover what is in us
    That is moved by the aesthetically pleasing.
    Why is that which we ...