Spring doesn't officially begin until later this month, but activity is already blooming at the local <strong>Woodland Pattern Book Center</strong>, where this week offers an array of outstanding author readings for the poetry enthusiast. First on the docket is the “Portals and Piers Anthology Reading,” which will feature five poets whose writings have appeared in the Sunday Morning Press journal <em>Portals and Piers</em>. Authors include Stephen Anderson, first-place winner of the Kay Saunders Memorial New Poet Award in the 2005 Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets' Triad Contest; Chris Austin, whose works have appeared in the online journal <em>Burning Word</em> and the magazine <em>Verse Wisconsin</em>; Paul Joseph Enea, a local artist whose poetry has appeared in <em>Blue Canary Press</em>, <em>Verse Wisconsin</em> and <em>Porcupine</em>; Elliot O. Lipchik, a Milwaukee transplant who has published original works in <em>Porcupine</em> and <em>Chiron Review</em>, among others; and Steve Pump, a locally raised poet whose works have appeared in <em>The Salmon</em>, <em>Bratting</em>,<em> Soup</em> and <em>Crux</em>. All five authors will present original works on Friday, March 9, at 7 p.m.<br /><br />The following evening, March 10, also at 7 p.m., modernist Michael Heller will read from his poems, essays, memoirs and fictional tales. Heller's poetry was most recently showcased in a volume titled <em>This Constellation Is a Name: Collected Poems 1965-2010</em>. His writings have won widespread acclaim, notably from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Poetry Society of America, and the Fund for Poetry. Both events are free of charge.
