Event
Riverwood Poetry Series
The series takes place in person on the second Wednesday of the month from September 2025 through May 2026. Each night begins with an open mic featuring readers with one poem (one page) and continues with a poetry reading featuring regionally or nationally known poets.
Riverwood Poetry Series @ Real Art Ways will host Charles Rafferty, Srini Mandavilli, Sherri Bedingfield, and Steven Ostrowski on Wednesday, January 7, 2025, at 7 pm at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street, Hartford, Connecticut. There will be an open mic this month for the first ten poets who sign up. The authors’ books will be available for purchase during the book signing & conversation, and beer, wine, soft drinks, and snacks will also be available for purchase at concessions. Free admission. Bring a friend! Ample parking is available at Real Art Ways.
Charles Rafferty is the author of 14 poetry books and chapbooks, most recently The Appendectomy Grin (BOA, 2025), A Cluster of Noisy Planets (BOA, 2021), The Problem With Abundance (Grayson Books, 2019) Something an Atheist Might Bring Up at a Cocktail Party (Mayapple Press, 2018), and The Smoke of Horses (BOA Editions, 2017). His stories have been collected in Saturday Night at Magellan’s (Fomite Press, 2013) and Somebody Who Knows Somebody (Gold Wake Press, 2021). His poems have appeared in Gettysburg Review, The New Yorker, O, The Oprah Magazine, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Rhino, and The Southern Review. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. Currently, he co-directs the MFA program at Albertus Magnus College and teaches in the Westport Writers’ Workshop. He lives in Sandy Hook, CT.
Srinivas Mandavilli is Chief of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at Hartford Hospital and the author of the chapbook Gods in the Foyer (Antrim Books, 2016). His work has been featured in the anthologies Hum Aiseich Bolte (Trancscendent Zero Press, 2022) and Of Hartford in Many Lights (Grayson Books, 2024), as well as numerous literary journals, including Rattle, Poetry Wales, The Night Heron Barks, New Square, Modern Haiku, The Raven’s Perch, Verse Virtual, and Journal of the American Medical Association. Mandavilli is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and lives in Connecticut with his wife, Bela.
Sherri (Sheryll) Bedingfield worked as a family therapist and psychotherapist for over 30 years. She has served on the Board of Riverwood Poetry Series held at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut, and she has co-hosted Bloomfield Library & Wintonbury Poetry Series. Bedingfield has volunteered, is a board member with Hartford Creative Contest for the last eight years, working with Hartford students in grades 4-12. Bedingfield is the author of two previous poetry collections: Transitions and Transformations and The Clattering: Voices from Old Forfarshire, Scotland. Her work appears in the Journal of Poetry Therapy and many other journals and anthologies.
Steven Ostrowski is a widely-published poet, fiction writer, painter and songwriter. His novel, The Highway of Spirit and Bone, was published in 2023 by Lefora Publications and has been called “…a literary road trip for the ages.” His poetry chapbook, Persons of Interest, won the 2021 Wolfson Chapbook Prize and was published in 2022. Steven and his son Ben coauthored a full-length collaboration called Penultimate Human Constellation, published in 2018 by Tolsun Books. Steven’s newest book of poems, Life Field, was published in early 2024 by Impspired Press (U.K.). He is Professor Emeritus at Central Connecticut State University.
About Riverwood Poetry Series The Riverwood Poetry Series, Inc., is a non-profit arts organization committed to promoting and appreciating poetry in Connecticut. RPS, Inc. is invested in providing entertaining and thought-provoking programming while responding to the needs of our neighbors through community outreach and collaboration. From their Facebook page: “The Riverwood Poetry Series has innovated many programs since our inception, all free to the public. We provide entertaining and thought-provoking poetry in a relaxed atmosphere.”
