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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Poetry Road Trip: 30 Poets, Four Cities, This Week
From: Labloga.com
by Michael Sedano
Billing themselves as Las Lunas Locas, thirty women from Los Angeles begin a caravan Thursday, driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco to launch a four-city poetry tour with readings also in Sacramento, Oakland, and Fresno.
Save the date! If you’re in the neighborhood, the readings will offer memorable work in a unique peripatetic ambiente.
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First News About 11th Annual Celebrating Words Festival
Here is the first news about this years “Celebrating Words Festival,” the 11th edition.
When: Saturday, June 25th
Where: Pacoima City Hall, 13520 Van Nuys Blvd, Pacoima, CA 91331
Time: 12 PM – 6 PM
Featured Poets/Authors:
TBA
“Edu”tainment:
TBA
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The Sky Isn’t Blue
Review by John Venegas
From: Angel City Review
Bear with me for a moment.
Have you ever been in group therapy? Group therapy has a stigma, partially deserved and largely undeserved, for being this boring, sad assemblage of people half-whispering self-help mantras or trying to find their collective “happy places”. But do you know what the real purpose of group therapy is? Empathy. In moments of depression and confusion, it is almost impossible not to feel an intense abandonment and persecution, as if the insanity of the world has turned its whimsical focus on you and you alone. Group therapy is meant to reveal to the individual seeking help that they are much more than just an individual; to lift the veil blocking out light and sound and connection with other people, many of whom are experiencing eerily similar pain and perceived isolation.
Los Angeles Literature Events 3/14/16 – 3/20/16
Mike Sonksen and Joe Gardner at Fox Coffee House
The 2nd Mondays Poetry Party features two street smart poets, Mike Sonksen and Joe Gardner, who will tell you stories of identity and growing up in Southern California. Join us at Fox Coffee House at 7:00 pm, with open reading sign-ups starting at 6:45 pm. Hosted by G. Murray Thomas and Sarah Thursday.
Mike Sonksen is a 3rd-generation Los Angeles native who has published over 500 essays and poems with publications and websites such as KCET, Poets & Writers Magazine, Wax Poetics, Southern California Quarterly, LA Weekly, OC Weekly, Los Angeles Review of Books and many others. His column “L.A. Letters” has appeared on KCET’s website for four years, and celebrates bright moments from L.A. literary history. He has been published in two anthologies, and his next book, Poetics of Location, is forthcoming from Writ Large Press.
Joe Gardner s a 2nd generation American drifter and writer, whose full-length collection, In the Shadow of the Bomb, was released in 2015. He is the Founder and hired gun for Working Class Production, as well as creator and co-producer of The Last Sunday, An Evening of Poetry and Art. His work has appeared in The Modern Drunkard Magazine, The San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, Cadence Collective, Spilt ink Poetry, as well as in several anthologies.
Where: Fox Coffee House
Date: Monday, the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 437 W. Willow St., Long Beach, CA 90806
Website: http://www.localendar.com/public/CadenceCollective
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New L.A. Lit Podcast
Writ Large Press x Gerren Kelsaw present The Word at Large literary podcast.
Bringing you readings & interviews & all things Lit L.A 2 times a month. Subscribe on Itunes @ https://itun.es/us/To47ab.c
