Always under construction: My album of poets and readings and poetry events, from 2010 until today. Enjoy, please.
October 21, 2018. Wichita Public Library’s Advanced Learning Library was home to Epistrophy: An Afternoon of Poetry and Improvised Music.
Below: Providing a jazz musical prelude and intermission to the readings, Billy’s Bounce: Bill Harshbarger on woodwinds, John Salem on keyboards, Bill Glenn on drums, and Randy Fields on Bass.
Below: The process involved the poets reading their poem through once while the audience and the musician improvisers (Susan Mayo on cello, Bill Glenn on percussion) listened. Then the poet read again, this time while the musicians invented musical accompaniment in real time. A unique and wonderful experience for all concerned. The poet here was invited Topeka bard Annette Hope Billings, who opened the event.
Here I am, reading my poem, “Sweet, Your Heart” to musical accompaniment by Susan Mayo and Bill Glenn. (Epistrophy, Oct. 21, 2018, Wichita.)
October 8, 2018. Some of the winners of the Spoken Word Poetry contest. Left – Duane Johnson, 2nd Place, middle – Tracy Million Simmons, 1st Place, right – me, Honorable Mention.
October 8, 2018. Just received 2018 Kansas Authors Club “Poet of the Year” award, Salina, Kansas.
Sept 1, 2018: Received print proof of Stage Whispers from Tracy Million Simmons. Nothing like having that first real book in your hands! Love the cover design.
Below: Here I am at the podium at the lovely reading put together at the Watkins History Museum in Lawrence, Kansas by Ronda Miller for 20 of the 86 poets represented in Kansas Time+Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry on July 28, 2018. Thanks to Dan Pohl for the image.
Below: Poets at the Watkins History Museum who read on July 28, 2018, at the Kansas Time+Place reading put on by Ronda Miller. Back row, from left: Huascar Medina, Roy Beckemeyer, Thomas Reynolds, Dan Pohl, Ronda Miller, Carolyn Hall, Michelle Pond; Middle row from left: Elizabeth Perdomo, Denise Low, Pat Danneman, Iris Craver, Diane Palka, Anne Haehl, Diane Wahto, Annette Billings; Front row, from left: James Benger, Caryn Merriam-Goldberg, Sarah Worrell, Tara Rhiannon Bartley, Julie Sellers.
Below: April 12, 2018 Reading by poets represented in Kansas Time+Place: An Anthology of Heartland Poetry at Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas. Thanks to Laura Lee Washburn for setting up the venue and hosting a delightful reading attended by poets from around the state, with emphasis on PSU students, faculty, and alumni.
Below: April 5, 2018 Opening of 13th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma.
Below: October 2017 Poetry Rendezvoux and Harvester Arts/River City Poetry Broadside Exhibition.
Below: September, 2017, “Red Rocks,” William Allen White House, Emporia Kansas, 2017 Poetry on the Porch event. (Photo by Kevin Rabas)
Below: April 26, 2017, Topeka/Shawnee County Public Library, where I shared the bill with the great Leah Sewell.
Above and Below: KC Poetry Throwdown April 2017 at Prospero’s, Kansas City. Above: Roy Beckemeyer reading. Below: The Throwdown perpetrators, from left: Brandon Whitehead, Jameson Bayles, Jason Preu, Jeannette Powers, Jason Baron von Ryberg.
Below: October 13, 2016, The Raven Bookstore, Lawrence, Kansas. From left: Al Ortolani, Roy Beckemeyer, Damien Rucci, Scott Silsbe, Jason Baldinger.
Below: October 2016, Kansas Authors Club Convention. Upper photo: Left to right: Wendy Devilbiss, Poetry Contest Manager; Roy Beckemeyer, 2016 KAC Poet of the Year, Reaona Hemingway, 2016 KAC Prose Writer of the Year; Michael Graves, Prose Contest Manager. Lower photo: Winners, Poetry – Whimsy Category, left to right: Pat Beckemeyer, Roy Beckemeyer, Mel Epps, Kelly Johnston.
Below: The Feast – Poetry Reading at CityArts, Wichita, Aug. 23, 2016. From left: Roy Beckemeyer, featured poet Laura Madeline Wiseman, and series host Raylyn Clacher.
Below: Reading at Reverie Coffee Roasters, Wichita, KS, August 18, 2016.
Below: August 6, 2016, Astra Arts Festival Literary Awards, Independence Kansas Public Library. From left: Heather Mydosh (Co-Chair Astra Arts Festival Literary Committee), Melvin Epp (3rd place, creative non-fiction), Hazel Spire (1st place, creative non-fiction), Melissa Fite Johnson (2nd place, poetry), Lori Baker Martin (Co-Chair, Literary Committee), Roy Beckemeyer (1st and 3rd places, poetry), Bob Dean (3rd place, fiction).
Below: October 2015, Kansas Authors Club Convention. As Vice President and manager of the KAC book awards, I was pleased to award the J. Donald Coffin award to Anna Christine Fell for her memoir, In the Shadow of the Wind.
Below: September, 2015, Roy Beckemeyer and Pat Beckemeyer in Topeka, Kansas for the 2015 Kansas Notable Book Awards to receive recognition for Roy’s book, Music I Once Could Dance To (Coal City Press, 2014).
Above: Kansas Book Festival and Notable Book Awards, September 2015. From Left: Roy Beckemeyer, recipient for Music I Once Could Dance To, and Kansas First Lady Mary Brownback.
Above: July 24, 2015, Myrne Roe reading at Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kansas, at an event at which she, Diane Wahto, Ronda Miller, and I read together. Below: Diane Wahto in the Autograph Room at Watermark Books.
Below: July 24, 2015, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kansas. At a reading event with Diane Wahto, Myrne Roe, and Ronda Miller, we got to sign our names on the wall in Watermark’s famous “Autograph Room.”
Below: July 24, 2015, at Watermark Books. From left: Pat Beckemeyer, Roy Beckemeyer, Myrne Roe, Jon Roe, Diane Wahto.
Above and Below: July 11, 2015. Whispering Prairie Press sponsored reading at Pioneer Bluffs, in the Flint Hills, Matfield Green, Kansas.
Below: June 2015, Town Crier Bookstore’s Author Extravaganza, Emporia, Kansas. From left: Michael Graves, Tracy Million Simmons, Roy Beckemeyer.
Below: February 19, 2015, Watermark Books, Wichita State University MFA Woman Poets reading. From left: Denise Low, Kathryn Kysar, Diane Wahto, Jeanine Hathaway.
Below: Denise Low and Albert Goldbarth, Watermark Books, Feb. 19, 2015.
Below: Roy Beckemeyer and Xanath Caraza. I thanked her and gave her a copy of the issue of Kansas City Voices that contained my poem, “Ways of the Wind,” which was inspired by a line from her poem, “Matilda en la Hamaca.” Topeka / Shawnee County Public Library’s Great Writers Right Here author event, Dec. 6, 2014.
Below: October 2014 at Kansas Authors Club Convention speaking on Technical Writing to a group of people who came to hear about poetry.
Below: September 19-21, 2014, Transformative Language Arts Power of Words Conference at Lake Doniphan Retreat Center in Kansas City, MO. From Left: Missouri Poet Laureate William Trowbridge, Kansas Poets Laureate Emerita Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Denise Low, MIssouri Poet Laureeate Emeritus Walter Bargen, Kansas Poet Laureate Wyatt Townley.
Below: July 29, 2014: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg reading from her memoir recalling her time as Kansas Poet Laureate, Poem on the Range and me reading from my new poetry book, Music I Could Once Dance To, at The Raven Bookstore in Lawrence, KS. This was our Coal City Review & Press New Releases party!
Above, a portion of the audience at my reading at The Raven, July 29, 2014: From left, poet and editor James Benger, poet and publisher (Coal City Press) Brian Daldorph and his wife, Misae Daldorph, and poet and I-70 Review editor Gary Lechliter.
Below: July, 2014: Music I Once Could Dance To goes on sale at Eighth Day Books in Wichita. Left: Warren Farha, Owner, Roy Beckemeyer, Poet.
Below: July 2014 at Watermark Books & Cafe in Wichita, Kansas: Music I Once Could Dance To on the shelves!
Above and Below: Here I am reading at the Independence, Kansas Astra Arts Festival Lit Crawl on Monday evening (July 7th, 2014). I got to read at the Independence Pharmacy, which has a wonderful old-fashioned soda shop, dating from the 1930’s, complete with cherry phosphates, Root beer floats, chocolate cokes. Listeners were treated to free drinks during my reading. What a cool way to do poetry!
Below: April 12, 2014, Poetry Month program for Kansas Authors Club District 5 in Wichita: Roy Beckemeyer and April Pameticky.
Below: October 2013 Kansas Authors Club Convention, From left: Nancy Julien Kopp, 2013 KAC Prose Writer of the Year; Roy Beckemeyer, 2013 KAC Poet of the Year; Ronda MIller, Poetry Contest Manager.
Below: October 2013 at Eighth Day Books’ 25th Anniversary Celebration.
Below: October 7, 2013, Salina, Kansas, Ad Astra Books and Coffeehouse: Pat Beckemeyer reading from To the Stars Through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices.
Below: January, 2013, Watermark Books, Wichita, Kansas, readings from To the Stars through Difficulties: A Kansas Renga in 150 Voices (Mammoth Press, 2012). From left: Roy Beckemeyer, Victoria Foth Sherry, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg.
Below: December 2011 Lawrence, Kansas. Kelley Hunt (left) and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, who I commisioned to write a song for my wife, Pat for our 5oth wedding anniversary, sang it for us at a reading from Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems at the Lawrence Jewish Center.
Below: Nov. 5, 2011. Watermark Books & Cafe in Wichita, at second reading from Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems. I met many wonderful folks for the first time at this reading. Here’s Ronda Miller and me at the signing table. Ronda became a dear friend and fellow poet and Kansas Authors Club member. She was my Vice President the years I served as President of KAC and she is now (2018) President.
Below: Left to right: a quartet of great poets — Pamela Yenser, Olive Sullivan, Bill Sheldon, Elizabeth Black, all of whom I also met for the first time at this reading.
Below: Diane Wahto – I met Diane in the process of our setting up these two readings. She is now a close friend and someone I respect and admire. Poet, social activist, English teacher, Letter-to-the-editor writer extraordinaire, now fellow Basement Bards poetry critique member and fellow Kansas Authors Club member.
Below: some of my friends and associates and loved ones in the audience at Watermark. Front row, from left, Virginia Hays in black sweater, fellow poet and founder of our Wayward Poets writing group; Pat Latta, my best friend and
fellow dog walker and writer who got me started back to writing poetry after a twenty-year hiatus; Pat Beckemeyer, wife and love of my life to whom I wrote my first poems back in high school; next row between Virginia and Pat is Dixie Brown, fellow Wayward Poet and facilitator of LifeVentures poetry classes; upper left in red jacket: Helen Throckmorton, retired English teacher, fly fisher, and poet who got Pat Latta excited about writing poetry, who in turn infected me. Helen boosted my confidence and helped me rediscover poetry writing. A delightful person and a real Teacher and mentor.
Above: November 3, 2011, Eighth Day Books, Wichita, Kansas: Book Release & Inaugural Reading from Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s Kansas Sesquicentennial Poet Laureate project’s culmination, the anthology Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems (Woodley Memorial Press, 2011, 196 pp). Readers included Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Roy Beckemeyer, Bill Sheldon, Diane Wahto, Iris Wilkinson, and Pam McMaster Yenser.
Above Right: Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Kansas Poet Laureate, and Roy Beckemeyer, novice poet and novice reading-coordinator attending his first ever poetry reading, the evening of November 3, 2011, at Warren Farha’s wonderful and unique Eighth Day Books. The beginning of my official coming out as a poet in training. And the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Caryn has been so encouraging and helpful to me all these years. A selfless and energetic and innovative person with a heart of gold. Thanks for helping me along on this continuing journey, Caryn. It is such great fun and so very creatively satisfying.
Above: August 12, 2010, Meads Corner Coffeehouse, Wichita, Kansas. The Wayward Poets – meeting weekly from 2010 through today. From left: Maggie Close, Glenn Fisher, Pat Latta, Dixie Brown (standing), Pat Beckemeyer, and Virginia Hays.
Above: August 5, 2010, Meads Corner Coffeehouse, Wichita, Kansas. The Wayward Poets – meeting weekly from 2010 through today. From left: Pat Beckemeyer, Dixie Brown, Roy Beckemeyer, Virginia Hays, Pat Latta.
