Category: Articles

Articles, Los Angeles Literary Events

Two Idiots Peddling Poetry and Shout! the Open Mic Are Joining Forces

By Brian Dunlap

As more of the Los Ángeles literary community returns to in-person events, two long-running Orange County open mics, Two Idiots Peddling Poetry and Shout! the Open Mic, are joining forces, as Two Idiots said on Facebook, to “maintain an online reading.” They want to “continue to connect with our extended community beyond the borders of Southern California.”

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How ‘Summertime’s’ young L.A. poets transformed ‘Raya’s’ Carlos López Estrada

By Carlos Aguilar
FROM: L.A. Times

Spoken word poetry transmits messages through a singular language: deft prose molded into a visceral performance by rhythm, intonation and physicality. The delivery turns words into daggers of truth, for soul-searching or external confrontation.

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Long Beach State’s Gerald Locklin, Bukowski’s Drinking Pal, Left A Lasting Mark On Writing — and Writers

By John Penner
FROM: Los Angeles Times

A Cal State Long Beach classroom, 1985 or so. Gerald Locklin looks every bit his nickname “Bear,” with bushy salt-and-pepper hair and beard, thick glasses, rumpled polo shirt, jeans and Birkenstocks with socks. He leans heavily on the lectern, and opens class the way he always did, asking in his Rochester accent, “What’s haaappening?”

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LA poet laureate Lynne Thompson on the ‘kernels of poems’ inside all of us

By Kathryn Barnes
FROM: Greater L.A.

Lynne Thompson is LA’s 2021 poet laureate. The program is a partnership between the Department of Cultural Affairs and the LA Public Library that aims to enhance the city’s appreciation of the literary arts and reach people who have limited exposure to creative writing. 

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Poet Laureate of West Hollywood Brian Sonia-Wallace, Receives Award From Academy of American Poets

By Brian Dunlap

Last week the American Academy of Poets announced its 2021 Poet Laureate Fellows, including West Hollywood Poet Laureate, Brian Sonia-Wallace. Sonia-Wallace, along with 22 other individual awardees “serve as Poets Laureate of states and cities across the U. S. and will be leading public poetry programs in their respective communities in the year ahead,” the Academy said in a press release. The Fellows will each receive $50,000 (or $25,000 each in the case of the shared Poet Laureate position in Montana) for a combined total of $1.1 million. In addition, the Academy will provide $100,000+ total to 14 local 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations that have agreed to support the Fellows’ proposed projects. 

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