The 2025 Calling All Poets Featured Readers schedule is complete. Please remember we are ZOOM ONLY and to make a donation toour TipJar:  $5.00 non members   $3.00 members/seniors

CAPS First Friday 2025  

January 3: Roger Aplon, Andrea Deeken, Bob Heman

February 7: Pratibha Castle, Linda McCauley Freeman, Harvey Soss

March 7: Joann Deui, Thomas Festa, Julian Matthews

April 4: Janet Kaplan, Ethan Sirotko, Victoria Redel

May 2: Jared Harel, Nancy Shih-Knodel, Kathy Weld

June 6: Holly Iglesias, Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram, Arthur Russell

No July reading

August 1: Doug Anderson, Suzanne Rancourt, Raphael Kosek

Sept 5: Patricia Carragon, Cornelius Eady & students

Oct 3: David Hutcheson, Will Nixon, Hannah Webster

Nov 7: Ken Holland, Guy Reed, Margaret R. Sáraco

Dec 5: Greg Correll, Maria Lisella, Perry Nicholas

CAPS Third Thursday Be The Feature 2025

January 16: LJ Sysko

February 20: Salaam Green

March 20: Mike Jurkovic

April 17: Beth SK Morris

May 15: Jim Zimmerman

June 19: Lisa St. John

July 17:Tana Miller, Mary K. O'Melveny, Jan Zlotnik Schmidt

August 21: Brian J Liston

September 18: Matthew Layne

October 16: Betty MacDonald

November 20: Eddie Bell

December 18: Peter Crowley

Before the year turns over, it would be neglectful of us here at CAPS HQ to not send out a special SHOUT OUT to our new and returning CAPS members. Many thanks for your continued support to Dan Wilcox, Raphael Kosek, Mary Louise Kiernan, Lisa St. John, Stephen Roberts, John Levy, William Van Ornum, Lynda Wisdo, Linda   McCauley  Freeman and to two folks who have donated to the CAPS ongoing mission especially Irene O'Garden and John Martucci. CAPS is because you are! Happy New Year everyone.

The spirit of freedom, diversity, democracy, has been woven through the fabric of Calling All Poets for decades, embedded in our mission and our purpose.

With great pride, Calling All Poets announces our unwavering support for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to lead us into the future as our next executive leaders.

                        We Won't Go Back. We Can't Go Back.

For our fellow NY poets, we urge you to vote Yes for Proposition 1 to enshrine in the state constitution abortion rights and equality for all under the law. 

It's been a while since we last chatted to let you all know that the CAPS 25th Anniversary Anthology was complete and on it merry way and . . . well . . . it is here and it is beautiful with over 120 poems and an In Memorium section to remember those many grand voices who have gone on before us.

All contributors should have your copies (as promised) or should be receiving them any day now There was tad of a hold up but we're over that now the 25th year is half over. Contributors who desire more copies for friends, family, pets, and what not can purchase them at our publisher price + postage. For everyone else, the special anthology is $20 + postage ($4)

Speaking of purchasing, our other three anthologies -- Mightier (curated by Poet Gold), CAPS 2020 (curated by Roger Aplon) and CAPS 2015 (curated by Marina Mati) -- can be purchased individually for $14.99 each + postage or purchase a three pack for a summer special of $35 (plus that nagging postage of course). Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for all the particulars.

Other news: CAPS will once again participate in the NYC Poetry Fest on Governor's Island on Saturday,July 13 at The Black Bird Stage at 4pm. Our featured poets will be our own Ken Holland, NYC poetry legend Ron Kolm, and the world travelling emcee of Cultivating Voices and our 2nd Place Anthology Winner, Sandy Yannone.

And finally, due to a number of unforeseen realities, our First Friday readings from August 2 forward will be ZOOM only. We hope to return to in-person performance at Unison Arts Center sooner than later, but for the foreseeable future, ZOOM is ZOOM is ZOOM. First Friday and Third Thursday. ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM.

With that said, we're hoping to make the CAPS webiste more active with member salons, conversations, etc. If you're a CAPS member (and why o why wouldn't you be?) please use the site to best spread the word about your readings, books, and other media.

That about wraps it up. . . Happy Summer everyone. See you online!

Susan Chute (Invasion of the Body Ukraine), Sandy Yannone (The Glass Studio), and Tim Brennan (Notes From a Terrestrial) are the First, Second, and Third Place winners of CAPS 25th Anniversary Anthology Poetry Competition.  Dollar prizes of $100, $50, and $25 will be awarded to Susan, Sandy, and Tim when they feature for us on First Friday, March 1st at our new home at Unison Arts Center, 9 Paradies Lane in New Paltz. 

The inaugural event (it will be the first live event at the new Unison) will be an in person/Zoom hybrid experience so please join us anyway you can. Physical & Virtual doors will open at 6:30 pm and the readings will start at 7:00pm (or as close as poets standard time allows) As is twenty five years of tradition, a two poem open mic will follow our prize winning features. Refreshments as always will be available. $5.00 donation appreciated. $3.00 for students/seniors/CAPS & Unison Members.

We would be utterly remiss at this time not to recognize our finalists who span the poetic spectrum and the planet. They are, in alphabetical order:

Alan Caitlan, Half Awake and Dreaming;  Ruth Danon, Grief;  John Dorsey, Sleeping Tips for the Partially Blind

Gina R.Evers, Coronavirus (after reading Natalie Diaz's The Facts of Art);  Meghan Grupposo, Plume

Matthew Hupert, Philaster, Keats, & the way of Bushido;  Bonnie Law, On Days Like This;  Heller Levinson, Friday the 13th

Mary Makofske, Drive;  Tim Tomlinson,The History of Jazz;  George Wallace, The Next Time I Fall In Love;

Glenn Werner, 25 Wide Pantoum

Thank you all!!!!! See you on  March 1st

Happy New Year everyone! As 2024 begins its electoral trundle, March 2024 marks TWENTY-FIVE YEARS of Calling All Poets! Man, who would ever have thought that?!

Anyway the anthology is moving along as planned and announcements will go out this month. I have no idea who the contest winners are nor who or what was excepted but hang tight. We'll all find out soon.

We recently found out that First Friday in March, or March 1st, will be our inauguration at the new Unison Arts Center at 9 Paradies Lane, New Paltz. As promised the features will be our three anthology contest winners. We will be in person and also Zooming so there's a whole lot going on. There is a CAPS conversation with Ulster County Poet Laureate Kate Hymes slated for March 23 at Unison. We're planning an Anthology Marathon for sometime in March plus a special livestream from Green Kill Gallery.

I'd also like to take a moment and thank the folks who join us regularly via Zoom from pretty much every state in the union as well as the Virgin Islands, New Zealand, Canada, France, England, and Ireland. And imagine, we were a little open mic in Beacon at one time.

So thank you one and all!

Join yours truly Thursday, July 13 at 7pm for Green Kill Gallery presents Calling All Poets Livetsream featuring Rebecca Schumejda, John Dorsey, and CAPS founder Jim Eve. There will be a live in person open mic for all who come by and want to share their truths. . . here's the ticket link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/calling-all-poets-caps-july-13-7-pm-green-kill-sessions-tickets-668544784447?aff=oddtdtcreator 

As I announced last month at our new home at Unison Arts Center in New Paltz, CAPS will be publishing a 25th Anniversary Anthology in March of 2024.

Can you believe it? 25 years! You have all been an integral part of our continued success at building a community from Beacon to New Paltz, Albany to NYC, and, thanks to Zoom, a global presence. On any given day of our three monthly events (First Friday, Second Thursday Livestream, Third Thursday Be The Feature) fellow poets are logging in from any of the fifty states, six European countries and Australia. How freakin cool is that?!

So you will all be invited to submit. Ww are in the process of establishing a Submittable account. Submissions of 3 poems will begin to be accepted from July 1 - October 31, 2023.  There will be three contest winners: Best Poem: $100, Second Place: $50 and Third Place: $25. All three winning poets will feature in March, 2024. We are also planning an anthology marathon in March also.

To help offset costs, there will be a reading fee: $5.00 for CAPS Members (so sign up or renew while you can) and $7.00 for non members. All contributors will receive a complimentary copy of the Anthology and the contest winners and contributors will be notified no later than January 2024. All submissions will be read blind and chosen by the CAPS Editorial Board.

So there you have it. Get your pens and pencils ready. All this info will also be posted on our FB page at: https://www.facebook.com/callingallpoetsseries

As we have since August 2021, Green Kill Sessions presents Calling All Poets every second Thursday of the Month.

On Thursday, March 9, the livestream will feature Timothy Brennan, Greg Correll, and  Phillip X Levine reading from new and selected works. An in-person open mic (audience limit - 30) will follow the featured livestream.

Just follow the link to follow us:

https://greenkill.substack.com/p/calling-all-poets-caps-march-9-7?sd=pf

As our 24th year gets started, CAPS returns to in-person performance on First Friday, April 7th, at 7pm.  Yessir, for the first time in three long years we return to the live stage at the new Unison location at 9 Paradies Lane, New Paltz, NY.

Our featured poets that night will be Raphael Kosek, Alison Koffler Wise, & Day Koffler Wise. Open mic remains 2 poems, five minutes. All that's changed is we will integrate the Zoom experience so that all the folks who have joined us throughout the states and the world at large can continue to do so. The open mic will include Zoom readers so please register on the home page and join us!

Zoom Event, March 12, 10am-12pm EST 

Calling All Poets is proud to host the third in a series of March 2022 POETS BUILDING BRIDGES ZOOM EVENT, a triangulation project for World Poetry Day that brings together artists from three different regions on the world for a few hours of sharing. The event, set for Saturday Mar 12 10am-12pm EST, will be MC'd by series host George Wallace, writer in residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace and director of Poetrybay Productions.

Participants will include

from LOWER RIO GRANDE VALLEY: Octavio Quintanilla Edward Vidaurre ire'ne lara silva; musician Ray Perez 

from KOREA: Hack Hee Kang Park Dukkyu Hanyong Jeong; musician Young Ok Hwang f

from NYC: Mike Jurkovic Kofi Forson Marc Ellot Stein; musician Alan Semerdjian 

comperes Octavio Quintanilla, Tanya Ko Hong fb livestream by Calling All Poets 

Two months into the new year and we have 3 new books from CAPS members to tell you about. The first, Wild Man of The Mountain from Anthony Howarth available through the CAPS Store and Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Man-Mountain-Drama-Verse/dp/1937968944/

Larry Carr's Paradise Loft is the first ever joint venture for CAPS Press with Larry's lightwoodpress and is available also through the CAPS store and Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Loft-poems-Laurence-Carr/dp/1735441023/

mooncussers, the follow-up to Mike Jurkovic's AmericanMental, is also available through the CAPS store, Bookshop.org at https://bookshop.org/books/mooncussers-9781952411861/9781952411861 and Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Mooncussers-Mike-Jurkovic/dp/1952411866/

Friday, January 7 7pm Zoom Only: Leslie Gerber, Prince A. MacNally, & Jules Nyquist. Register for Zoom link above.

Thursday, January 13 7pm: Green Kill Sessions presents Calling All Poets livestreamL  Features Celia Bland, Greg Correll, and Amanda Russell. Eventbrite link: https://greenkill.substack.com/p/calling-all-poets-caps-january-13?r=561li&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Thursday, January 20, 7pm Zoom Only. Be The Feature Extended Open Mic. Feature poet: Gregory SETH Harris. Extended open mic. Register for Zoom link above.

As perverse and unpoetic as it sounds, the last twelve to fifteen months has been good for CAPS. We've managed to strengthen our ties with those of you who have been with us for any stretch of the last two plus decades and through the wacky, wild west world of ZOOM we've become the international enclave we wildly once dreamed of.

Imagine featured poets and open mic'ers from France, Nepal, Australia, Brooklyn, the UK, Ireland, Costa Rica, Canada, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and other far flung global points reading with and alongside all of us here in the Hudson Valley, Albany, and NYC. No language barriers, just poetry! Give yourselves a well deserved standing O. Fuckin' eh!

CAPS Press lives! Besides the publication of our anthologies, CAPS 2015, CAPS 2020, and Mightier - Poets for Social Justice, we are days away from the publication of Larry Carr's enigmatic, full length, Paradise Loft. Pretty cool. (And thanks Larry for trusting us with your words)Now add that to the burbling idea that we're thinking of starting CAPS Chapbook Series and you begin to see just how far we've come from those days in Beacon. . .

We've expanded our traditional First Friday feature event from two poets to three to broaden the range and scope of the myriad voices we've encountered through ZOOM. We've added one featured poet to our Third Thursday Be The Feature Zoom events, while still leaving space for an expanded open mic and salon style give and take. Thanks to David Schell at Green Kill Gallery in Kingston, we've been live-streaming poetic events every Second Thursday for over a year now and will continue to do so, virus or no virus. Our membership has grown and as we begin 2022, these three events will continue on their set days, starting at 7pm. Plans are also in the works for a JazzOetry event in April and a Zoom Marathon in the spring. We hope to go live again come spring but we'll keep the live/Zoom hybrid. We know it works. Stay tuned. Join the email list. Check Facebook. Become a supporting member!

But perhaps the biggest news is we're beginning to plan a Calling All Poets online archive.Thirty plus years of Hudson Valley poetry ranging through 9/11, the '08 bust, the Arab Spring,Clinton, Bush, Obama, it who will not be named, COvid and Biden. Voices of protest, loss, victory, community. Voices of those we've lost - Don Lev, Pauline Uchmanowicz, Lynn Hoins - new voices, familiar voices. Audio, video, photos. . .the whole enchilada as they say. If you can help us find funding for this endeavor, please contact us. Any help is a  great help.

The CAPS community thrives worldwide because of your words and fearlessness to have them heard against the breaking waves of alternate facts, disinformation, and flat out n out lies. I've always said CAPS has kept me honest. Let me just say that Jim, Greg, and I thank you most heartedly for yours. 

Though we'll certainly miss New Paltz and Roost Studios, CAPS goes live at our new location at the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory, 8 N. Cherry Street, Poughkeepsie, NY on Friday, September 3rd. Our features that night will be Roger Aplon, Greg Correll & Ronald P. Brenmer. We will continue with a hybrid of Live, in person features and open mic participants as well as Zoom participants, who now range from the Hudson Valley to Brooklyn to Florida to Europe and Easter Europe. So please register for the Zoom here on the home page. PUF is easily accessible coming to and leaving via the 44/55 Arterial and is adjacent to the Poughkeepsie Police Department. Plenty of parking. Join us as we get back to in person readings! 

Ken Holland, Stephanie JT Russell and yours truly will be the features for the next installment of Green Kill Sessions presents. We will also be allowing 20 living, breathing human folk into the gallery as an audience.  Please click the link to choose one of two options: to receive the livestream link or to reserve seating and receive the livestream link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/calling-all-poets-caps-august-12-7-pm-live-streamlive-audience-tickets-164866533239

Please join us Thursday, July 8th at 7pm for another installment of Green Kill Sessions presents Calling All Poets. Our featured poets are special guest SF poet/activist Karla Brundage alongside Alison Koffler-Wise and Dayl Wise. Here's the link:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/calling-all-poets-caps-july-8-7-pm-live-stream-tickets-161343880891

Just in case you missed it, here is the YouTube link to our last Green Kill Sessions Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvX58cEpm7g 

Jim, Greg and I would like to give another shout out to our newest members and generous contributors.  From Florida we welcome to the CAPS community Deborah DeNicola whose work has been published in such journals as The North American Review, The Antioch Review, Crab Orchard Review, Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, and many more. Most generous membership contributions from Margi Condyles from Mahopac and singer/songwriter, poet and longtime CAPS member/supporter John Martucci, Daniel Brown, Steve Otlowski, as well other long time friends of CAPS, Jan Z. Schmidt, recently retired Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at SUNY New Paltz and former Dutchess County Poet Laureate Raphael Kosek. CAPS continues anew ! Thank you all for continuing with us.

We would like to take a moment to send a special shout out and welcome our newest CAPS members: Phil Linz from Wilmington, DE, Penny Brodie, Paul Clemente, David Capellaro, and James Seegert from here in the Hudson Valley. Membership donations helps maintain CAPS online and in our new physical space, (TBA soon), helps us further establish CAPS Press (three anthologies and two ekphrastic catalogs), and keeps future JazzOetry events on the front burner. Member donations will also go to fund The Calling All Poets Archive Project, our latest attempt to categorize and digitize 30 years of Hudson Valley Poetry! Huzzah to all new members. Please consider a membership today!