KAKTUS / Poetry Playhouse reading series hosted by John Roche. Poets read their work, followed by conversation and open mic. Free.

Bruce Holsapple and Karla Linn Merrifield are featured poets

Bruce Holsapple lives in Magdalena, New Mexico, where he worked for many years as a Speech-Language Pathologist in the schools, and is now retired. Originally from Maine, Bruce earned a PhD in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has published nine books of poetry. His most recent publications are Vanishing Act (La Alameda, 2011) and Wayward Shadow (La Alameda 2013). He’s now working on two new books. His book-length study of William Carlos Williams’ poetry, The Birth of the Imagination, was published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2016.

Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 15 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the 2019 full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her newest poetry collection is My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars, and published in January 2022 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series. Her Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills Publishing) received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, and assistant editor and poetry book reviewer emerita for The Centrifugal Eye. Web site: https://www.karlalinnmerrifield.org/; blog at https://karlalinnmerrifeld.wordpress.com/; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel; Instagram: karlalinnm; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.