WordHouse Reading Series
Wednesday October 15, 6PM
Ciaran Berry and Srinivas Mandavilli
Reading starts with an Open Mike
Ciaran Berry was born in Dublin and grew up in Connemara and Donegal. He is the author of four collections of poetry, States (2025), Liner Notes (2018), The Dead Zoo (2013), and The Sphere of Birds (2008), all published by The Gallery Press. His work has been featured in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Best of Irish Poetry, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry London, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, The Southern Review, and The Threepenny Review. The accolades his work has received include a Whiting Award, the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition, and two Pushcart Prizes. He lives with his family in West Hartford, Connecticut and co-directs the Creative Writing Program at Trinity College.
Srinivas Mandavilli is Chief of Pathology at Hartford Hospital and the author of the chapbooks Howrah Bridge (Main Street Rag, 2025) and Gods in the Foyer (Antrim Books, 2016). His work has been featured in the anthologies Hum Aiseich Bolte (Trancscendent Zero Press, 2022) and Of Hartford in Many Lights (Grayson Books, 2024) as well as numerous literary journals including Rattle, Poetry Wales, The Night Heron Barks, New Square, Modern Haiku, The Raven’s Perch, Verse Virtual, and Journal of the American Medical Association. Mandavilli is one of Matwaala poets (a South Asian Diaspora Poets’ collective), a Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net nominee, and lives in West Hartford with his wife Bela.
Noah Webster House
227 South Main Street
West Hartford CT 06107
Free event. Please consider making a donation to Noah Webster House.
https://wordhousereadings.blogspot.com/
For more info, contact:
Jim Finnegan
JforJames@aol.com
860.508.2810
Nov. 5: Virginia Shreve and Monica Ong
WordHouse Reading Series
Wednesday November 5, 6PM
Monica Ong and Virginia Shreve
Reading starts with an Open Mike
A visual poet and the author of Silent Anatomies (2015) and Planetaria (2025), Monica Ong brings a designer’s eye to experimental writing that surfaces hidden narratives of women and diaspora. Her work has been exhibited at the Poetry Foundation and her fine press visual poetry editions and literary art objects reside in over sixty distinguished institutional collections worldwide. In 2024, Ong was named a United States Artists Fellow.
Virginia Shreve, Town of Canton Poet Laureate, Beat Poet Laureate of CT 2020-2022, and newly-minted Lifetime Beat Poet by the National/International Beat Poet Foundation, resides in the small river village of Collinsville, CT, with husband and dogs, none well-trained, but all good-natured. Her poems have appeared in various anthologies, The Southern Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, Slippery Elm, Phantom Drift, Your Daily Poem (online), and others.
Noah Webster House
227 South Main Street
West Hartford CT 06107
Free event. Please consider making a donation to Noah Webster House.
https://wordhousereadings.blogspot.com/
For more info, contact:
Jim Finnegan
JforJames@aol.com
860.508.2810
Wednesday November 5, 6PM
Monica Ong and Virginia Shreve
Reading starts with an Open Mike
A visual poet and the author of Silent Anatomies (2015) and Planetaria (2025), Monica Ong brings a designer’s eye to experimental writing that surfaces hidden narratives of women and diaspora. Her work has been exhibited at the Poetry Foundation and her fine press visual poetry editions and literary art objects reside in over sixty distinguished institutional collections worldwide. In 2024, Ong was named a United States Artists Fellow.
Virginia Shreve, Town of Canton Poet Laureate, Beat Poet Laureate of CT 2020-2022, and newly-minted Lifetime Beat Poet by the National/International Beat Poet Foundation, resides in the small river village of Collinsville, CT, with husband and dogs, none well-trained, but all good-natured. Her poems have appeared in various anthologies, The Southern Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, Slippery Elm, Phantom Drift, Your Daily Poem (online), and others.
Noah Webster House
227 South Main Street
West Hartford CT 06107
Free event. Please consider making a donation to Noah Webster House.
https://wordhousereadings.blogspot.com/
For more info, contact:
Jim Finnegan
JforJames@aol.com
860.508.2810
WordHouse Schedule: Fall 2025
Upcoming readings...
All readings on Wednesdays
Time: 6-8PM
Oct 15: Ciaran Berry and Srini Mandavilli
Nov 5: Monica Ong and Virginia Shreve
Dec 3: Margaret Lloyd and Benjamin Grossberg
All readings begin with an Open Mike.
Noah Webster House
227 South Main Street
West Hartford CT 06107
For more info, contact:
Jim Finnegan
jforjames@aol.com
860.508.2810
All readings on Wednesdays
Time: 6-8PM
Oct 15: Ciaran Berry and Srini Mandavilli
Nov 5: Monica Ong and Virginia Shreve
Dec 3: Margaret Lloyd and Benjamin Grossberg
All readings begin with an Open Mike.
Noah Webster House
227 South Main Street
West Hartford CT 06107
For more info, contact:
Jim Finnegan
jforjames@aol.com
860.508.2810
WordHouse Reading Series History
-2025-
Sept. 17: Dennis Barone and Luisa Caycedo-Kimura
June 28: Sarah Wetzel
May 3: Ethan Rutherford and Danielle Chapman
April 5: Julia Paul and Henk Rossouw
March 8: Ginny Lowe Connors and brett a. maddux
Feb 1: Brickwalk Poets: Thirtieth Anniversary Reading
Current and former members of a poetry workshop
with a 30-year history.
-2024-
December 14: D. Walsh Gilbert and V. Penelope Pelizzon
November 9: Victoria Norland and Margaret Gibson with actress Heather Oakley
October 19: Marilyn E Johnston and John L Stanizzi
September 28: Pegi Deitz Shea and Richard Michelson
June 1: Eric Hoffman and Steven Ostrowski
April 6: Pate Hale and Patrick Pritchett
March 23: Daniel Lawless and Clare Rossini
Feb. 17: Martha Collins and Anna V. Q. Ross
-2023-
December 9: David Pontrelli and Terry Blackhawk
November 18: Dennis Barone and Amy Nawrocki
October 21: Haiku poets: Stanford M. Forrester/sekiro, Tom Sacramona and Denise Fontaine-Pincince
September 30: Brad Davis and Sally Van Doren
June 10: Debora Kuan and Charles O. Hartman
May 27: Christine Beck and Sharon Lattig
April 8: Steve Straight and Margot Schilpp
March 18: B. Fulton Jennes and Gian Lombardo
February 18: James Berger and Suzanne Frischkorn
-2022-
December 10: Krysia Jopek and Julie Choffel
November 19: Robert Cording and David Cappella
October 22: Short readings and presentations by contributors to the anthology Imagining Vesalius: An Ekphrastic, Scholarly and Literary Celebration of the 1543 De Humani Corporis Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius, edited by Richard Ratzan. Dennis Barone, Terry Donsen Feder, Rosalyn Driscoll, Jack Coulehan, Jim Finnegan, Noah Ratzan, and Richard Ratzan.
September 17: Present & past West Hartford Poets Laureate: Benjamin Grossberg, Maria Sassi, Ginny Lowe Connors, Dennis Barone, Christine Beck and James Finnegan
Previous series: The Charter Oak Readings
Sept. 17: Dennis Barone and Luisa Caycedo-Kimura
June 28: Sarah Wetzel
May 3: Ethan Rutherford and Danielle Chapman
April 5: Julia Paul and Henk Rossouw
March 8: Ginny Lowe Connors and brett a. maddux
Feb 1: Brickwalk Poets: Thirtieth Anniversary Reading
Current and former members of a poetry workshop
with a 30-year history.
-2024-
December 14: D. Walsh Gilbert and V. Penelope Pelizzon
November 9: Victoria Norland and Margaret Gibson with actress Heather Oakley
October 19: Marilyn E Johnston and John L Stanizzi
September 28: Pegi Deitz Shea and Richard Michelson
June 1: Eric Hoffman and Steven Ostrowski
April 6: Pate Hale and Patrick Pritchett
March 23: Daniel Lawless and Clare Rossini
Feb. 17: Martha Collins and Anna V. Q. Ross
-2023-
December 9: David Pontrelli and Terry Blackhawk
November 18: Dennis Barone and Amy Nawrocki
October 21: Haiku poets: Stanford M. Forrester/sekiro, Tom Sacramona and Denise Fontaine-Pincince
September 30: Brad Davis and Sally Van Doren
June 10: Debora Kuan and Charles O. Hartman
May 27: Christine Beck and Sharon Lattig
April 8: Steve Straight and Margot Schilpp
March 18: B. Fulton Jennes and Gian Lombardo
February 18: James Berger and Suzanne Frischkorn
-2022-
December 10: Krysia Jopek and Julie Choffel
November 19: Robert Cording and David Cappella
October 22: Short readings and presentations by contributors to the anthology Imagining Vesalius: An Ekphrastic, Scholarly and Literary Celebration of the 1543 De Humani Corporis Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius, edited by Richard Ratzan. Dennis Barone, Terry Donsen Feder, Rosalyn Driscoll, Jack Coulehan, Jim Finnegan, Noah Ratzan, and Richard Ratzan.
September 17: Present & past West Hartford Poets Laureate: Benjamin Grossberg, Maria Sassi, Ginny Lowe Connors, Dennis Barone, Christine Beck and James Finnegan
Previous series: The Charter Oak Readings
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