The following readings will be held at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

• Whitney Waters and Alyse Bensel will give a poetry reading at 6 p.m. Friday, April 24. Waters is an Asheville-based poet and educator; Bensel is an educator, writer and editor.
• Lee Stockdale and Greg Lobas will read at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 25, from “Bronxville” and “Left of Center.” Lobas’ collection draws on his 30-year career as a fire captain/paramedic and earned major awards.
• Rose McLarney and Braulio Fonseca will read at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 25, from “Rubble Masonry” and the forthcoming memoir “Falling Forward.”
• Catherine Carter and Jessica Jacobs will read at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 29. Carter is a poet and scholar; Jacobs is a Guggenheim Fellow and award-winning writer.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information, call 828.586.9499 or visit citylightsnc.com.

The following readings will be held at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

The following readings will be held at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva:

• Joseph Bathanti will read from “Steady Daylight” at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 18. A former North Carolina poet laureate, he has authored more than 20 books and received the North Carolina Award in Literature.

• Tommy Hays will discuss his new novel, “The Marriage Bed,” with Ron Rash at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 19. The story explores a marriage tested by tragedy and revelation.

• Whitney Waters and Alyse Bensel will give a poetry reading at 6 p.m. Friday, April 24. Waters’ work appears in several journals and Bensel is the author of two poetry collections.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information, call 828.586.9499 or visit citylightsnc.com.

“All things are bound together. All things connect.” 
— Chief Seattle

"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave."
— Dakota

In maybe one of the most alluring covers I’ve ever seen for a book of poems, John C. Mannone’s book “Sacred Flute” (Iris Press, 2024, 77 pgs.) — with a photo of an indigenousYuma musician taken sometime around 1900 — makes you want to turn the page and see what’s on the inside.

Georgia poet and author Rupert Fike and I lived in the San Francisco Bay area during the 1970s in a time of social renaissance and spiritual awakening. He was with a core group community of some 300 young activists and idealists. The earliest beginnings of this community go back to San Francisco and a weekly meeting called Monday Night Class.

“Power Spots” (Edgework Press, 2025) by Ron Myers is a first press-published book of his poetry by someone who is of the “boomer” generation. In that sense, as now a book-published poet, you could say that he’s a “late bloomer,” or a “late boomer.” 

It was nearing lunchtime. In the midst of putting out the newspaper last Tuesday, I was getting hungry when I realized it was almost noon. I hadn’t eaten breakfast and was still craving eggs, sausage, toast, hashbrowns (with onions) and strong coffee (at least two cups worth).  

In May, a very special anniversary issue of the Asheville Poetry Review was released for public consumption celebrating 30 years as one of this country’s seminal literary journals. 

Tuesday afternoon. The clouds are hanging low over the mountains surrounding downtown Waynesville, covering up the actual height and grandeur of these peaks. The urge to walk out of the newsroom, get into my truck and head for the hills to trail run is deep and real. 

As a practitioner and student of poetry all my life, I’ve noticed that while there is a lot of poetry written well and with talented reach, at the same time, there is little current poetry that I’ve experienced that one would classify as being “wise” or “transcendent.”  

“In time, maybe the land will decide.”

Scott T. Starbuck is an award-winning poet, career fisherman, climate activist and longtime resident of the Pacific Northwest. His most recent book, “Bridge at the End of the World (New and Selected Poems)” is a culmination of his major published poetic output.