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The York Poetry Festival
September 11 and 12, 2010
Presented by Iris G. Press at the York Emporium:
343 W. Market Street
York, PA 17601
717-846-2866

Saturday: Noon to 5pm
Saturday evening: 6pm - An Evening with the Beats
Sunday: Noon to 5pm

Saturday's lineup:

Saturday's centerpiece will be the world-premiere of an unpublished poem by Beat poet, Harold Norse. Saturday evening will be a Beat evening with a movie, popcorn, dress-like-a-Beat, giveaways, and more.

Sunday's lineup:

Sunday's centerpiece will be the release of Le Hinton's new book, "The God of Our Dreams" and previews of 2011 Iris G. releases by Jeff Rath (Film Noir) and Rebecca Gonzalez.
Jeff Rath is a poet who lives in Lancaster County.
Jim Warner is the author of the poetry collections social studies and Too Bad It’s Poetry (Paper Kite Press). His poems have appeared in Word Riot, Drunken Boat, Cause and Effect, In The Arms of Words: Poetry for Disaster Relief (Sherman-Asher), and various other journals. Jim Warner is currently the Assistant Director of Graduate Creative Writing Programs at Wilkes University.
Rocky Jones mixes sights and sounds with poetry on stages all over Maryland and has been published in the Poet’s Feast, Poets’ Ink and Bay Weekly. With Cliff Lynn, he produces two monthly poetry reading series in Annapolis, MD.
John Lardas Modern, an assistant professor of religious studies at Franklin & Marshall College, draws on Beat poets, phrenologists, prison reformers, and Moby-Dick to show why taking technology seriously forces us to think differently about the boundaries of religion. His article “Evangelical Secularism and the Measure of Leviathan” appeared in the December 2008 issue of Church History. His book Haunted Modernity; or, the Metaphysics of Secularism is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press.
Rebecca Gonzalez is a Pushcart nominee and the 2008 R.E. Foundation Award winner for Outstanding Poetry. Her work has been published on-line at The Cerebral Catalyst, Haggard and Halloo and Poetryork and in print in Fledgling Rag, Hanover Sun and the York Daily Record. Some of her poems will be appearing in the upcoming CD anthology, Live at the Corner of Poetry and Main: Celebrating Five Years of Annapolis Poetry. She is the author of, Sonata for Rain, published by Iris G. Press. Her second and upcoming book is titled, Aerial Descending.
Gene Hosey has been writing, performing and promoting writing in the Harrisburg area since 1980. Interested foremost in the interchange between audience and performer, Hosey focuses his writing on poetic novellas from which the possibilities of collaborating with artists in other disciplines spring. Performance pieces are frequently aimed at specific events and are cut ups from longer works. His book, The Gravity of Titles was published by Musser Publishing. One of his novelty [get it out there at any cost!] booklets, Hemming in the Hemispheres, a meditation on the environment, has been littered across the globe by friendly fellow travelers. Many of his works were self-published pocket-size renderings of reading events, many pieces are published in anthologies, there are two in time capsules, and one translated into Japanese for a Hiroshima/Nagasaki remembrance [never seen here]. He has appeared on television, on the radio, has collaborated on albums and with theater groups to present original works. He currently works with film makers, musicians & graphic artists on short films & performances.
Hiram Larew’s poems are teenagers that are slowly but surely growing up. Their teeth are real good but their hands are too much. If the sprouts aren’t careful, they’ll end up sorrowfully reckless. Someone needs to tell them to sit down please.
Alexandra Hartman’s Ethos is an experimental concept in music and poetry performance that fuses Louis J. Porsi Jr.’s soulful electric bass guitar grooves and rhythms with Hartman’s topical, confessional spoken word poetry and prose. Hartman and Porsi explore an edge in sound and monologue they call, “Word,” which is sophisticated, but structurally simple, aimed at audiences who appreciate progressive, experimental sound. Hartman has been involved in poetry and independent film for the past decade and recently earned a master’s degree from Goddard College in embodiment studies and film. Porsi is a multi-talented instrumentalist who studied studio recording, engineering and sound at Los Angeles Valley College. His musical endeavors span forty years and both coasts.
Marty Esworthy, like Mallarmé, was/is haunted by the idea of azure, by the symbol of an eternal serenity beyond human possibility. A leading proponent of sound poetry and meta-verse, Esworthy is a Megaera-award-winning poet, editor emeritus, Steel Point Quarterly, and currently, Capitán of the Almost Uptown Poetry Cartel.

Taught Rock Music classes at Rutgers; University of Maryland; Johns Hopkins Free University; Vanderbilt, and Fisk. Did some radio, underground journalism. Booked bands. Now, he makes verse & brings writers together in art galleries, coffeehouses and bars to hear each other out. It’s a living.

Well, a way of living. Esworthy is fond of making uncommon sounds in verse as well as in everyday life. Loud things. And visual things. When he grows up, he aspires to be, like, maybe a verbo-viz noise band. Recent poetry tomes include hard reality, Pacobooks, 2004, Twenty-Six Javanese Proverbs, Iris G. Press, 2006, and the Object Stares Back, Uh, Oh! T & T Press, 2009.
Christine O’Leary-Rockey is a poet, scholar and freelance journalist from Central Pennsylvania and is the author of A Human Auction, (Run Amok, 1993), and a co-author of CowParade Harrisburg, (2005). Her poetry and non-fiction has been published in a variety of state and national publications, including The Fledgling Rag, Harrisburg Magazine, Central PA Magazine, Planet Magazine, The Experimental Forest, Megaera, Haggard and Halloo and others. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Iris G. Press in 2007.

Christine holds a BS in Philosophy and MA’s in Religion and Humanities. She currently teaches Humanities at Central Pennsylvania College in Summerdale, PA. She has taught writing and performance workshops at St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia and for the Pennsylvania Student Press Association and was a part of 2004’s urban poetry expose, Open Stage Harrisburg’s Court Street Poetry Jam. A two-time Harrisburg slam winner, she is one of the charter members of Harrisburg’s infamous (almost) Uptown Poetry Cartel.
Deanna Nikaido is the author of two volumes of poetry and is a graduate of Art Center College of Design with a degree in Illustration. She has always loved the mystery of linking the inner world with the outer and looks for ways to throw paint on the invisible. For her, the visual and literary arts are both listening processes, each unplanned certainties where pen point or brush intersect the page and conversation begins.

Deanna is currently a poetry coach for Bookinday (BID) a non-profit, educational services company that fosters literacy skills, teaching students the fundamentals of creative writing, through poetry and student-run publication--in one day.
Poetry discovered Keith Snow nearly twelve years ago in the spring of 99. Keith has been writing, performing,currating a reading and hosting events since that time. Glad to have been published in Shirazad, Megaera and even some mags that are easy to pronounce. Cuurrently writes for his church Living Water while hoping to be a good husband, father, son, brother and friend. This work in progress is happy to perform here and hopes to unveil brand new material.
Like most other poets, Cliff Lynn auditioned for, and was rejected by, the Gong Show. Cliff was the 2006 editor-in-chief of the Anne Arundel Community College Literary Journal Amaranth. With multimedia poet Rocky Jones, he has hosted monthly poetry readings since 2005, bringing great poets to Annapolis, Md, while providing the poetry community a safe and nurturing environment to share their work. Cliff also co-hosts a poetry series in Birdie’s, a new Westminster, MD coffee shop. An award-winning poet, he has over 40 poems and short stories published in small-press journals such as Free Lunch, Fledgling Rag and Grub Street, and is the inaugural featured author on the Baltimore-based journal “Scribble”’s website. Cliff was a judge for the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2010 Poetry Out Loud Maryland Regional semi-finals, and for Delaware County, PA High Schools 2010 Poetry Competition. Half of the first featured poets for M.S. Sanders’ !Speak Your Piece! reading series in Baltimore (an event which is the literary equivalent of an orgasm), he has read poetry throughout Maryland, as well as in Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Texas, Washington, California and Vegas. Cliff has taken poetry into colleges, high schools, middle schools and elementary schools, and is the Tuscarora High School’s Poet-in-Residence in Frederick, MD, a post he has held since 2007. They won’t let him live there, however.
Richard McIlnay is a York County poet.
Le Hinton is the author of four books of poetry including Status Post Hope (2006), Black on Most Days (2008), his newest, The God of Our Dreams. and. He is the editor and publisher of the poetry journal Fledgling Rag. He lives harmlessly in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.


And the 2010 Nominees Are…
With much pride, Iris G. Press is thrilled to reveal its nominees for the 2010 Pushcart Prize. Each year this press, like many other small presses throughout the country, presents nominees to the Pushcart Prize committee. Our nominees are:
Alexandra Hartman
Deanna Nikaido
Marty Esworthy
Gene Hosey
Jack Veasey
Jeff Rath