Wordsmiths Reading Series
Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Julie Standig, and Tom Mallouk
Friday, October 2, 7:30 p.m., Tyler Hall 142
About Jeanne Marie Beaumont
Jeanne Marie Beaumont is author of five books of poetry beginning with Placebo Effects, a winner of the National Poetry Series, followed by Curious Conduct, Burning of the Three Fires, Letters from Limbo, and most recently, Lessons with Scissors. She is also coeditor of The Poets’ Grimm anthology and author of the verse play, Asylum Song, which had its premiere at HERE Arts in New York.
She formerly served as Director of the Frost Place Seminar and has also taught at Rutgers University, the Stonecoast MFA Program, and the 92nd St. Y. Born and raised in Delaware County, PA, she has lived in NYC for over forty years.
About Julie Standig
Julie Standig writes her poems on trains, tow paths and preferably over a large cup of coffee. She is the author of two poetry books, The Forsaken Little Black Book, (Kelsay Books) which was a finalist for an Eric Hoffer Award and the chapbook, Memsahib Memoirs (Plan B Press). Her poems have appeared in Schuylkill Valley Journal, Gyroscope Review, One Art, New Verse News, Macqueens’ Quinterly, Rat’s Ass Review, Keystone Anthology, PA Bards Anthology, Silver Birch Press and elsewhere.
She retired to Bucks County after a lifetime in New York and immediately found the River Heron Review which led to Chris Bursk’s Spring Workshop. She continues to be awed by the writing community she has found here.
About Tom Mallouk
Dr. Tom Mallouk has been a practicing psychotherapist for fifty years. For the past twenty, he has been transforming his interest in the healing possibilities of conversation and the spoken word into poetry. He was named Bucks County Poet Laureate in November 2022 and leveraged his status to initiate, create and curate the Poet’s Corner, a weekly poetry feature in the Bucks County Herald which now publishes a poem each week from among the hundreds submitted by local Bucks County residents.
His poetry and creative nonfiction have been widely published. His chapbook Nantucket Revisited came out in May 2013 and a second chapbook The Write Metaphor in June 2023. A chapbook To Love You More which includes poems by his wife, Dr. Eileen Engle is forthcoming as well as a full-length book in late 2026 or early 2027.
Grant Clauser
Thursday, October 22, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m., Tyler Hall 142
About Grant Clauser
Grant Clauser is the author of six books, most recently Temporary Shelters from Cornerstone Press. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Greensboro Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review and anthologies including Keystone Poetry and The Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia. His books and poems have won numerous awards including the 2023 Verse Daily Poem Prize. He’s an editor at The New York Times/Wirecutter and teaches in the MFA program at Rosemont College in Pennsylvania.
Michelle Messina Reale, New Poet Laureate, and Runners-Up
Saturday, November 14, 1 – 3 p.m., Tyler Hall 142
About Michelle Messina Reale
Michelle Reale is a poet, writer and full professor at Arcadia University. She is the 2026 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, the Director of Arcadia University’s Low-Residency MFA Program and the author of several poetry collections, including her latest Let it be Extravagant (Bordighera Press, 2025). She is the founding and managing editor of both OVUNQUE SIAMO: New Italian-American Writing and The Red Fern Review.
A History of Wordsmiths Reading Series
Since the 1960s, Bucks County Community College’s Wordsmiths Reading Series has featured some of the most distinguished and admired poets of our times. The list of poets from the 1960s includes Allen Ginsberg (with cushion and guitars), Galway Kinnell, William Stafford, Richard Hugo, Kenneth Koch, Nikki Giovanni, Carolyn Forché, Derek Walcott, Lucille Clifton, Denise Levertov, David Ignatow, Joseph Brodsky, Philip Levine, James Tate, Wendell Berry, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Robert Bly, John Logan, Carol Muske-Dukes, Tess Gallagher, Maxine Kumin, and James Dickey. The 1970s featured, among others, Etheridge Knight, Gary Snyder, John Logan, Carolyn Kizer, Robert Creeley, Alan Dugan, Judith Sherwin, Adrienne Rich, and W. D. Snodgrass. In recent years, the series has continued to highlight contemporary literary luminaries such as Sharon Olds, Robert Pinsky, Martín Espada, Bob Holman, Mark Doty, Gerald Stern, James Richardson, Evie Shockley, Anne Marie Macari, Dean Rader, Charles Simic, Jericho Brown, Richard Blanco, Li-Young Lee, Chase Twichell, and Brenda Hillman. Additionally, in recent years, the series has featured some of the most notable fiction writers of our time, including Andre Dubus and Ben Marcus. The awards bestowed on our featured writers are too numerous to name, and include the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book award, and the PEN Literary Award.
Cultural Significance
As the founder and leader of the renowned Wordsmiths series, the College has distinguished itself among Philadelphia-area colleges and universities, and has become the home of a vibrant community of writers, poetry lovers, and supporters of the arts. Wordsmiths readings are always widely attended. Guest writers are often paired with inspiring local ones, and the audience is typically made up of a lively mix of students, faculty, and the community at-large. The series gives students the opportunity to connect what they learn in the classroom with the wider world by attending high caliber free readings on their own campus. Simply put, the series places Bucks County Community College at the center of the region’s literary life.
The Wordsmiths Reading Series is funded by BCCC’s Cultural Programming Committee.