Batter up! Poetry World Series returns to the Mill Valley Library

Mill Valley, Calif.—Calling all fans of baseball, poetry, and anyone who enjoys some good old wordplay and repartee: After hours on Friday, May 16th, the Mill Valley Public Library will host the Third Annual Poetry World Series, a poetry event unlike any other.

The Poetry World Series turns the format and feel of standard poetry readings on its head, combining the lively, spontaneous energy of a poetry slam with written poetry that’s had the benefit of invested time and revision. So how does it work? The Library's Main Reading Room will serve as the stadium, where two teams of Bay Area poets will take turns “batting up” to a poem topic “pitched” to them. Emcee Will Durst, the satirist and nationally acclaimed syndicated columnist, will do the pitching, while a panel of judges, including Brian Murphy of KNBR’s “Murph & Mac” show, and poets Dean Rader and Melissa Stein, will score each “batter’s” reading. The two competing teams have some heavy contenders: poets Heather Altfeld, Rebecca Foust, Amy Glynn, Judy Halebsky, Troy Jollimore, and Robert Thomas, with Roy Mash of the Marin Poetry Center serving as timekeeper and first player alternate. These talented poets have racked up plenty of accolades and experience (see bios below), but which of them will hit home runs?

The brainchild of Marin poet Rebecca Foust, the Poetry World Series is an event that serious fans of literature, serious fans of baseball, and serious fans of whimsy and excitement in any form will all enjoy.

The Third Annual Poetry World Series will take place from 7 to 9 pm on Friday, May 16th in the Mill Valley Public Library's Main Reading Room. Pre-game refreshments, including popcorn, beer, and wine, will be available for pre-registered guests starting at 6:30 pm. The event is free and is open to adults and high school students only. Space is limited, so registration is recommended.

For more information about the Poetry World Series, or to register, call 415-389-4292, x3 or go online to www.millvalleylibrary.org.

More About the Participants:
EMCEE
Will Durst is a nationally acclaimed syndicated columnist who has released five CDs, written three books, and is a sworn enemy to all dictators foreign and domestic.

JUDGES
Brian Murphy hosts the popular “Murph and Mac” morning radio show on KNBR and is a golf columnist for Yahoo! Sports. From 2001-2004 he was the national golf writer at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Dean Rader’s Works & Days won the 2010 T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize. His most recent book, Landscape Portrait Figure Form (Omnidawn), was named by the Barnes & Noble Review as one of the best poetry books of 2013.

Melissa Stein is the author of the poetry collection Rough Honey, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. She is a freelance editor and writer in San Francisco.

PLAYERS
Heather Altfeld’s recent poetry publications include Narrative Magazine, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, ZYZZYVA, Sow’s Ear Review, Greensboro Review, Jewish Currents, Laurel Review, and The New Guard. She has completed her first book and is working on a second.

Rebecca Foust is the 2014 Dartmouth Poet in Residence at The Frost Place. Her books include God, Seed and All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song. New poems are in the Hudson Review, Massachusetts Review, Sewanee Review, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere.

Amy Glynn's book A Modern Herbal was released by Measure Press in 2013. She has been a James Merrill House Fellow and won the 2014 Spur Award from the Western Writers Association. She lives in the East Bay.

Judy Halebsky's book of poems, Sky=Empty, won the New Issues Prize and was a finalist for the California Book Award. The MacDowell Colony, the Millay Colony, and the Japanese Ministry of Culture have supported her work. She lives in Oakland and teaches at Dominican University.

Troy Jollimore is the author of At Lake Scugog and Tom Thomson in Purgatory. His awards include the National Book Critics Circle Award and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Robert Thomas’ new book of fiction, Bridge, will be published by BOA Editions in October 2014. He has published two books of poetry: Door to Door, selected by Yusef Komunyakaa for the Poets Out Loud Prize, and Dragging the Lake.

TIMEKEEPER AND FIRST PLAYER ALTERNATE
Roy Mash is a longtime board member of the Marin Poetry Center. Currently a regular in the movie of his life, his character’s primary occupation is to doodle his days away while staring out of café windows. His book, Buyer’s Remorse, came out in 2014.