9/4/2017 NO PE, BPAC picnic

https://sites.google.com/site/bayareapoetscoalition/

Georgette Howington features 8/28

8/28/2017 Georgette Howington  hosted by J.D.
(Need a prompt? "Long Hair " -- you don't have to use those words.)

Georgette Howington is a closet poet and short story writer who came out three years ago.  Her poems are published in Iodine, Sleet and Poeming Pigeons, among others.  Several poems won Honorable Mentions at the North American Women’s Music Festival and Ina Coolbrith Poetry Contest in 2016.  As a naturalist and horticulturist, her niche is Backyard Habitat and secondary-cavity nesters.  She is a County Coordinator and Assistant State Program Director for the California Bluebird Recovery Program and an activist in the conservation community in the SF Bay Area for over 30 years.  Georgette is also a published garden and environmental writer.  

If a Homing Pigeon Were My Lover

Fluffed and preened on the shelf

I could not help but notice

your bobbing head and piercing eyes

twisting and turning to see if I was

looking at you the way you looked at

me in that wanting way as if my

human form was a pigeon too.

How unlike me it would be to take

off into the sky, fly across the expanse

in circles feeling the wind, gliding on

our wings, not arguing about who did

not fold the laundry, or if I am too tired

to have sex tonight or being pressed

to spend time with family I don’t like

and living from moment to moment

dining on seed offerings from the keeper

moving aside to let him do all the

cleaning and arranging of our coop

while all you and I do is fly, eat, and

think about making baby pigeons…

**** Published in Poeming Pigeons, “Poems about Birds”, 2015

Cassandra Dallett features August 21

8/21/2017 Cassandra Dallett hosted by Bruce


(Need a prompt? "Skin" -- you don't have to use that word.)

Cassandra Dallett lives in Oakland, CA. Cassandra is a two-time Pushcart nominee and Literary Death Match winner. She has been published online and in many print magazines, such as Slip Stream, Sparkle and Blink, Chiron Review, Stone Boat Review, and Great Weather For Media and reads often around the San Francisco Bay Area. A full-length book of poetry Wet Reckless was released on Manic D Press May 2014. In 2015 she authored Bad Sandy (Lucky Bastard Press),Pearl Tongue (Be About It Press), The Water Wars (Pedestrian Poets Series), On Sunday, A Finch (Nomadic Press) which was nominated for a California Book Award, and most recently Armadillo Heart (Paper Press) with MK Chavez.

Avotcja features 8/14

8/14/2017 Avotcja hosted by Jim
(Need a prompt? "Walk around your block " -- you don't have to use those words.)

Avotcja has been published in English & Spanish in the USA, Mexico & Europe, and in more Anthologies than she remembers. She is an award winning Poet & multi-instrumentalist who has opened for Betty Carter in New York City, Peru's Susana Baca at San Francisco’s Encuentro Popular & Cuba’s Gema y Pável, played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Bobi & Luis Cespedes, John Handy, Sonido Afro Latina, Dimensions Dance Theater, Black Poets With Attitudes, Bombarengue, Nikki Giovanni, Los Angeles' Build An Ark, Dwight Trible, Diamano Coura West African Dance Co., Terry Garthwaite, Big Black, The Bay Area Blues Society & Caribeana Etc. Shared stages with Sonia Sanchez, Piri Thomas, Janice Mirikitani, Diane DiPrima, Michael Franti, Jayne Cortez, & with Jose Montoya's Royal Chicano Air Force & is a Bay Area icon with her group Avotcja & Modúpue.  Avotcja was the opening act for the legendary Poet Pat Parker the last three years of her life. She both composed & performed the film score for the Danish documentary MuNu. Her Poetry &/or music has been recorded by Piri Thomas, Famoudou Don Moyé (of The Art Ensemble Of Chicago), Bobby Matos Latin Jazz Ensemble, & performed by The Purple Moon Dance Project, and was the 1st Poetry performed by New York's Dance Mobile. She's appeared at The Lorraine Hansberry Theater in S. F., The Asian-American Jazz Festival in Chicago, as well as The Asian-American Jazz Festival in San Francisco.  She's been featured 5 times at Afro-Solo, twice at San Francisco's Carnival, The Scottish Rite Temple & Yoshi's in Oakland & San Francisco, Jose Castellar's play "Man From San Juan", Club Le Monmartre in Copenhagen Denmark, Stanford University, at San Francisco’s Brava Theater For The Arts with Cine Acción, New York's Henry Street Settlement Theater and The Women On The Way Festival in San Francisco. Avotcja a is popular Bay Area DeeJay & Radio Personality, and the founder/Director of "The Clean Scene Theater Project (AKA) Proyecto Teatral De La Escena Sobria". She continues to teach Creative Writing, Storytelling & Drama in Public Schools & thanks to the California Arts Council she was also an Artist in Residence at the Milestones Project & San Francisco Penal System. Avotcja is a proud member of DAMO (Disability Advocates Of Minorities  Organization), PEN Oakland, California Poets In The Schools,  IWWG & is an  ASCAP recording artist.

8/7 features David Alpaugh

8/7/2017 David Alpaugh hosted by Jan
(Need a prompt? "Spiral or Gyre " -- you don't have to use those words.)

David Alpaugh has been a booster of Bay Area poetry for many years as a publisher, poetry reading host, and publications director for the Ina Coolbrith Poetry Circle. He is a popular performer, noted for his with and humor and has been featured at northern California venues more than 150 times. His first collection, Counterpoint, won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry prize from Story Line Press. Journals that have published his poetry include Able Muse, American Journal of Poetry, Berkeley Poetry Review, Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, Light, Mudlark, Poetry, Rattle, Runes, Spillway, Wisconsin Review, and Zyzzyva. His controversial essays on “Po-Biz” have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Poets & Writers, Rattle, and Scene4. He is one of the 50 contemporary poets included by Dana Gioia in the Heyday Press anthology California Poetry from the Gold Rush to the Present and he has been a finalist for Poet Laureate of California. He teaches literature and writing at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) and for the UCB Extension.