Berkowitz & Toliver Oct. 9, 7 p.m. IPRC

The Switch is happy to host Amy Berkowitz from San Francisco and Portland's own Ashley Toliver.

When: Friday, October 9, doors at 7 pm, reading at 7:30 sharp. FREE 

Where: IPRC, 1001, SE Division, PDX

Amy Berkowitz is the author of Tender Points (Timeless, Infinite Light, 2015). Her writing has appeared in publications including Dusie, Textsound, and Where Eagles Dare, and on the VIDA blog. In 2014, she was a Writer in Residence at Alley Cat Bookstore & Gallery. She lives in a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco, where she is the founding editor of Mondo Bummer Books and the host of the Amy's Kitchen Organics reading series.

Ashley Toliver is the author of IDEAL MACHINE (Poor Claudia, 2014). Her poems have appeared in Caketrain, Front Porch, PEN America and Third Coast, among others. A Cave Canem graduate fellow, she currently lives in Portland, Ore.







by Amy Berkowitz

from Tender Points

▲

One of the most persistent lies is that boys are angry. 

And the shadow lie: that girls aren’t angry. 

But even though we aren’t formally trained to hate like boys are, every girl is a natural expert: 

We have so much to hate. 

Listen: 

A growl that tastes like blood 

Black reservoir 

Of anger splashing 

Closer than you think 

Beneath the slimy dock of everything I say 

In my person voice 

Nice woman voice 

▲

To google yellow wallpaper and find

Yellow wallpaper 

I mean like swatches of it


by Ashley Toliver

 

DEAR NIGHT POSSESSOR

Dear night possessor: your funeral barge rocked tight in the fisting water makes small winter 

melodies. The light ends a pattern we learned to stupefy by motion or admitting away. A 

statutory list puts the blame on the hour. You move as I move, whistling measures in salt 

grass, patient and guarded processions. At night, the line is a current to wade through: older 

names sifting past the flotsam, the water rising up to here.