A trio of accomplished Wisconsin poets will appear together at Woodland Pattern Book Center at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 28 for a reading. Ed Werstein, Thomas J. Erickson and Mark Zimmerman are tradesmen, faculty members and lawyers who moonlight in a literary realm. Werstein, who spent more than two decades working in manufacturing, has always nurtured a love of poetry. Through the power of the pen, Werstein advocates for the working poor and oppressed in society. His first chapbook, Who Are We Then?, was published in 2013 and his poems have also appeared in Verse Wisconsin, Blue Collar Review and other publications.
Erickson, a Milwaukee attorney, is a native of Kohler and a graduate of Beloit College and Marquette University Law School. His chapbook, The Lawyer Who Died in the Courthouse Bathroom, was released to wide acclaim in 2013. Zimmerman, a UW-Milwaukee graduate, has worked as a professor both in Wisconsin and abroad. He was awarded the Johnsons Controls Award for Teaching Excellence from the Milwaukee School of Engineering in 2013. His poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. The three men will perform a free reading and celebrate the release of Zimmerman’s newest poetry collection, Impersonations, a clever collection of verse written in the voice of historic or literary personae.
