Award winning Author Howard Schwartz Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts, Monday, June 30

Howard Schwartz will be one of three featured readers at at •chance operations• at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, June 30.

Jerred Metz and Michael Castro will be the other featured readers.

Musical guests will be Tracey Andreotti and Henri Claude with a special appearance by David Parker.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is FREE.

Howard Schwartz is the author of five books of poems, Library of Dreams, Vessels, Gathering the Sparks, Sleepwalking Beneath the Stars, and Breathing in the Dark. He is also the co-editor (with Anthony Rudolf) of Voices Within the Ark: The Modern Jewish Poets. His other books include Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism, which won the National Jewish Book Award in 2005, and Leaves from the Garden of Eden: One Hundred Classic Jewish Tales, published in 2008. He is a professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Swimming to Jerusalem

The first time
I went on a quest
for forbidden fruit.

The second time
I built an ark
and tried to get there by sea.

The third time
I came in search of my ancestor,
Abraham.

If the sun was hidden
I let the stars
guide me.

If the tablets were broken
I carved
new ones.

In the future
my bones
will roll to that city.

Last night
I dreamed
I was swimming there.

-- Howard Schwartz

Jerred Metz Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts, Monday, June 30

Jerred Metz will be one of three featured readers at at •chance operations• at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, June 30.

Howard Schwartz and Michael Castro will be the other featured readers.

Musical guests will be Tracey Andreotti and Henri Claude with a special appearance by David Parker.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is FREE.

Jerred grew up in Freehold, New Jersey. He went to the University of Rhode Island, receiving Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English, and the University of Minnesota, earning a Doctorate in literature. He taught at these institutions, then at Webster College in St. Louis. In 1977 he became the Deputy Director of the Department of Human Services, St. Louis, Missouri. To support his wife’s career, the family moved to Pittsburgh, then Columbia, South Carolina. Having passed through several careers, he is teaching writing again at Strayer University in Columbia, South Carolina.

Beginning in 1974, five of his poetry books were published. Then followed three books of prose, Drinking the Dipper Dry: Nine Plain-Spoken Lives (1981 K.M. Gentile Publishing), Halley’s Comet, 1019: Fire in the Sky (Singing Bone Press, 1984), and The Last Eleven Days of Earl Durand (High Plains Press, 2005.) In March 2014, his book of poems, Brains, 25 Cents: Drive In—Selected and New Poems, will be published by Aldrich Press.

Below Lafayette Ridge

Blanketed against the cold, we sat beside the river
watching the moon rise over the mountain’s spine.
Quickly the earth turned showing first a
faint gleam, then light, then moon
full in October free above the ridge.
From the cold river you offered water
to the moon’s parched oceans.
The moon broke into shimmering
points and slivers in the pool of your hands.

-- Jerred Metz

Warrior Poet Michael Castro Featured Reader at Tavern of Fine Arts, Monday, June 30

Michael Castro will be one of three featured readers at at •chance operations• at Tavern of Fine Arts, 313 Belt Avenue, on Monday, June 30.

Howard Schwartz and Jerred Metz will be the other featured readers.

Musical guests will be Tracey Andreotti and Henri Claude with a special appearance by David Parker.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is FREE.

Michael Castro has been called “a legend in St. Louis poetry.” Long active as a poet and arts activist, he co-founded the pioneering multi-cultural literary organization and magazine River Styx, in operation since 1975; and for fifteen years he hosted the radio program, Poetry Beat. Castro has given poetry readings on three continents, and has collaborated in performance work with a wide range of musical assemblages over the last three decades, recording four albums. He has published six poetry collections, including his most recent, The Bush Years; two books of modern Hungarian poetry he co-translated with Gabor G. Gyukics; and Interpreting the Indian, a study of Native American influences on modern poets. He is the recipient of two lifetime achievement awards, having been named Warrior Poet by Word in Motion and Guardian Angel of St. Louis Poetry by River Styx. He retired from Lindenwood University as Professor Emeritus of Communications 2012.

Bush Lied

Bush lied
to get the country
to support his war —
projected fear, “Saddam
tried to get uranium from . . .
Africa!” — uttering this word,
after a pause, like a curse —
then a pause as if to allow the silent gasp
you expected
the spooky music to start — Blair said
Saddam’s bombers could be
bringing on the nukes
in 45 minutes
& Bush chimed in, the Iraqis had drones
could reach the states —
fear drove the war,
intentionally generated fear
& foolish arrogance,
the delusion of the invaders
that the occupying army
would be met with flowers & hearts
& the keys to the oil fields

 -- Michael Castro