Poetry Flash: Martha Rhodes + Bruce Willard

DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland hosts another installment of Poetry Flash on Sunday, April 9th at 3pm featuring Martha Rhodes and Bruce Willard.

Poetry Flash readings are wheelchair accessible; ASL interpreters may be requested one week in advance from editor@poetryflash.org. Visit Poetryflash.org for more events and reviews!

Martha Rhodes’s new book of poems is The Thin Wall. Susan Wheeler says, “The Thin Wall—between care and resentment, protectiveness and rage, betrayal and abandonment–marks the furious, vital poems in Martha Rhodes’s fifth collection…Martha Rhodes has long been one of our finest poets, and now she has written her best and most moving book.” Her previous collections are At the Gate, Perfect Disappearance, Mother Quiet, and The Beds. She directs the summer Conference on Poetry at the Frost Place and is the director of Four Way Books in New York City.

Photo Credit- Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Bruce Willard’s new book of poems is Violent Blues. Juan Felipe Herrera says, “Willard plays the notes in-between—the awakenings, loves and losses, the slippages between two blurred bodies of life, of sending and receiving­ that is the ‘ununderstandable,’ perhaps like Thelonius Monk’s fractured piano, the one that flames in the center of being, meaning, and enlightenment.” His earlier collection is Holding Ground. He spends his time in Maine, Colorado, and California and runs several clothing businesses.

Copies of The Thin Wall and Violent Blues will be available for purchase at the event.