Los Angeles Literature Events 4/04/16 – 4/10/16
Poets & Allies for Resistance and Monthly Open Mic
A monthly poetry event focusing on social justice issues, featuring an open mic and book giveaway, and hosted by: Khadija Anderson.
Features: Karimah Tennyson-Marsh and Xternal Mind. More info: Khadija Anderson 206-381-2567. Bring 1-2 poems about Social Justice or come to listen!
Where: The Sidewalk Cafe
Date: Monday the 4th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm (6:45 open mic sign-ups)
Address: 2057 N. Los Robles (at Woodbury), Alta/Pasdena, CA 91104
Website: http://www.facebook.com/groups/792556747483331/
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Mike the PoeT’s Spoken Word Guide to LA
Magnanimous, calamitous Los Angeles—finding the city’s lyrical rhythm in honor of National Poetry Month …
From: [citizine]
We might all think we’re poets after three IPAs and a tequila chaser, but when people ask Mike Sonksen about his occupation, he actually gets to say he’s a poet. Before you question the legitimacy of a profession in poetry, might we remind you that poetry may actually predate literacy on this planet?
Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate, on eating too many chilaquiles and returning to L.A.
By Alex Espinoza
From: The L.A. Times
When he was young, Juan Felipe Herrera wanted to be a public speaker. “I dreamed of standing in front of an audience and giving these long speeches,” he explains by phone. But then he discovered poetry, and the color of the world changed. “People talk about seeing things through rose-colored glasses, but I started seeing things through poetry-colored glasses.”
On April 9, Herrera will be awarded the L.A. Times Book Prize’s 2015 Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. “You’ve written poetry, prose, children’s books, young adult books and even plays,” I ask him. “Is there something you haven’t achieved that I don’t know about? Did you climb Mt. Everest?”
Review:Here Comes The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles
From: Labloga
The angels here
have pigeon’s wings
blue collars
washed in sweat
the common salt
in tears
tongues swirl
in a stew of cultures
singing asphalt songs
in the mist of seagulls
bebop atop
the San Andreas
a humble plate
of beings
– “Los Angeles” by Kamau Daáood (from The Coiled Serpent)
Los Angeles Literature Events 3/28/16 – 4/03/16
The Instant at Ham & Eggs Tavern
Writ Large Press presents The Instant, a monthly reading series that serves up local and visiting literary contributors, unique live music/performance and everyone’s favorite go-to food in a cup, Instant Ramen.
Episode 2, features:
Vickie Vertiz was born and raised in Bell Gardens. Her writing explores the intersections of feminism, class, and Latino sub-cultures through everyday beauty. Her writing is widely anthologized, found in publications such as Open the Door (from McSweeney’s and The Poetry Foundation). Her poetry collection, Swallows was released in 2013 by Finishing Line Press.
Jervey Tervalon grew up in Los Angeles, received his MFA from UC Irvine, where he wrote his first novel Understand This, based on his experiences at Locke High School. He has written six novels, now teaches at UC Santa Barbara, and in 2012 co-created the now-annual LitFest in Pasadena.
Jade Chang has covered arts and culture as a journalist and editor. She is the recipient of a Sundance Fellowship for Arts Journalism, the AIGA/Winterhouse Award for Design Criticism, and the James Houston Memorial Scholarship for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. The Wangs vs. the World is her debut novel.
Jesse Bliss is writer and co-creator of the chapbook I Love myself Golden, based on a decade of teaching creative writing at Central Juvenile Hall through the Inside OUT Writers program.
Toni Ann Johnson is an actress and writer, and won the 1998 Humanitas Prize and the Christopher Award for her teleplay Ruby Bridges and a second Humaitas Prize in 2004 for the teleplay Crown Heights about the 2001 Crown Heights riots. Her debut novel Remedy for a Broken Angel (2014) won numerous awards.
And a live music intermission by Runson Willis III.
Where: Ham & Eggs Tavern
Date: Monday the 28th
Time: 8 pm – 11:45 pm
Address: 433 W. 8th St., Los Angeles, CA 90014
Website: http://www.facebook.com/events/1338625232821708/
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LA poets document the city in ‘Coiled Serpent’ anthology
By Richard Guzman
From: L.A. Daily News
As students take part in a guitar workshop inside his Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore in Sylmar, Los Angeles Poet Laureate Luis Rodriguez grabs a copy of the latest book published by his nonprofit organization.
He walks outside to a small table and sets down his blue Winnie the Pooh coffee cup, exposing a faded forearm tattoo of a long-haired indigenous woman as he flips through the pages of “Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes & Shifts of Los Angeles.”
“I love the beauty of it. The poems really stand out, and I think it’s really reflective of the city. The city is beautiful in so many weird ways,” says the poet and novelist, who is perhaps best known for his memoir “Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.”
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Los Ángeles Literary History: Hildegarde Flanner
Note: This is the first article in an occasional series I’ll be doing, posting articles about the writers, communities and venues that make up Los Ángeles’ literary history. The first article goes back to the early days of Los Angeles and one of the first poets to call Los Angeles home for close to 40 years.
From: Facebook, Encyclopædia Britannica and berkeleydailyplanet.com
Hildegarde Flanner, born June 3?, 1899, Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.—died May 27, 1987, Calistoga, California, was an American poet, essayist, and playwright known for her traditional poems that conjured images of nature and the California landscape and spoke to her Fpassion for the environment.
Flanner was the youngest of three daughters born to Francis William and Mary Ellen Hockett Flanner, who brought up their children in a progressive and intellectual household with a strong appreciation for the arts. In 1912 their father committed suicide, leaving the family a large sum of money to live on. Upon graduation from high school, Flanner briefly attended Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia, and then moved to California, where she continued her studies at the University of California,Berkeley, beginning in 1919.
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Frontier justice was brutal in Los Angeles, and ‘Eternity Street’ gets to the heart of the matter
By Jill Leovy
From: The Los Angeles Times
Now we’re talking.
This is the refrain that leaps to mind after plunging into John Mack Faragher’s “Eternity Street” — and it is a plunge. Think of every Western movie you’ve ever watched, then consider: The darkest of them are soft, pink cotton candy compared to what actually occurred in lawless frontier towns such as Los Angeles.
But Faragher’s fascinating account of the twisted threads of murder, ethnic violence and mob justice in 19th century Southern California is not just a treat for L.A. history buffs. His book is also is on point.
Unlike so many chronicles of violence, it gets to the right question: Why do people get murdered — certain people, that is, at certain times, in certain ways?
Notice, the question is not why do people commit murder? That is a little like asking why people lust, hate and covet — and why they seek to prevail.
Because they do. Because they can.
What the Green Poets of Venice reveal when they meet each Tuesday
by Nita Lelyveld
From: L.A. Times
The Green Poets of Venice appreciate the power in a pause.
They save space in their lives to contemplate. They write. Each week they meet to share the carefully chosen words they’ve distilled from their thoughts and experiences.
Now in its 14th year, their poetry workshop started in an adult education class at Santa Monica College. The students, while learning about great poems, were encouraged to write their own. Since it was new to them, instructor Bill Robertson labeled them “green.”
When the class was cut, Robertson continued guiding his poets for free. When he retired to Florida, they kept at it without him.
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Los Angeles Literature Events 3/21/16 – 3/27/16
Open Mic Poetry Night
In celebration of World Poetry Day, we invite you to join us to listen or take turns at the microphone to read, recite and/or perform one poem at a time. Contact Silvia Cisneros at 310-458-8684 with any questions.
Where: Pico Branch, SMPL
Date: Monday the 21st
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 2201 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: http://calendar.smgov.net/library/eventsignup.asp?ID=20097
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