Poetry reading set at Irish Eyes in Milton July 27

The Irish Eyes-Broadkill Press reading series continues with Howard Gofreed and Russell Endo appearking at 7 p.m., Wednesday, July 27, at Irish Eyes Restaurant in Milton.

Once introduced by publisher Jamie Brown at a poetry reading as "either the most optimistic pessimist or pessimistic optimist" he had ever met, Gofreed takes the Fifth Amendment on this question, as his law degree and 10 years of practice as a trial lawyer many years ago taught him. He is a former member of the Folger Shakespeare Poetry Committee, co-founder of the Medium Rare Poetry Group and former director, Autumn in Arlington Reading Series, Arlington, Va. His first collection of poems "Postcard From Bologna" was published by the Broadkill Press in 2014.

Endo received his bachelor of arts in combined literature in English and French from Yale College and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Endo's work has been published in journals including The Journal of Biological Chemistry, American Friends Delegation Report on China After Tiananmen, American Poetry Review, Antioch Poetry Review, Cortland Review, Delaware Poetry Review, Ploughshares Poetry and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He was a member of Etheridge Knight's Free Peoples Poetry Workshop of Philadelphia, and his poem "Susumu, My Name" was the basis for a jazz orchestration by Sumi Tonooka that appeared on PBS. He currently sits on the boards of the Wilmington Friends School and the Greene Street Friends School in Philadelphia, and he has received a professional fellowship in poetry from the Delaware Division of the Arts.