By Brian Dunlap
During the Coronavirus pandemic, poet Angelina Sáenz revised her monthly open mic, La Palabra, and made it a weekly series for 10 weeks: 10 Poets in 10 Weeks. One poet a week was featured. They ranged from Jenise Miller to Willie Perdomo to Octavio Quintanilla. She’s been the host of the Highland Park-based open mic for just over two and a half years.
Continue reading “News From Poet Angelina Sáenz”
The National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. (NBPF), a not-for-profit organization founded in 2016, has selected Rich Ferguson to serve as the State of California Beat Poet Laureate for a two-year term from Sept. 2020 to Sept. 2022.
A new volume of quintessential L.Á. poet Wanda Coleman’s poetry, “Wicked Enchantment” and eidted by poet Terrance Hayes, has brought the Watts born poet into the spotlight. Continue reading Literary History: The Fearless Invention of One of L.A.’s Greatest Poets
By Brian Dunlap
Poets and book lovers braved L.A.’s rush hour traffic. It was a Thursday. February 27th. The destination was Diehl Marcus & Company in Hollywood, a Curio Dealer and Event Space of finely curated antiques, home decor and accessories from around the world. The crowd arrived for Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins’ release party for her poetic memoir Let The Buzzards Eat Me Whole.
By Peter Mishler
FROM: Lit Hub
For the next installation in our interview series with contemporary poets, Peter Mishler corresponded with Victoria Chang. Victoria Chang’s books include OBIT (April 2020), Barbie Chang, The Boss, Salvinia Molesta, and Circle. Her children’s picture book, Is Mommy?, was illustrated by Marla Frazee and published by Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster. It was named a New York Times Notable Book. Her middle grade novel Love, Love will be published by Sterling Publishing in 2020. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, a Pushcart Prize, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and a Lannan Residency Fellowship. She lives in Los Angeles and is the program chair of Antioch’s Low-Residency MFA Program.
Continue reading “Victoria Chang On The Self And Its Many Deaths”
by Brian Dunlap
DJ spinned records. Conversations rose and intermingled in the air. “be/trouble” by bridgette bianca rested on a card table near Writ Large Press’ Peter Woods. The lady of the evening, professor and poet bridgette bianca stood, by the entrance greeting attendees as they arrived. Some already found this night so necessary, they needed their book signed before the evening began.
Continue reading “The Release of “be/trouble” by bridgette bianca”
By Steve Salvidar
FROM: Los Angeles Times
Author and former Los Angeles poet laureate Luis J. Rodriguez says he’s been visiting California’s prisons for more than 40 years since leaving his own gang youth behind and losing 25 friends to drugs and street violence.
Continue reading “Luis J. Rodriguez On Changing Lives Through Poetry”
By Patrick J. Kiger
FROM: L.A. Times
Most mornings, poet, memoirist and essayist Luis J. Rodriguez gets up around 5 a.m. at his San Fernando Valley home, reads for a few minutes for inspiration and then quickly goes to his computer to start writing. “I read, and then it’s, hey, man, I’ve got to do something!” he says. “If I can get a couple of hours in the morning, then I’m happy.”
Continue reading “Why Luis J. Rodriguez is Perpetually on the Run”
By Brian Dunlap
Earlier this month, Compton poet Jenise Miller hosted the release party for her debut chapbook The Blvd. (DSTL Arts, 2019) at a packed Patria Coffee. The audience connected with her poems that depicted and celebrated the vibrant Compton community she grew up in. The book centers around the apartment complex she lived in called The Blvd. and depicts in part, her black Panamanian heritage.
By Scott Neuffer
FROM: Trampset
My wife tells me not to talk about it: her trauma. She survived the dirty wars in Peru. If you talk, you die, she tells me. People don’t talk about it. The dead are dead. The living go on. Sorry, it’s not my place, I say. But these ghosts. I can feel them.
Continue reading “Book Review: Let the Buzzards Eat Me Whole”
Los Angeles Literature 