Watch a video of Kate Aver Avraham at the Sisters Singing reading.

Shimmy Boyle has been writing and performing poetry in and around Santa Cruz for the past six years.  He feels that the duck, as a species, is one of the better looking animals.  He likes curbs (for sitting).  He enjoys talking to houseplants about local politics; sometimes it gets heated.  His favorite past-time is the moon.  He is a good speller.  He hopes that you are having a fantastic day/night/existence.  And if he ever shakes your hand, he hopes that his handshake is as firm as his mother taught him it should be.

Visit www.shimmypoetry.com.

Wilma Marcus Chandler is an actor, director and writer of both poetry and drama.  She has lived in Santa Cruz since 1968 and has taught at UCSC and Cabrillo College where she chaired the Theater Arts department for many years.  Her latest book, Kiss or Kill: Scenes of Life and Strife for Young Actors, published by Smith & Kraus, comes out this month.

Ken Weisner is the author of The Sacred Geometry of Pedestrians from Hummingbird Press, 2002.  Anything on Earth, new poems, is due out in March of 2010, also from Hummingbird.  Ken edits and advises national and student editions of Red Wheelbarrow literary journal through De Anza College where he teaches lit, composition, and creative writing.  His work has appeared in The Music Lovers Poetry Anthology (Persea, 2007) and many national and local journals, including the near and dear Porter Gulch Review.

Read Ken Weisner’s poem “Six Compassionate Meditations for George W. Bush”.