Category Archives: Poetry

Eloise Klein Healy, L.A.’s First Poet Laureate, Welcomes Caroline Kennedy to ALOUD

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The announcement of the City’s first Poet Laureate position came in December, and ever since Eloise Klein Healy has been fast at work creating a structure for Los Angeles to think about poetry. That task, although daunting, sounds poetic in itself: imagining landscapes and unlikely settings for poetry to take place, listening for ways to reflect L.A.’s diverse voices, visualizing tangible objects to disperse poetry. Healy, who has written seven books of poetry, has also played a pivotal role in the local literary community as an educator and publisher.  As the founder of Arktoi Books, an imprint of Red Hen Press for lesbian authors, the co-founder of Eco-Arts, and the founder of Antioch University’s low-residency M.F.A. program, she is well-versed in not shying away from new challenges.

“I grew up in a café, and I learned that whoever comes in, you serve them, and I feel like everyone in the city of Los Angeles is my customer,” she says. So what might Angelenos look forward to with Healy as their server of poetry? She’s proposed an initial list of projects spanning from events in schools and libraries, to symposiums with teachers about how poetry is taught, to handing out local poems on postcards, to pop-up poetry events in barbershops and buses. “The more I can reach neighborhood spots, the more people are going to feel there’s something special about poetry—this is somebody reaching out to them, instead of them being scolded that they don’t read poetry,” she explains. “I’m a big believer in the power of the small.” But she just might go big too—she’s proposed an L.A. Poetry Day at Dodger Stadium.

As Healy searches for novel spots for poetry, she also wants to reach out to places like the Los Angeles Public Library that already have a supportive infrastructure and track record of celebrating poetry. On Tuesday, April 9 at ALOUD, Healy will converse with long-time poetry advocate Caroline Kennedy. Kennedy’s new anthology, Poems to Learn by Heart, collects over a hundred pieces that celebrate life moments and speaks to a range of readers. “It will be a far-ranging discussion on the role of poetry in the education and the development of children, which is particularly related to language and imagination,” says Healy, who has been an admirer of Kennedy’s commitment to and excellent taste in curating poetry.

What is Healy’s standard for good poetry? “Poetry is imagination acting on language and language acting on imagination, and all of these things that poetry asks of us are good training in our lives.” She later adds, “But poetry doesn’t have to be hard, just well-written.” Join ALOUD on April 9, for “Poetry to Live By.”

Bookmark This! #6

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Happy New Year, everyone!

To ring in 2013, I’m excited to bring you another set of reading recommendations from more library enthusiasts.  This edition’s selections sweep us up in prose poetry; teach us about modern feminism; take us on a daring escape with a mother and her son; make us examine the concept of money in a fantasy world; and remind us about the intangible essentials to help survive the winter.

D. J. Waldie is the author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir and other books about Los Angeles and Southern California. The New York Times praised his “gorgeous distillation of architectural and social history” in 2007. His most recent book is House, a collaboration with Diane Keaton.

D. J. recommends Even So: New and Selected Poems by Gary Young.

“I began reading Gary Young almost 45 years ago, accompanying a writer of subtlety and emotional honesty as he perfected a form of prose poetry that exactly captures the way the ordinary and extraordinary intersect in daily life. Recollected in Young’s spare but lyrical sentences, episodes of intense significance are released from the humblest materials: a gnarled apple tree, a child’s nightmare, a scar, a meal. In this collection, drawn from his previous books with the addition of new poems, you can follow the arc of a whole life in which beauty and tragedy mingle just as they do for all of us. Work, illness, joy, loss, birth, and ever-returning nature become the matter of a man’s quiet habits. I have prayed with these poems for years, certain they are redemptive. The bravest deed, these poems assert, is to be present in this broken world with unceasing wonder and forgiveness always ready.”

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Kenon Breazeale is a Member of the Library Foundation, art history aficionado and retired professor.  She can often be seen leading tours of the art and architecture of the historic Bertram Goodhue building and new Tom Bradley wing as a board member of the Central Library docents.  Join one of the walk-in tours (starting in the lobby in front of The Library Store) every weekday at 12:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Kenon recommends How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran.

“Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman is a raucous, highly entertaining treatment of a serious subject. Moran, a thirty-something columnist for the Times of London, is writing to an audience of young women (Katy Perry comes to mind) reluctant to call themselves feminists. Her challenge: ‘Do you have a vagina? Do you want to be in charge of it? Congratulations! You’re a feminist.’”

“Moran’s ability to move smoothly between personal memoir, political rant and cultural analysis makes the book an easy read.  With her background in music journalism, Moran is especially strong on the way in which celebrity culture has become the locale where young women absorb lessons about femininity. She finds much to criticize but celebrates the rise of role models like Lady Gaga, rock star godmother to “all the nerds, freaks, outcasts, intellectual pretenders, and lonely kids. “ In other words, all the kids like Moran herself, who grew up as an overweight, literature-loving misfit in a chaotic working class household.”

“One more nice thing about Moran–she’s a lover of libraries. Here is a link to an article bemoaning the Tory government’s plan to balance budgets by closing local libraries.”

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Dale Hailey is the Assistant Director of Advancement Services for the Library Foundation.  A master of organization and lover of jewelry, she also makes some delicious lemon bars that are often in high demand at the office.

Dale recommends Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue.

“Room is told from the perspective of a five year old boy, Jack, whose entire life has been spent in an 11’ by 11’ Room with his mother (Ma) and a few basic household items.   His mother was kidnapped at 19, confined in a shed and repeatedly raped; Jack was born of these rapes.  What I found compelling was the intense relationship between Jack and Ma.  Ma created an environment rich in storytelling, songs, discipline, learning and love for Jack.  She spent little time (at least in Jack’s eyes) feeling sorry for herself and more time making his world as big and “normal” as possible.  Jack and Ma escape from Room, and Jack narrates how their lives change now that his world has been turned upside down.  I didn’t think I would find a book about this subject matter enjoyable, but experiencing life through the eyes of Jack with his innocence and joy was quite unexpected.”

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Dawn Coppin is the Library Foundation’s Director of Foundation and Corporate Relations.  She has managed to avoid almost all jobs involving heavy machinery, toxic chemicals, and yappy dogs and hopes to maintain this record for the next 25 years of her working life.  As a hedonist wanna-be, Dawn nevertheless finds herself spending much of the day in front of a computer writing about the realities of life made better by the Los Angeles Public Library.

Dawn recommends Making Money by Terry Pratchett.

“What is a leader to do in the time of fiscal austerity when you need more money to maintain and expand social infrastructure?  Well, if you’re Lord Vetinari of Discworld renown then you hire/persuade Moist von Lipwig (the con-man in the gold suit who got the post office running again) to take charge of the Royal Mint and accompanying bank.  Of course, he has to answer to the chairman’s barked orders, has an unfathomable machine in the basement that appears to cause the (dis)appearance of gold, is served by a peculiar chief cashier who must be a vampire, and needs to fend off the murderous intentions of family members.  It’s a fascinating and funny look at a parallel financial system, the possibilities in moving away from the gold standard, and a thought-provoking examination of what is the role of government vis-à-vis public debt.”

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A third-year student at UCLA majoring in art, Lydia Glenn-Murray interns with the Library Foundation, works for Miranda July, and is the art editor of Graphite (the arts journal published through the Hammer museum).  Also an artist, she experiments with all sorts of media.

Lydia recommends Frederick by Leo Lionni.

“Frederick is a wonderful children’s book about a little family of mice fervently preparing for winter. As the family gathers food, only Frederick seems to be idle. When the stocks run out and spirits are low, however, Frederick brings out the supplies he collected: warm sunshine, vibrant colors and words strung into a lovely poem. His contribution is profound. As an artist myself, I am constantly developing my understanding of the role of the artist in society. Only recently did it occur to me that the foundation of my personal belief had so much to do with this sweet story that my parents read to me when I was a child. I believe that art making should be, at its core, a process of generosity and contribution to society.”

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Still looking for something else to read?  More than six million books are available at the Central Library and 72 branches throughout the city and online at www.lapl.org in print, digital and audio formats.

Happy reading and stay tuned for next month’s issue of Bookmark This!

-  Posted by Erin Sapinoso

Robert Hass on Writing as Attention

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Ten years ago, I took a poetry workshop with Robert Hass. One winter afternoon when half of the class, sitting along one side of a rectangular table, watched the snow fall through the windows behind the other half, Hass made a comment about a student’s poem as if looking at the poem through binoculars. The student had referenced a bird in their poem, the name of the bird I don’t remember, but Hass, an avid bird watcher, noted how that particular bird would not be in that particular landscape in that particular season that the poem inhabited. His correction was not to teach us ornithology, or to be petty, but to show us a flaw in the integrity of details. In all earnestness to this day, I try to apply this lesson to my writing. I try to call myself out on googling some unknown fact, incorporating the quick information into my writing. I try to ask: do I understand the ecosystem of this bird?

This fall’s ALOUD season kicked off with Hass conversing on his new book of essays, What Light Can Do. Again he showed there is little satisfaction in perfunctory answers as he read passages from the essays, sampling the breadth of topics he has wrestled with over the last 20 years—from war and his grandsons’ entrancement with armor, to the barren beauty of Robert Adams’ photographs of Los Angeles. His prose is not unlike his poetry, as moderator Carol Muske-Dukes remarked, in that the reader is aware that they are undergoing an experience. Perhaps that is the poet at work—honoring the experience—historical, literary, personal—handling the details with careful precision until they find something luminous.

Photo by Gary Leonard.

Listen to the podcast of the reading and conversation with Robert Hass here.

–Posted by Bridgette Bates

Newer Poets Primer: Part Three with Suzanne Lummis

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Tonight, July 24 at ALOUD, the 17th edition of the annual newer poets program comes to the stage with six of Los Angeles’ freshest voices. There’s still time to reserve your free ticket here. To get ready for this event, we caught up with the guest curators of the event. In Part One, we caught up with Gail Wronsky, and Part Two, with Eloise Klein Healy. Here, Suzanne Lummis, the poet, creator and director of the Los Angeles Poetry Festival and longtime instructor at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, traverses the exploding nooks and crannies of the Los Angeles poetry scene.

Can you talk about your own writing life in L.A.? How does the city influence your work?

Suzanne: Some people need to retreat to a remote place in order to write—for the most part I thrive on the expansiveness and the variety of this huge metropolis, the bombardment of sensations.  I love to drive, at least I do when I’m not in a log jam on the freeway, or trying to back up. (I hate backing up; few things make me feel more vulnerable). But contrary to how some see and portray Los Angeles, there’s an abundance of nature here too, certainly here in Highland Park, and that contact with the natural world has produced some interesting results in certain of my poems.  It’s urban nature—strange and rather fierce.

How do you think the L.A. poetry community has evolved over the years?

Suzanne: Just as it seems the Los Angeles Poetry community can’t get any bigger it expands exponentially—Pow! It was kind of semi-centralized when I first arrived in 1979.  Now it’s composed of more little coteries and circles of poets than anyone can keep track of. Most of these overlap, but others are more or less self-contained, floating off by themselves.

The Long Beach region’s just hopping and jumping. Some young folks down there started up a little press called Write Bloody and Bank-Heavy Press, and a whole scene sprang up around that; and a lot goes on at CSU Long Beach.  And Mt. SAC College has been producing readings and writers’ conferences, there on campus and over in Glendora. And certain folks in the Glendora fraternize with the San Gabriel Valley poets… on and on. In fact it’s hard to talk exclusively about Los Angeles Central, without acknowledging all these outlying poetry coteries that border L.A. Ultimately, though, I’m interested to see what new poets will emerge from this aggregate of creative communities to assert themselves as disciplined, distinctive, compelling, uncommonly talented writers.

What are some of your favorite local venues to for poetry?

Suzanne: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, the mecca for Southern California poets, tops the list, but I also think of the fabulous art gallery and community center out here in Northeast L.A., Avenue 50 studio, which has all kinds of lively events with special attention to poets of the East end of the city. The Valley Contemporary Poets series—known everywhere as “The VCP”—is the second longest running poetry series in Los Angeles. They’ve moved around a bit, but right now have a lovely venue in Tarzana.  Oh, and of course Rick Lupert’s series, The Cobalt Cafe in Canoga Park, and Larry Colker’s Coffee Cartel in Redondo Beach are longtime mainstays of the community; every poet knows them. I’ve attended marvelous events at The Ruskin Club over the years, in that gorgeous space where a fine reception follows the reading.  Besides Newer Poets, the other high profile, very well attended annual poetry reading I’m aware of takes place at El Alisal, the “Lummis Home,” for the Festival of Northeast Los Angeles, first Sunday in June.

As a curator of this Newer Poets event, what speaks to you in selecting participants to read on the library stage?

Suzanne: First and foremost the poets selected should have ten minutes of accomplished, effective poetry—not just, say, three strong poems, three in-progress poems and two bad ones.  Secondly, I look for strong presenters—not big time performers necessarily, but poets who are audible, expressive and able to connect with an audience.  Finally it’s important to me that they’ve worked at the art and craft of poetry and are committed for the long haul; they’re not just hobbyists. Beyond that, it’s nice if they’ve begun to find a place in the community, and have supported other poets, gone to readings, been involved.  Oh, and one more criterion; I always hope to find poets who aren’t too altogether similar in style and approach to language. The series works best when it presents a range of voices and styles.

Can you give some background to the poets you selected to read for the event?

Suzanne: I’m delighted with the pairing of Angela Penaredono and Rolland Vasin; these two have all the qualities I mentioned. Angela was born in the Philippines and many of her poems take place in that environment or in some way concern that culture, and often there’s a lushness to her language. It’s imagistic, tactile, sensuous writing.  For those in the grass roots poetry community, Rolland will be one of the best known and most recognizable of the Newer Poets in recent years; he’s read all over and has generously attended and supported readings as an audience member. And, wow, here comes that performance energy. He’s got presence. Angela and Rolland have honed their writing in workshops, with me as well as other poet-teachers.

How are libraries important to you and for writers/poets today? 

Suzanne: In some ancient civilizations poets were called “the keepers of the word,” but, really, libraries are the ultimate keepers of the word. The library collects and holds onto books I can’t get anywhere—at least not easily—except at the Central Library. After the recent funding cuts, I believe virtually all the poets I know campaigned and signed petitions on behalf of the library to restore its funding. But it wasn’t only the poets and writers, people all across the city rallied around the libraries—finally, something everyone could agree on!

A poem by Suzanne Lummis (first published by The New Ohio Review):

Another Poem After César Vallejo

I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,
on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris—it does not bother me–
perhaps on a Thursday…
- From “Black Stone Lying Upon a White Stone”

I will die in a freight elevator between the fifth
and sixth floor, on a weekend, or perhaps a Monday
following the end of Daylight Savings.  Yes,
it will be a Monday following the end of Daylight Savings,
because now, as I write these lines, I’m cranky,
as though cheated of an hour’s sleep.

It will be a day of rain, the same quality of rain,
the same aguacera, that carried off Cesar Vallejo,
though I won’t be outside to enjoy it—
passing with my umbrella beneath canopies of shops,
by little fruit markets—I’ll be stuck in some freight elevator.

Suzanne Lummis is dead,
and already a newsman is composing a short item,
getting her age wrong and where she grew up.
Already she has been fed to the fires
in some fine commercial establishment,
with a name like Death 4 Less.

Suzanne Lummis is dead, but now—today—
as she writes these words, her feelings seem locked
in a chamber she can’t find her way down to, spiral
by spiral, can’t key her way into.
When the poet wrote “César Vallejo is dead,”
how did he make himself stop?

She wants to go on reproducing the phrase,
like a child consigned to stay after school
until she’s covered the blackboard with white chalk,
till exhaustion drives her into her bones, till amazement
bursts in her skull—and she understands.

–posted by Bridgette Bates

Newer Poets Primer: Part Two with Eloise Klein Healy

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Next Tuesday, July 24 at ALOUD, the 17th edition of the annual newer poets program comes to the stage with six of Los Angeles’ freshest voices. Click here to reserve your free ticket. What exactly is a “newer” poet? And what is happening on the frontlines of the L.A. poetry scene? To get ready for next week, we caught up with the guest curators of the event. In Part One, we caught up with Gail Wronsky. Here, Eloise Klein Healy, the celebrated author of six collections of poetry and founder of Arktoi Books, a professor emerita at Antioch University Los Angeles and the co-founder of Eco-Arts, reflects on the once lonely path of writers, and how to hone your metaphors at libraries.

As a longtime Angeleno, what do you think characterizes the Los Angeles poetry community?

Eloise: I recently went to an event that is an exemplifier of what is unique to the Los Angeles poetry community—Beyond Baroque gave an award to Wanda Coleman and Amélie Frank, and it was held at the Church at Ocean Park in Santa Monica. The reason this is so significant is because Beyond Baroque is a very old presenting organization. When I first started to write, reading series were just beginning to develop and Beyond Baroque was the only place. I look at the maturation of Beyond Baroque, and it has a lot of parallels to the poetry community of Los Angeles because now you can go to three events every night and there are venues all over the place.

A lot has happened in terms of access that younger writers have to develop their skills—like being in workshops at these organizations, reading, getting practice by being interns or volunteers, or getting hired by these groups to do things like work in the archives—all of which work to develop one’s understanding of a community of artists. For a long time, that wasn’t happening here because Los Angeles was kind of a literary backwater and people here “only” wrote scripts. It’s been hard to move that image off-center and get a new one.

How has that image evolved? What has changed in the poetry community here over the last 10, 15, 20 years?

Eloise: My first book was first published in 1976 by Beyond Baroque Foundation because in that time the government was giving funds to literary organizations to help younger writers get more access and their books seen by a bigger public. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen much anymore since the government is out of the business of cultural sponsorship. But there I was with my first book, in a run of 8,000 copies, and they sent it out all over the country! You never get that coverage now. It was a different climate.

During that time, though, it was difficult to find a community of writers unless you were connected with one or two or three places in town. Now, there’s more opportunities to meet people and for educational advancement. There’s more colleges, and universities, and creative writing programs. Today, when I get manuscripts, 90 percent of those who send them in have a MFA.

Another thing that is different is the cultural and racial diversity of the poetry community. Los Angeles and places like New York and Chicago have a lot of cultural and societal mirroring going on because diversity has been happening, so more people are participating, and the younger writers are spreading out. It’s such an exciting time—there are spoken word poets, performance poets, people who are doing media stuff, animated poems, people making poems and music together.

As a guest curator for this ALOUD event, how did you approach selecting “newer” poets?

Eloise: I had a new author, Verónica Reyes, and this is the first person from Los Angeles I am publishing from my imprint, Arktoi Books. My other author, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, was a student of mine at Antioch, and she was and continues to coordinate for Beyond Baroque a reading series that brings together a teacher and a student, and they read together. She was getting involved and taking leadership in bringing a new combination to what’s offered in a public setting. It seemed perfect to put these two people together who are both ready for this type of venue. You have to be ready craft-wise and emotionally to go up on the library stage. The ALOUD audience is very educated about literature and they’re very appreciative, so I think these two will bring something interesting.

As we’re on the subject of libraries, what is your personal connection to libraries? Why are they important for poets?

Eloise: My connection to libraries began when I was seven years old. I lived in a small town in Iowa, and I was probably the main patron of the library. I was a big reader and I would get six or eights books at a time. I felt like the library was the candy store. There was so much to find out. That relates to poetry because in poetry you have to find out stuff.

In poetry you have to be acutely aware of the truth of the matter. How does a key really work in a lock? If you are interested in that as a metaphor, then you need to go find out how a lock works. Until we had the Internet, the library was the only source for that. It’s still a very important source of information. The library is like a bookstore because when you go there you will find something you did not plan for, and you can never predict that. I also think librarians are the most fantastic defenders of civil rights anywhere because they are always sticking up for books, and books are ideas.

A poem by Eloise Klein Healy (from The Islands Project: Poems For Sappho, Red Hen Press, 2007):

The Grackle On The Lawn

She wants the blossom.
She wants the seeds in the grass.

She wants the beautiful thing.
She wants to eat.

It’s so simple, she’s like a person.

She wants the beautiful thing.
She wants to eat.

She’s like a person, she wants to live
with that beautiful blossom and she wants to eat.

She flies off with the blossom in her beak.

–Posted by Bridgette Bates

Newer Poets Primer: Part One with Gail Wronsky

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Next Tuesday, July 24 at ALOUD, the 17th edition of the annual newer poets program comes to the stage with six of Los Angeles’ freshest voices. Reserve your free ticket here for the event, which is ALOUD’s longest-running program in its 19-year history. What exactly is a “newer” poet? And what is happening on the frontlines of the L.A. poetry scene? To get ready for next week, we caught up with the three guest curators of the event and will be running these interviews over the next few days. In Part One here, Gail Wronsky, a critically acclaimed author of five volumes of poetry, a founding member of the Glass Table Collective, and a professor at Loyola Marymount University, defends West Coast poetics, the beauty of Topanga, and the serendipity of libraries.

Gail Wronsky with Rabinadrath Tagore.

You’ve lived in Los Angeles for 26 years, having transplanted from the East Coast. What’s different about being a poet in Los Angeles?

Gail: There is more freedom out here. The West has all these wide-open spaces, but also L.A. has a sense of itself of where new things happen. There are orthodoxies on the East Coast establishment that we don’t have. There’s so much diversity out here—so many ethnicities and languages and that’s hugely important for a writer. But also there’s a welcoming among all these different groups of people. They’re not Balkanized states. I give readings with open-mic people, with hip-hop poets, with language poets, with academic poets, and everyone seems to be excited about poetry no matter what form it takes.

What are your favorite venues for poetry around Los Angeles?

Gail: Beyond Baroque is the best. There are poetry events going on all the time there and they represent the openness and diversity of Los Angeles poetry. They don’t cater to one school or one group of poetry. I also think the readings that Elena Karina Byrne hosts at the Ruskin Arts Center are really good. The few bookstores like Skylight Books and Book Soup are great places to go hear readers.

How is your own writing impacted by the landscape of Southern California?

Gail: The first thing that influenced me when I moved here was Mexican culture. I started reading Mexican and Chicano/Chicana poets and I got so excited about the use of Spanish language in English language poetry and ideas of translations. That interest led me to work with the Argentinean poet Alicia Partnoy, whose work I translate, and she translates my work, so that back and forth has influenced me a lot.

The other thing is the natural beauty of this place. I live in Topanga Canyon, which is to my mind one of the most beautiful places on earth. I go to the ocean. I’m in the mountains. I like to go to the desert. The sheer physical beauty of Los Angeles is something people don’t talk about enough, and that has made its way into my work.

As a guest curator for this ALOUD event, how did you approach selecting “newer” poets?

Gail: The first person who came to my mind is Mia Carli, who was one of my students and is now in her first year at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the most exciting young poet I have come across in years. She runs a mile a minute on the page and she has so much power and a command of language, that I’m always stunned by what she writes, so I wanted to introduce her to the L.A. poetry world.

The opposite end of the spectrum is Paul Lieber, who has been a part of the L.A. poetry scene. He does a poetry program on KPFK. He’s done a lot of readings, but his first book is just out and that seemed like an occasion to mark. He isn’t in some ways a new poet, but putting that first book out is a new thing. I like the fact the one of my readers is young and just starting, and another one is not, but is taking a big step in his career.

On the cusp of us gathering at the Central Library to hear these poets, why do you think libraries are important to writers?

Gail: Libraries are home, particularly to poets. When novelists are working on something, they’re in a world they create. But poets need to pick and hunt and stumble off of things to find interesting information. All of that eventually comes to play in your poetry—maybe 10 years later. Information is vital to poets. You can go to the library with nothing in mind, and you can wander through aisles and spawn something. Serendipity happens at libraries.

A poem by Gail Wronsky:

True, flax can parch, and oats can parch, and poppies
California

Chattering of children and bird-cages—
and Chinese cooks, and the sunlit haze of the coast.

*

As soon as the sea-water touched air, it roared like a violent ghost.

*

A wave is not an ocean.  A peak is not a mountain.
Anyone who has swum or climbed knows this.
Anyone who seeks asylum knows this.

*

Meet Nick Dorsay, the record producer.
His hair is woven.  His jacket has flown in from hell.

*

It’s true—flax can parch, and oats can parch, and poppies
can hold sway over the countryside like a kind of silky a capella
r & b.  And all of it becomes a part of someone’s future

nocturnal luxury, or someone’s persuasion, or
their one-man show.

*

Nourished by caverns’ wine and the bread of roadtrips.
Nourished by dawn and the campgrounds of shadows.
Nourished by glaciers and sage and sitars.

*

We are dismembered by jealousy, cruelty, and inaction
on the part of people who know us.

*

Something now about the quality of light.
It’s no match for wind, or fire.
It shines on dogs and lawn chairs.
Noirishly.

 

–Posted by Bridgette Bates

Lew Welch’s RING OF BONE Back in Print

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In the winter of my sophomore year at Reed College, I had the honor of hosting my favorite poet, Lew Welch, at the little house I shared with my boyfriend on S.E. Schiller Street. Lew was the designated Poet-in-Residence that January, also the month of a rare Portland snowfall. In anticipation of our guest’s visit, we baked fresh bread and a blackberry pie, mopped the floor, stockpiled fresh produce from Peoples Food Store.

We waited expectantly for the arrival of our revered poet. Around dinnertime, he appeared at the front door wearing a lumpy overcoat, sporting a stubble of several days, and smelling unmistakably of Jim Beam. It was soon clear that our guest feasted on language, not food. He didn’t touch a morsel of the lovingly prepared first night’s dinner, or any other dinner we set on the table in front of him. Orange juice with raw egg in the morning, some hair of the dog. That seemed to be it.

Nevertheless, Lew kept us enthralled with his poems, with his voice, with his advice. He exhorted us to observe the rhythms of speech in our own work. (He was, after all, the man who wrote the phrase RAID KILLS BUGS DEAD while working a stint as an advertising copywriter, before one of his nervous breakdowns.) Lew had also driven a cab for awhile (he also worked as a longshoreman on the San Francisco waterfront), and he insisted on ferrying us the few miles to campus in thigh-high snow by taxi cab… a novel mode of travel for two students.

His friendship and his work continued to inspire us after that initial visit, over the months to come when he visited us in the Pacific Northwest again, and over the many years since the day that Lew, in a deep depression, left a note and disappeared with his revolver into the rugged foothills of the Sierras near his friend Gary Snyder’s home near Nevada City. His body has never been found.

On the 40th anniversary of Lew’s disappearance last spring, some friends of Lew—including myself, Gary Snyder, Lewis MacAdams, and April Fitzsimmons—decided to host a memorial reading as part of ALOUD in his honor.  We told stories about Lew, and we played audio of Lew reading his own poems. It was moving and eerie to hear Lew’s voice ringing out in our auditorium after all these years.  It was exhilarating to introduce his work to a new audience. You can listen to the podcast here.April Fitzsimmons, Gary Snyder, Louise Steinman, and Lewis MacAdams. Photo by Gary Leonard.

We commissioned two limited editions broadsides by the printmaker Dirk Hagner for the evening… Lew’s poem, “Ring of Bone” we gave away to everyone who attended. A limited edition broadside of Gary Snyder’s poem, Axe Handles, signed by the poet and the artist, is still available for sale in our Library Store.

We planned to have copies of Lew’s marvelous volume collected poems, Ring of Bone, for sale at the program, and we were all surprised to find out the book was out of print from City Lights Books. As it turned out, City Lights Books was surprised to learn this as well and made plans to re-issue the book.  It was released this week, with a new preface by Gary Snyder. I couldn’t be more pleased.

From Gary Snyder’s preface to Ring of Bone:

“Lew’s memory and mystery lives on. In the spring of 2011 the Central Library of Los Angeles sponsored a gathering of several poets and writers who had known Lew, and we were all surprised by the size and enthusiasm of the crowd that came, people of all ages. City Lights Books took over Lew’s works after Donald Allen’s death [Donald Allen was Lew’s executor], and in 2011 all of Lew’s books were out of print. The Los Angeles celebration of his work was push enough to get us to a new edition of Ring of Bone. This bright-eyed bardic spirit, Lew Welch still wandering and singing on the back roads—I imagine—at the far edge of the West—will be with us a long time. As Lew also wrote,

Guard the Mysteries!
Constantly reveal Them!

Mystery: the life of art (though poets are always com-
plaining) is without equal. There is nothing to regret.”

-posted by Louise Steinman

Turn Up the Volume on National Poetry Month: Free Poetry Podcasts

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There’s a few more days left to celebrate National Poetry Month, so grab your headphones and take in some poetry. We’ve compiled a handy podcast list of poetry readings and panels from the library’s ALOUD archive over the the years. Your ears will ring!

Ralph Angel, Carol Muske-Dukes, Cecilia Wolloch
Imagination. Luminosity. Mystery and grief. Ghost landscapes. Joy and celebration. Join us for a reading by three award-winning California poets.

John Ashbery’s Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
A Multi-media Reading for Six Voices Directed by Jim Paul with technical direction by Beth Thielen Readers: Joan Arnold, Tom Curwen, David Kipen, Jim Paul, Louise Steinman, Terry Wolverton.

Writing the World: A Conversation with Edward Hirsch, Eavan Boland, Peter Cole, and Adam Zagajewski
Discussing Hebrew, Polish, and Irish writers, four of the world’s best known poets examine how local politics, national realities, and cultural traditions affect great literary traditions.

The Nature of Observation: Jane Hirshfield and Sean M. Carroll
How does a poet view time, the slant of light on a windowsill? How might a theoretical cosmologist approach those same phenomena? Hirshfield and Carroll–both at the vanguard of their disciplines– discuss different (and perhaps similar) points of entry into the realm of observation and metaphor.

An Evening of Spoken Word and Cello
Selected readings from Marisela Norte’s debut collection of poetry, Peeping Tom Tom Girl, performed by long time friends and collaborators Norte y Gaitan.

Phantom Noise: An evening with Solider-Poet Brain Turner
Turner’s poems reflect his experiences as a soldier–seven years in the US Army, including a year as infantry team leader in Iraq–with penetrating lyric power and compassion.

Concrete Rivers: The Emotional Topography of LA: Wanda Coleman and Lewis MacAdams
Two celebrated poets read from their most recent work and discuss how Los Angeles has influenced their writing, how some influences overlap and others diverge.

The Rocket’s Red Glare: Politics in Art and Poetry: Edgar Arceneaux and Douglas Kearney
In an election year driven by worldwide public demonstrations, congressional stagecraft and conflicting narratives, rhetoric, aesthetics and politics are apt to collide. As part of a 2012 national series, poet-performer Douglas Kearney and artist-activist Edgar Arceneaux of the Watts House Project discuss the political impetus and implications of their work.

Gary Snyder, “Song of the Turkey Buzzard: The Poetry of Lew Welch”
Join Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Snyder and friends for an evening of spoken word to celebrate the work of Beat poet Lew Welch, on the 40th anniversary of his disappearance.

Kate Gale, Douglas Kearney, and Peggy Shumaker
Gale, editor, writer, teacher; Kearney, poet, performer, and librettist; and Shumaker, poet, author and teacher read from their work.

An Evening with Poet Galway Kinnell
In the 2003 National Book Award judges’ citation for his New Selected Poems, Kinnell was called “America’s preeminent visionary,” with work in 12 collections that, “greets each new age with rapture and abundance … [and] sets him at the table with his mentors: Rilke, Whitman and Frost.”

An Evening with Poet W.S.Merwin
In a career spanning five decades, W.S. Merwin, lauded poet, translator, and environmental activist, has become one of the most widely read poets in America.

Kicking Off National Poetry Month

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T.S. Eliot dubbed April the “cruelest month,” but for poetry enthusiasts today, we consider April the happiest month—an entire month to celebrate poetry and its vital place in our culture. How do you plan to celebrate?

First off, stop by your neighborhood library to check out some poetry books. Secondly, join us at ALOUD on Thursday, April 12, for Concrete Rivers: The Emotional Topography of LA, to hear from local poets Wanda Coleman and Lewis MacAdams on how Los Angeles has shaped their poetry and activism.

Want more poetry? Watch this conversation on poetry and politics with Edgar Arceneaux and Douglas Kearney. Or read our recent interview with U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine. Here’s a link to The Waste Land to read why Eliot blacklisted the month of April, and check out the Academy of American Poets website for other ideas on celebrating National Poetry Month, including requesting a free copy of this poster: