2/4/19 Ivan Arguelles and Neeli Cherkovski

Ivan Arguelles and Neeli Cherkovski will read at 7 pm on Monday, February 4th, at Himalayan Flavors, 1585 UniversityAvenue, cross street California, in Berkeley, as part of the Last Word Reading Series, with thanks to Poetry Express and Himalayan Flavors for their hospitality. Cafe phone is 510-704-0174. There is also an open reading. 

This reading is the result of a rescheduling of the reading that was originally planned for January 11th at the late and lamented Nefeli Caffe.

Innovative and prolific Mexican-American poet, Ivan Argüelles, is the author of many books and chapbooks of poetry. Long associated with the "West Coast surrealists", he has also extended his vision into epic, book length poems. Included among his many books are: "That" Goddess; Madonna Septet; Comedy , Divine , The; FIAT LUX; Orphic Cantos; and Fragments from a Gone World. His most recent publication comprises poems all in Spanish, Lagarto de mi Corazón. His collection, Looking for Mary Lou, won the 1989 William Carlos Wiliams Award from the Poetry Society of America. In 2013 he received a lifetime Achievement Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. A retired librarian he has resided in Berkeley since 1978. He is the identical twin of New Age Prophet José Argüelles (d. 2011). 

Neeli Cherkovski was born in Los Angeles and attended Los Angeles State College (now Cal State Los Angeles).He is the author of many books of poetry, including Animal (1996), Leaning Against Time (2005), From the Canyon Outward (2009), and The Crow and I (2015). He is the coeditor of Anthology of L.A. Poets (with Charles Bukowski) and Cross-Strokes: Poetry between Los Angeles and San Francisco (with Bill Mohr). He has also published bilingual editions in Austria, Mexico, and Italy. A facsimile edition of one of his notebooks was published by Viviani Edizione in Verona, Italy. Cherkovski also wrote biographies of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Charles Bukowski, as well as the critical memoir Whitman’s Wild Children (1988). His papers are held at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Cherkovski received the 2017 Jack Mueller Poetry Prize awarded at the Jack Mueller Festival in Fruita, Colorado. He has lived in San Francisco since 1974.

The Last Word Reading Series presented, for now, by Himalayan Flavors, a restaurant that serves Indian, Tibetan, and Nepalese cuisine in a beautiful and colorful atmosphere. Dinner here is wonderful and should not be missed. Admission is free, but a one-drink or one-plate minimum is suggested.

1/28/19 Rose Mark and Larry Beresford

1/28/19 Rose Mark and Larry Beresford hosted by Gary

Larry Beresford is a freelance medical journalist and author of two books of poetry, Under a Gibbous Moon: The Adventures of Mister Funky, issued by Broken Shadow Publications, and Family Poems, published by Redheaded Press in 2010. He's been an honorable mention in Dancing Poetry (2014), the Benicia Love Poetry Contest (2018) and the Berkeley Poets Cooperative (1982). He lives in a cohousing community called Phoenix Commons in Oakland, Calif., with his wife Rose Mark,a writer and poet, and their three-legged dog Maggie. Their widow/widower creative writing project was first performed at Bay Area Generations in 2018.

Attachments area

Rose K. Mark writes about relationships, people, love, gratitude, food, erotica, disease, death and design. It’s all so connected.

Her work can be found in several anthologies:  Oakland Neighborhoods, Dirty Old Women- Elder Erotica and Bay Area Generations. Her food and travel articles have been published overseas and locally. Her book Tasting Life, contains stories, poems and recipes about food. Her newest book, Interior Design for Small Dwellings, co-written with Sherrill Baldwin Halbe was published by Routlege Press in November 2018. This is a book for beginning interior design students and laypersons interested in personalizing the interiors of their small home using participatory design. Our philosophy of living simpler by choosing more meaningful design is shared within the book.

Rose has read and performed her pieces throughout the San Francisco and East Bay Area. She’s won 2nd prize in several Poetry Slams much to her surprise and is lately enamoured with sharing her work at a reading series called “You are Going to Die”.

Her life partner/husband and writing compadre is Larry Beresford. They live in a cozy 627 square foot condominium unit in a co-housing community next to the Oakland Estuary in Jingletown. Life is good.   

1/21/2019 Sharon Coleman & Lisa Rosenberg

1/21/2019 Sharon Coleman & Lisa Rosenberg 
THIS SESSION WILL START EXACTLY AT 7PM TO ALLOW FOR BOTH FEATURES TO HAVE FULL TIME.  COME EARLY!  hosted by Bruce

1/14/19 Diane Frank

1/14/19 Diane Frank hosted by Jim

Diane Frank is author of Letters from a Sacred Mountain Place: A Journey through the Nepal Himalayas,(Nirala Press, Delhi, India, 2018), with stories, poems and 53 color photographs. She is also author of 7 books of poems, most recently Canon for Bears and Ponderosa Pines (Glass Lyre Press, 2018). Her first novel,Blackberries in the Dream House was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. www.dianefrank.net

About her book:

Walk with Diane Frank, poet and novelist, on a 400 mile trek in the Nepal Himalayas.  With photographs and her beautifully written narrative, she will take you to many Sacred Mountain Places. You will trek on mountain trails around Annapurna, with an ascent of 17,800 feet to Thorong La, and anoint your spirit in the sacred fountains of Muktinath.   You will climb the Everest trail with astounding views of the mountains and go on pilgrimage to Buddhist temples and monasteries.  The rushing water of sacred rivers will sing to your imagination.  With each step of your journey, you will be transformed by the magic of the mountains. 

            Dreams of the Ecliptic

To change a girl into a kite,

            tell her that love is the moon.  

To teach a tree to sing,

            put a harp under its branches.

To change a bowl of dust into a planet,

            paint watercolor rings around the ecliptic.

To change the sky into a dream,

            put a song into a hammock.

To melt an ice cube,

            light a fire under the map of the constellations.

To write a symphony in a major key,

            plant a rainbow under an apple tree.

To create a universe,

            ride on a meteor shower

                        as the archer shoots a path of light

                                    across the sky.

When the sun rises for the first time,

            fill the sky with your singing.

                                                            ~ Diane Frank

Poetry Express is always Free (except for restaurant purchases or donations to the feature) + Open Mic before and after the feature.

1/7/2019 Features Adele Mendelson

1/7/19 Adele Mendelson

Adele Mendelson was born in Cleveland, Ohio and now lives in Oakland, California.  She writes both fiction and poetry and has produced three volumes of work.  Her strongest conviction about writing is that it should never bore the writer or anyone else, that it should be sexy, have something at stake, and the dark side should be lurking just beneath the cover.