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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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.
In 1995, Sue Landers needed a job. The 24-year-old was pursuing her MFA in poetry at George Mason University in Washington, D.C., and needed to support herself while she was in school.
The Hazards of Good Fortune, Los Ángeles based writer and screenwriter Seth Greenland’s new novel, will be released August 21, 2018 by Europa Editions. It’s a story of interconnecting lives, in which generations, races, and religions converge and conflict. Until August you can read his fifth novel the old-fashion way: as a serialization online at The Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB).
A lot has happened in Los Ángeles Literature in May. Writers were running workshops for the community and they all came together on the 19th and 20th in Pasadena’s Theater District for the 7th Annual LitFest Pasadena, celebrating local writers and presses. Plus, as many L.A. writers teach at local high schools, community colleges and universities and as the school year ends, they’ve been reflecting on the impact they’ve had on their students. One has been recognized for his teaching with an award.
It began 12 years ago, the concept for my poetry collection Orange Lady. It was 2006, that summer I had gone to VONA (Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation) in San Francisco, where I had taken a writing workshop with Chris Abani. At VONA, I connected with writers who also lived in Los Angeles, and upon my return, through them, I learned about Ruth Forman
I can’t help myself: I dress up to go see her. It’s 9 am on a Thursday morning when I leave my house, 50-some degrees in Los Angeles and so windy that palm trees are curved and swaying, my car trembling with exertion on the freeway.
