The Livermore community is invited to attend a Verse on the Vine poetry reading. Hosted by Livermore Poet Laureate Peggy Schimmelman, the program will feature special guests Sarah Kobrinsky and David Alpaugh. Refreshments will be served and an open mic will follow the formal presentations. This free program will take place on Sunday, June 4, 2023, at 3 p.m. in the Storytime Room of the Civic Center Library. For additional information, call (925) 373-5500.

About the presenters:

Peggy Schimmelman was appointed as the City of Livermore’s fifth Poet Laureate, following Cynthia Patton, who served from 2017 to 2022. Schimmelman's term began July 1, 2022. She is the author of two poetry books, Tick-tock and Crazytown, along with two novels, Insomniacs, Inc. and Whippoorwills. She co-authored two Wild Vine Writers anthologies. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in North American Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Haight-Ashbury Journal, WinningWriters.com, Aleola Journal of Poetry and Art, Pacific Review, Comstock Review, Wild Musette Journal, 100wordstories.org, and other print and online journals. A thirty-year resident of Livermore, she worked as an educator for many years. 

David Alpaugh’s first collection, Counterpoint, won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize from Story Line Press and was re-issued in 2021 by Red Hen Press. He has published more than 400 poems in literary journals from Able Muse and Poetry to Zyzzyva. He is one of the contemporary poets included in the Heyday Press anthology California Poetry from the Gold Rush to the Present and he has been a finalist for Poet Laureate of California. His new book, Seeing the There There from Word Galaxy Press, answers Dana Gioia’s call for more collaboration between the arts, fusing 89 short poems with the work of 118 photographers, painters, and other artists. Alpaugh has taught literature for many years at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute’s East Bay Campus and poetry writing at the U.C. Berkeley Extension.

Sarah Kobrinsky is the former Poet Laureate of Emeryville, CA. She is the author of Nighttime on the Other Side of Everything (New Rivers Press). Her poems and stories have appeared in Magma Poetry, Red Light Lit, Eleven Eleven, Monkeybicycle, *82 Review, 100 Word Story, Fjords Review, among many others. She was long-listed for the 2019 University of Canberra Vice Chancellor's Poetry Prize. Kobrinsky and her husband have a handmade ceramic dinnerware company in the Bay Area called Jered's Pottery. She is also a martial artist and an aspiring polyglot.

The Summer Reading Program is happening through August 16, 2023. Help us meet our community reading goal of 3 million minutes! All ages are encouraged to join. Participants who read and log their minutes have the opportunity to win prizes. Thank you to the Friends of the Livermore Library and our other sponsors.