VeteransWrite meetings

led by Nick Butterfield, Jeffrey Leonard, and Amy Meier
First Friday of each Month, 1pm-4pm
MLK Library, contact VeteransWrite@yahoo.com if interested in attending
Admission FREE

Poetry Center San Jose is offering a monthly writing group to veterans of any age, any military experience and to family members of veterans. All levels of writing experience from beginner to experienced are welcome.

Small group setting to a maximum of 12 participants. Emphasis on poetry including prose poems. Format includes examples, prompts and guidance given by facilitators, time provided to write individually, and for participants to read to group and receive group feedback if desired. Goal is to give voice to the experiences of veterans and family members. Subject matter is unrestricted.

Nick Butterfield served for 10 years in USN-R as a Hospital Corpsman. He was activated during Operation Desert Storm, and has worked in Family Practice as a Nurse Practitioner in a FQHC Community Clinic and with the Health Care for the Homeless Project for last 17 years. Nick has been writing poetry since he was 13 years old and has participated in the Willow Glen Poetry Project and other local venues since 1996. His poems have been in 4 anthologies and 2014 issue of Ceasura with poem entitled “PTSD.”

Jeffrey Leonard served in the U.S. Army between 1966-1968. Drafted out of San Jose State, he trained as a 11C40, leaving the service as an E-5. He is a 12th generation descendant of men who have served in every major conflict dating back to pre-Revolutionary America. A survivor of the Vietnam Era, he is drawn to the stories of the returning soldiers and how their lives unfold after they remove the uniform. Writing–especially poetry–is a powerful tool that Jeffrey uses to express conflicting, mysterious, dark, and difficult thoughts and emotions. He has spent the last 30 years as an Elementary Educator.

Amy Meier was born in New York City and has lived in the San Jose, CA area for over 30 years. Amy’s poems have been published in Porter Gulch Review, Caesura, Portside, and Remembering, An Anthology of Poems Read at Willow Glen Books. She has been a featured reader at Flash Fiction Forum in San Jose, California, Stone Griffen Gallery and TEN10 Gallery in Campbell, CA. In 2015 Amy founded VeteransWrite, a writing group for veterans and their family members, currently meeting once a month on the San Jose State University campus, and performed with this group at the 2016 San Jose Poetry Festival.