Poetry Santa Cruz events upcoming in the next month in Santa Cruz County. Please see our Events page for future listings and a comprehensive list of literary events in and around Santa Cruz.
 

Poetry Santa Cruz Events
3rd Sunday Sunday March 21 2:00–4:00 PM	Poet/Speak Open Reading with featured reader Lisa Allen Ortiz. Main Library upstairs Meeting Room, 224 Church Street, Santa Cruz. [ map ]  Free.  Presented by Poetry Santa Cruz and hosted by Joyce Keller.
Thursday April 1 6:00–8:00 PM jueves 1 de abril de 6:00 a 8:00 PM	The Flor y Canto / Flower and Song with featured reader Lisa Simon.  Watsonville Main Library, 275 Main Street, Suite 100, 2nd floor Meeting Room.  [ map ]  Free.  Presented by Poetry Santa Cruz and the Watsonville Library, and hosted by Adela Najarro. Flor y Canto / Flower and Song Lectura de Poesía con micrófono abierto.  Lectora especial Lisa Simon.  Biblioteca Pública Watsonville, 275 Main Street, Suite 100, Sala de Reuniones, segundo piso.  [ mapa ]  Gratis.  Presentado por Poesía Santa Cruz y la Biblioteca Pública Watsonville, dirigido por Adela Najarro.
Tuesday April 13 7:30 PM	Atsuro Riley and Stephen Kessler. Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Avenue, Santa Cruz. [ map ]  Suggested donation $3.  [ Read more about this event ]

The reading by Cecilia Woloch on March 9 is supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from the James Irvine Foundation.

These events are supported, in part, by a grant from the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County.  Poetry Santa Cruz is also grateful for the support of its members and donors, In Celebration of the Muse, and those who donated in memory of Maude Meehan and Kathleen Flowers.  The William James Association acted as our fiscal sponsor for our first four years.  Our readings are sponsored by Bookshop Santa Cruz, Capitola Book Café, Watsonville Public Library, Casablanca Inn, The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Cabrillo College, KUSP and the National Writers Union Chapter 7.  Membership premiums have been donated by Graywolf Press, the University of Pittsburgh Press, Robert Sward, Coffee House Press, Copper Canyon Press, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.  A voluntary donation of $3 may be requested at venues where collection of donations is permitted.

Article on In Celebration of the Muse in the Santa Cruz Sentinel

An article on the 2010 In Celebration of the Muse written by Justine DaCosta has been published in the March 11 Santa Cruz Sentinel and may be viewed online.

Gratitude from The Poetry Show

Thanks to generous matching funds of $700 from Rebecca Foust and $400 from Lin Colavin, and generouspledges from all those who phoned in their pledges during the March 7 show, we raised $2275, meeting the matching funds with $75 to spare.  Our heartfelt thanks to all who pledged and contributed to keep The Poetry Show on KUSP bringing poetry to the Central Coast.

Hermie Medley Memorial Service Saturday, March 13

Santa Cruz poet Hermie Medley died Sunday, February 28 in her Santa Cruz home at age 90 after a brief struggle with esophageal cancer.  Known for her humor, empathy, and her liberal social and political views, she published two collections of her poems, Being Human (Many Names Press, 2007) and Too Young To Be Wise (Many Names Press, 1998).  Gail Brenner read Hermie’s poems in her place at In Celebration of the Muse.  The memorial service for Hermie will be held at 3:30 PM on Saturday, March 13 at Inner Light Ministries, 5630 Soquel Drive, Soquel.

Three Santa Cruz Poets Are Finalists for Northern California Book Awards

Joseph Stroud’s collection Of This World: New and Selected Poems is a finalist for the Northern California Book Award for poetry.  Stephen Kessler is a finalist for the translation award for Desolation of the Chimera by Luis Cernuda.  Alta Ifland is a finalist for the fiction award for Elegy for a Fabulous World.  The awards ceremony will be held 1-2:30 p.m. April 18 at the San Francisco Public Library.  Stephen Kessler and Alta Ifland will read from their respective fictions The Mental Traveler (novel) and Elegy for a Fabulous World (stories) Thursday March 18 at 7:30 at Capitola Book Cafe.  Stephen Kessler will read from his translations of Jorge Luis Borges on April 13 for Poetry Santa Cruz.

Poet/Speak Enters Its Tenth Year and Makes the News

See the article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel by Romain Fonsegrives with photos by Dan Coyro.

Lucille Clifton Has Left Us

Lucille Clifton died Saturday, February 13 in Baltimore after a long battle with cancer and a bout with an infection.  She was 73 and the Poetry Society of America recently announced that she was to receive thier most prestigious award, the Robert Frost Medal for their Centennial Year.  From 1985 to 1989 she was a professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz.  She read for Poetry Santa Cruz on October 21, 2009.  You can read a biography and poems on the Academy of American Poets website.

Gary Young Is the Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate

Tuesday evening at the Gail Rich Awards, Gary Young was introduced as the first Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate.  You can read Wallace Baine’s article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. You can learn more about Gary Young on his website.

Caesura Contest Winners

Poetry Center San José has announced the winners of the 2009 Caesura Contest.  Connie Post of Livermore wins the First Prize and $500 for her poem “5.6 Earthquake.”  Dane Cervine of Santa Cruz receives 2nd Prize for “Imperfect Beauty,” and 3rd Prize goes to Celia Lawren for “California Bounty” and Jendi Reiter for “What Dora Said to Agnes.”  The contest was judged by Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Nils Peterson.

Calls for Submissions

The 17th Annual Santa Cruz County High School Poetry Competition has extended the deadline for submissions of poems by Santa Cruz County high School students.  Deadline for submissions is now March 19.  See details on the Call for Poems web page or download the PDF flier for printing.

Nils Peterson, the current Santa Clara County Poet Laureate, invites submission of poems about Santa Clara County.  The Poet Laureate and other qualified readers will select the most interesting thirty to be presented at a public reading in April 2010.  Poetry submission is open to those who live, work, or study in Santa Clara County. Deadline: Poems will be accepted between January 1 and February 28, 2010. Early submission is appreciated. There will be three awards of $50 and six awards of $25.  For details, see the Laureate blog: http://nilspetersonpoet.wordpress.com/submissions/.

The Robinson Jeffers Tor House invites submissions for the 2010 Prize for Poetry.  The winning poem will receive $1,000 for an original, unpublished poem not to exceed three pages in length.  $200 will be paid for Honorable Mention.  The final judge for 2010 is Mark Doty.  There is a reading fee of $10 for the first three poems.  The postmark deadline for submissions is March 15, 2010.  For contest rules, see the website: http://www.torhouse.org/prize.htm.

Santa Cruz County poet Ron Lampi invites submissions for The Giant Poem of Monterey Bay which may be submitted through the website www.bayofmonterey.net.  He seeks “contributions of poems, poetic fragments, poetically framed informational segments or factoids, even particular lines, that all have some reference to Monterey Bay and/or our civilization around the Bay.”  He will weave them together to make one massive poem that will “celebrate all aspects of Monterey Bay.”  See the full details and make your submission on the website.

On The Poetry Show

• Dennis Morton and Susan Freeman read favorite poems and ask for your help with the KUSP Pledge Drive.
• February 28: Dennis Morton hosts Ivan Rosenblum and Vito Victor with the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke set into music.
• February 21: Dennis Morton hosts Barbara Bloom, Geneffa Jonker, and Debra Spencer honoring the late poet and Cabrillo faculty member, Jeff Towle.
• February 14: Susan Freeman hosts In Celebration of the Muse readers Lisa Allen Ortiz, Farnaz Fatemi, Kate Aver Avraham, Alta Ifland and Joan Zimmerman.
• February 7: Dennis Morton hosts Diana Hartog.
• January 31: Dennis Morton hosts the first Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate, Gary Young.
• January 24: Dennis Morton and Lesley-Anne Taylor celebrate the birthday of Robert Burns and read poems from other Scottish poets.
• January 17: Dennis Morton hosts Maria Garcia Teutsch and James Maughn, who read poems from Ping Pong.
• January 10: Dennis Morton reads poems by James Scully and poems from The Manhattan Review.
• January 3: Dennis Morton hosts David Anthony of UCSC reading poems from the South African poet Dennis Brutus.
The Poetry Show airs each Sunday 9-10 PM on KUSP 88.9 FM.  Past shows are podcast on kusp.org.

Poetry in the Local Print Media

The Good Times and Santa Cruz Weekly both print monthly poetry columns.  Copies of Redwood Coast Review are distributed in the Library Main Branch lobby and in Bookshop Santa Cruz and regularly feature poetry, book reviews and other articles of literary interest.  Recent columns:
• Poems by Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate Gary Young in the February 3 Santa Cruz Weekly.
• Poems by Stephen Kuusisto in the January 14 Good Times.
• A poem from nearly a century ago by Frank R. Bretlinger appears in the January 6 Santa Cruz Weekly.
• Poems by Ron Slate in the December 22 Good Times.
• Poems by Robin Ekiss in the December 10 Good Times.
• “Skateboard Romance” by Stephen Kessler appears in the December 2 Santa Cruz Weekly.
• Poems by Josephine Dickinson in the November 5 Good Times.
• “Wayne’s College of Beauty” by David Swanger appears in the November 4 Santa Cruz Weekly.
• Poems by Lynn Levin in the October 8 Good Times.
• “My Day in Santa Cruz” by Morton Marcus appears in the October 6 Santa Cruz Weekly.

Breaking into Print
 
• The Sonnets of Jorge Luis Borges, poems of Jorge Luis Borges translated from the Spanish, with Stephen Kessler as editor and principal translator, is newly published by Penguin Classics.  Kessler will read from this and a companion volume of Borges’ poetry on April 13.
• Inner Cities of Gulls, a collection of poems by J.P. Dancing Bear, will be published March 15, 2010 by Salmon Press.
• The San Simeon Zebras, a collection of poems by C.J. Sage, will be published March 15, 2010 by Salmon Press.
• Ron Lampi’s latest publication is Bay of Monterey, Poems of Monterey Bay and is available in Bookshop Santa Cruz.
• What Will You Be, Sara Mee, a book of poems for children by Kate Aver Avraham, is published by Charlesbridge Publishing.
• The 2009 issue of Red Wheelbarrow, published at De Anza College, includes poems by Ellen Bass, Amber Coverdale Sumrall, Adrienne Rich, Gabriella Gutíerrez y Muhs, Debra Spencer, David Swanger, Morton Marcus, Nils Peterson, David Sullivan, Ekua Omosupe, Julia Alter, Bill Minor, Hermie Medley, Len Anderson, Kathleen Flowers and a variety of poets from around the country.  It is available at Capitola Book Café and Bookshop Santa Cruz.
• A Poet Must Be Lightning, a chapbook of poems by Robin Somers, is published by Somersault Studios.
• Peeling an Orange, a collection of haiku by Peggy Heinrich with black and white photographs by John Bolivar has been published by Modern English Tanka Press and is available from Lulu.com.
• Ron Lampi’s latest publication is Lamp Light, A selection of short poems and is available in Bookshop Santa Cruz.
• Medusa Discovers Styling Gel, a chapbook by Dian Duchin Reed is scheduled for release December 4, 2009 and may now be pre-ordered for $15 from Finishing Line Press.  Pre-orders will help determine the number of copies printed.  Click on New Releases and Forthcoming.  Order is alphabetical by author’s last name, or just scroll down to 13th row.
• Martina Nicholson, M.D.’s third collection of poems, Bread for the Stardust Pilgrims, has just been published by Old Mountain Press.
• Desolation of the Chimera by Spanish poet Luis Cernuda and translated by Stephen Kessler has just been published by White Pine Press.
• The Chadwick Garden Anthology of Poets, edited by Robin Somers and with introductions by Beth Benjamin and Kurt Christiansen has been published by Somersault Studios.  It features poems by 31 poets, mostly from the Monterey Bay.
• Christopher Watkins’ first collection of poems, Short Houses With Wide Porches, was published by Shady Lane Press in 2008.
• Porter Gulch Review 2009 celebrated its 24th annual issue on May 29.  Many student writers and artists are represented, as well as work by Cabrillo faculty, students and professors from UCSC, and a wide array of local talents.  Copies will be available at the Poetry Santa Cruz events in June.
• The 2009 issue of the Homestead Review celebrated its tenth year of publication on May 21 at the Poetic Voices Poetry Festival with readings by Kim Addonizio and Christine Hamm plus the winners of this year’s annual Poetic Voices intercollegiate poetry competition.
• David Lau’s first collection of poems, Virgil and the Mountain Cat, is published by UC Press.  He read April 2 at Capitola Book Cafe.
• George Lober’s second collection of poems is A Bridge to There, published by Hummingbird Press.  He read at Tor House on March 28.
• The first collection of poems by Robin Somers, Backyard Burning, is published by Somersault Studios.  She read at the March 7, 2009 In Celebration of the Muse.
• Trainsong, by Bernice Rendrick has been awarded the In Celebration of the Muse Chapbook Award 2009 and is published by Poetry Santa Cruz.  Bernice Rendrick was the first reader at the 2009 In Celebration of the Muse reading March 7.  Her chapbook is available at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
• James Maughn’s first collection of poems, Kata, is published by BlazeVOX [books].  It is a series of poems based on traditional Okinawan karate.  He read April 2 at Capitola Book Cafe.
• Joseph Stroud has a new book: Of This World: New and Selected Poems, published by Copper Canyon Press.  He read on December 9 from it for Poetry Santa Cruz.
• The anthology Sisters Singing: Blessings, Prayers, Art, Songs, Poetry and Sacred Stories by Women is published by Wild Girl Publishing. Edited by Carolyn Brigit Flynn. It includes poetry by Deena Metzger, Gail Brenner, Ziggy Rendler-Bregman, Kate Aver Avraham, Linda Holiday, Andrea van de Loo, Patti Sirens, Carolyn Davis Rudolph, Maria Papacostaki, Mary Camille Thomas, Marigold Fine, Connie Batten, Lisa Espenmiller, Gretchen Sentry, Jean Mahoney. They read on November 25.
• Daniela Hurezanu and Stephen Kessler have co-translated Eyeseas (Les Ziaux), poems by the French novelist and poet Raymond Queneau (1903-1976).  The book is published by Black Widow Press.
• Stephen Kessler has a new book of essays: Moving Targets: On Poets, Poetry & Translation from El Leon Literary Arts in Berkeley. Pre-publication copies are available directly from the author through October.
• The 2008 issue of Ping•Pong, art and literary journal, featuring work by international writers and artists.  Available for $12 now in area bookstores.  The release party was Saturday, August 9 at Henry Miller Library.
• Rick Masten’s last collection poems, Take 3—Not Dead Yet, is available for $33 including postage from SunInk Publications, 37931 Palo Colorado Road, Carmel, CA 93923.

National Poetry News

For national poetry news, check out Poetry Daily’s news and the Poetry Hut Blog.

Cool Poetry Santa Cruz T-shirts!

You can now own a cool Poetry Santa Cruz T-shirt, understated and very hip for those who know. All you have to do is become a member of Poetry Santa Cruz at the $50 level. You can get books, too.

Wishlist

Lend us a hand!  We are in need of volunteer effort. Please see our Wishlist Page to see how you can help. 

Poetry Santa Cruz stays in touch with its extensive list of subscribers by email.  Click here to see our latest events announcement email.  Please e-mail us in order to receive future email announcements of events.