America We Call Your Name: February 8 Poetry Reading at Beyond Baroque

I'll be reading in Los Angeles from the anthology, America We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2017) along with featured readers Martin Ott, Murray Silverstein, David St. John, and Eliot Schain.

Friday, February 8, 2019 at 8 p.m.

Beyond Baroque

681 N. Venice Blvd.

Venice, CA 90291

Link to Beyond Baroque Facebook Event page

The anthology, born in response to the 2016 Presidential election, combines voices of poets from across America–from red states and blue states, high schools and nursing homes, big cities and small towns–with the voices of poets from other countries and other times. From Virgil and Dante to Claudia Rankine and Mai Der Vang, from Milton to Merwin, from Po-Chiu to Robin Coste Lewis, these voices, now raucous, not muted, now lyric, now plain–join together in dissent and in praise, in grief and alarm, in vision and hope.

What a fertile collection--beautifully organized, powerful in the classroom (I loved sharing it with my poetry students and using it to help us seed new work). I'll even admit I printed out the list of contributors and taped it beside my writing desk just for the joy of seeing the name-field, so diverse, so rich, and so numinous with the energy of the poems in the anthology.

Heres a partial list of other contributors included in the anthology: Elizabeth Alexander, Ellen Bass, Lucille Clifton, Natalie Diaz, Molly Fisk, Terrance Hayes, Robinson Jeffers, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ursula K. Le Guin, Audre Lorde, Czeslaw Milosz, Pablo Neruda, Sharon Olds, Irma Pineda, Adrienne Rich, Evie Shockley, Wislawa Szymborska, Susan Terris, Ocean Vuong, William Carlos Williams, Joseph Zaccardi and more...

If you are unable to attend the reading, but would like to order a copy of the anthology, visit Sixteen Rivers Press.

Here's a link to a post about the process of writing the cento chosen for inclusion in the anthology:

Poetry Meets Tarot Synchronicity: Crafting Centos and Leaning on Your Beloveds

SDWI Unheard Voices Reading and Writing Workshop: Resist, Rebuild, Perform

Crisis! Today’s troubling headlines, articles, and Tweets can be overwhelming! What to do? Come listen, rebuild, write, perform, and share with us. At tonight’s Unheard Voices Reading (Friday October 26), the fabulous Sandra Hunter reads from Trip Wires (Leapfrog Press, 2018), a collection that personalizes global-scale catastrophe by taking brief looks into the everyday lives of young people around the world from Columbia to Afghanistan to Glasgow and beyond. 

A teacher and avid supporter of women's causes, Meliza Bañales celebrates her new non-fiction book, Adventure Awaits You in Hell: A Survivor's Manifesto (Ladybox Books). 

Tania Pryputniewicz celebrates the anthology, America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2018). Audience participation encouraged for a lively discussion

Link to more information:  Unheard Voices Reading

Saturday’s Unheard Voices Writing Workshop with the same three writers has a triple focus: generate, revise, perform! Roll up your sleeves and come join us, again at San Diego Writers, Ink.

Link to more information: Unheard Voices Writing Workshop: Resistance, Resilience, and Rebuilding

*Fee: $30 member, $36  nonmember. Course feel includes a copy of Sandra Hunter's story collection, Trip Wires.

Related Link:


Sandra Hunter on the San Diego Writers, Ink blog:  Sandra Hunter on Trip Wires, Trippings, and Assumptions

Instructor Bios:

Sandra Hunter will read from Against the Stranger, one of the stories in her new collection TRIP WIRES (Leapfrog Press, June 2018). The collection personalizes global-scale catastrophe by taking brief looks into the everyday lives of young people around the world, from Columbia to Afghanistan to Glasgow and beyond. TRIP WIRES earned praise as “a beautifully written collection, both poetic and melancholic. Deeply moving, and often grim and uncomfortable in their confrontations of unimaginable tragedies, each story evokes a bold, emotional response,” according to Katie Asher (Foreward Reviews, May/June 2018).

Meliza Bañales will read from her new non-fiction book ADVENTURE AWAITS YOU IN HELL: A SURVIVOR’S MANIFESTO. From her teaching to her activism, all of her work in speaking up — shouting out — has been in support of women’s causes. Meliza says, "Just remember… someone is [always] going to dislike you for being too honest — or not honest enough. But better to be too honest, because the people that really appreciate it will find you.” This is Meliza’s honesty without mercy.

SDWI Poetry Instructor and contributor Tania Pryputniewicz will read from the newly released anthology, AMERICA, WE CALL YOUR NAME: POEMS OF RESISTANCE AND RESILIENCE (Sixteen Rivers Press, September 2018). Born in response to the 2016 Presidential election, the anthology combines voices of poets from across America–from red states and blue states, high schools and nursing homes, big cities and small towns–with the voices of poets from other countries and other times. From Virgil and Dante to Claudia Rankine and Mai Der Vang, from Milton to Merwin, from Po-Chiu to Robin Coste Lewis, these voices, now raucous, not muted, now lyric, now plain–join together in dissent and in praise, in grief and alarm, in vision and hope.

Tarot for Joy: The Two of Cups

Tarot for Joy met today to write to the Two of Cups. I video recorded the introduction to the card and the Tarot writing prompt for the Two of Cups to give you an idea of how the class runs (view Tarot for Joy: Two of Cups on YouTube here). Each week with the zoom invite I send out a photograph of 12 versions of the card of the week. To see the variety of expression from each artist always moves me so deeply. It is such a helpful visual reminder that our experiences of any situation in life are highly individual, even though we may have universal points of connection, such as the heart, such as the longing for love. But how it feels coursing through my body is going to be different than how it courses through yours; how I perceive love and joy manifesting in my life is unique to my circumstances and soul, and I love to hear how love and joy manifests in the lives and souls of others. 

This is a drop-in weekly online "show up and share" class meant to help us anchor in the present moment using the Tarot to connect to our joy through writing. Please feel free to pass on the video link to anyone you think might benefit. We are making our way through the deck one card at a time; we meet every Tuesday over Zoom. Here is the full course description: Tarot Tuesdays returns with Tarot for Joy. Next week we write to the Three of Cups. We'd love to have you.

Pairing Poetry with Photographs: Songs of Survival

I'm flying to Chicago tomorrow to be part of Songs of Survival, a night of poetry, dance and music to celebrate the one year anniversary of the MeToo movement (the event is Thursday, October 18, tickets here).  I am blessed to have the support of my poetry movie collaborator Robyn Beattie (gift of her photographs) and my father Stephen (gift of his music). I will be bringing both images and music to Chicago to perform at Awakenings Gallery. Here is a post on my main website about the process of pairing lines of poetry meant to inspire healing and hope with photographs. Ultimately, I couldn't land on just one image: Two Views of Healing: Songs of Survival.

Awakenings: Songs of Survival, Chicago

Good morning beautiful sisters and brothers…many of us are at odds watching the fight played out across our Tv screens, over the radio, over tweets and soundbites, regarding whether or not to believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against a Supreme Court nominee our senators just voted through this weekend.

Turning to the face the heat of the sun, regardless of outcomes, I’m celebrating the way women are coming forward to voice their stories emboldened by Dr. Ford so that all of us, men and women alike, can heal. This summer when I applied to be part of an event in Chicago, Songs of Survival, I had no way of knowing we would be embroiled so heavily in the present conversation. Along with other performers (dance, music, poetry) I’ll be reading, “Peer Counselor,” a poem that is really my thank you letter to my peer counselor in college for the way she helped me see my story in a kinder light (kinder towards myself); isn’t that one of the core challenges? Self-love?

I hope this week finds you taking some tiny action towards loving yourself from journaling to reaching out to a friend or a counselor, registering to vote, deciding to run for office, or sending one of your helpers a thank you letter, poem, or drawing. How we need one another to grow and get back to joy; how we blossom regardless of what befalls us like moonflowers under nightfall.

If you are in Chicago, come out to celebrate the anniversary of the MeToo movement with us at Awakenings Gallery. Songs of Survival is a performance event, the fourth of its kind at Awakenings, featuring originally composed or re-envisioned music, poetry, and dance that is for, by, and about survivors of sexual violence. Join us on Thursday, October 18th for an evening of performance. Doors open at 6:30 and the show will begin at 7:00. More information here for Songs of Survival.

Tarot for Joy

Want to connect more deeply to joy? Work your way through the Tarot deck one card per week? We meet over video call and write to connect our experiences of lived joy to each card. We start tomorrow, October 9, with the Ace of Cups in celebration of the many forms of love, especially self-love. This is a lovely drop-in online group that meets every  Tuesday at 11 am PST.  You can visit my Wheel of Archetypal Selves Facebook page and IM me there for more details or contact me through my main website; here’s the full course description, Tarot Tuesday Returns with Tarot for Joy.