The Bucks County Community College Wordsmiths Reading Series continues this fall by welcoming acclaimed poets Kasey Jueds and Bernadette McBride for a poetry reading of their original works on Friday, October 25 at 7:30 p.m. in room 142 of the historic Tyler Hall on the Newtown Campus. The event is free and open to the public. The readings will be followed by a book signing and dessert reception.
Kasey Jueds’ poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including The American Poetry Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Bennington Review, Cave Wall, Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, Denver Quarterly, Narrative, Ninth Letter, Pleiades, Provincetown Arts, River Styx, Salamander, The Southampton Review, Tinderbox, and Waxwing. She has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Soapstone, and the Ucross Foundation; she’s also been a visiting poet at the University of Pennsylvania, La Salle University, and the University of Northern Colorado. Keeper, her first book, won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press, and was published by Pitt in fall, 2013. Her second book, The Thicket, was published by Pitt in November 2021.
Bernadette McBride, author of four poetry collections, is a public speaker and poetry editor for private clients. She taught creative writing and literature at Temple University and Bucks County Community College for many years. As poet-in-residence for DeSales University’s MFA program launch, she served on the advisory panel for the program’s forward vision. McBride has led various area writing workshops, including for the annual Philadelphia Writers Conference and is poetry editor emerita of the Schuylkill Valley Journal. A founding member of the improv poetry troupe No River Twice, and the new Volta Writing Center on Bucks County Community College’s Newtown Campus, her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including in the UK, Canada, and on PRI’s The Writer’s Almanac. She is a former Pennsylvania Poet Laureate for Bucks County, and a member of the Arts & Cultural Council of Bucks County.
Saturday, November 16, 1 p.m., Tyler Hall 142 | Thomas Devaney and 2024 Poet Laureate
The final reading in the fall series features Thomas Devaney and the still-to-be-selected 2024 Poet Laureate.
About the Wordsmiths Reading Series
The first Wordsmiths reading was in the 1960s, and featured Allen Ginsburg strumming on his guitar, and chanting verses to the audience as they swayed sitting on top of cushions on the floor. Since then, the series has featured dozens of outstanding and respected poets over the years. In recent years, the series has also featured renowned fiction writers. Poets featured in the series have won a host of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book award, and the PEN Literary Award.
As the founder and leader of the renowned Wordsmiths series, Bucks County Community College has distinguished itself among Philadelphia-area colleges and universities, and has become the home of a vibrant community of writers, poetry lovers, and supporters of the arts.
Ethel Rackin, PhD, a Language and Literature professor at the College, is the director of the Wordsmiths Reading Series and Poet Laureate Program. Dr. Rackin has been organizing these public collaborations since 2010, shortly after she began her teaching career at Bucks.
For more information on the Wordsmiths Reading Series, visit bucks.edu/wordsmiths or contact Dr. Rackin at Ethel.Rackin@bucks.edu.
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