Tosh Berman & Devin Johnston reading at The Observable Reading Series in St. Louis

October 7, 2019
7:30 p.m.

Tosh Berman

Tosh Berman was born in the late fifties in Los Angeles, the son of Wallace and Shirley Berman, mainstays of that scene described by the California historian Richard Candida Smith as “Utopia and Dissent.”  Raised in Topanga Canyon, his early adult years were taken up in poetry — his eighties poems The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding were re-printed in 2014 — and public access television production.  Ultimately he has been called upon to be executor of his father Wallace’s estate.  Tosh: Growing Up in Wallace Berman’s World is just out from City Lights.  The publisher of TamTam Books, Tosh Berman vlogs on YouTube and writes cultural journalism that’s published widely.

Devin Johnston

Devin Johnston was born in 1970 in Canton, New York, and grew up in Winston-Salem.  Educated at Oberlin and the University of Chicago, he teaches now at Saint Louis University.  He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Far-Fetched (2015), Sources (2008), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Aversions (2004), and Telepathy (2001).  His prose writing includes the critical study Precipitations: Contemporary American Poetry as Occult Practice (2002) and Creaturely and Other Essays(2009).  A former poetry editor for the Chicago Review, Johnston co-founded and co-edits the literary publisher Flood Editions with Michael O’Leary.

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Dressel’s Public House
419 N Euclid Ave,
St. Louis, MO 63108

The Observable Readings Series, brought to you by St. Louis Poetry Center, welcomes poets to Dressel’s Public House (CWE) on first Mondays.  Reading begins at 7:30 p.m. in the upstairs loft of the restaurant.

Suggested $5.00 donation at the door.

Curated by: Jeff Hamilton & Joshua Kryah