Reading Group: Readshop *ONLINE on Zoom*

This community group is held online on Zoom.

Led by poet and Woodland Pattern co-founder Karl Gartung, Readshops are community sessions dedicated to exploring poetry texts from the 20th century that are often labeled “difficult.” Participants take turns reading the poetry aloud, discussing it as questions arise—on the spot, as deeply as needed. No preparation is needed; the only prerequisite is curiosity. 

This fall, the Readshop group will begin reading Midwinter Day by Bernadette Mayer, which was written on December 22, 1978, at 100 Main Street, in Lennox, Massachusetts. Midwinter Day, as Alice Notley noted, “is an epic poem about a daily routine.” In six parts, Midwinter Day takes us from awakening and emerging from dreams through the whole day—morning, afternoon, evening, night—to dreams again: “. . . a plain introduction to modes of love and reason / Then to end I guess with love, a method to this winter season / Now I’ve said this love it’s all I can remember / Of Midwinter Day the twenty-second of December.”

Open to the public. For more details or to join, please contact Programming Director Mike Wendt.