Long Beach’s Grassroots Poetry And Literary Scene Is Underground No More
By Mary Anne Perez
From: Long Beach Press-Telegram
The Friday night crowd clapped, hooted and snapped their fingers for each poet who stood up to read their work at Fox Coffee House. The poets read from their phones, mostly, expressing loss, frustration with societal expectations and anger at injustice.
One fantasized about dealing with a mechanical friend.
“Time does not stop simply because your friend is a robot,” one man read.
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Book Writers Group at Robertson Branch Library 
When did you attend the Fresno State MFA program, and what genre did you study?
Editor’s note: Naomi Hirahara has been a pillar of the mystery community since she published her first Mas Arai novel in 2004. To commemorate her final Mas novel, I asked Mike Sonksen, a.k.a. Mike the Poet, bard and historian of contemporary Los Angeles, to go on a walk with Naomi and write a profile that would do her justice. It was a huge task, but I believe he succeeded.
Mary McCoy & Camp So-and-So at El Sereno Branch Library – Teen Event
The most recent interview by Poetry.LA. is of Long Beach Poet Sarah Thursday. She is also the founder/publisher of Sadie Girl Press, which she founded in 2014 to create “print form collections of poetry, art, and beyond,” as the presses website states. As self-declared “poetry advocate,” she hosts readings series, leads workshops, organizes literary events, and promotes poets by publishing their work in chapbooks, anthologies. Her most recent chapbook is Seventeen Poems Not About a Lover from Arroyo Seco Press.
We were standing in the non-fiction, cultural studies aisle of Book Star on Ventura Boulevard when a woman came around the corner and sternly said, “No laughing!” We blushed and then, she smiled.
Courtney Fletcher & The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm at Arroyo Seco Regional Library – Kids Event
Los Angeles Literature 