Thursday, February 28, 2019

3/4/19 D. R. Goodman & Judy Bebelaar


3/4/19 D. R. Goodman & Judy Bebelaar hosted by The Last Word Reading Series




D. R. Goodman and Judy Bebelaar will read at 7 pm on Monday, March 4th, at Himalayan Flavors, 1585 University Avenue, 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.

D. R. Goodman, author of Greed: A Confession (Able Muse Press), is a past winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award and two-time winner of the Able Muse Write Prize for poetry. Her work has appeared in many journals across the U.S., and has been selected for inclusion in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, and in the anthology, Sonnets: 150 Contemporary Sonnets, William Baer, editor.  A native of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, she now lives in Oakland, California, where she is founder and senior instructor at a martial arts school. She is also the author of The Kids’ Karate Workbook: A Take-Home Training Guide for Young Martial Artists, from North Atlantic/Blue Snake Books.Goodman claims she always meant to be a poet, but got distracted and went for more than twenty years without writing – until one day while driving, she heard Kay Ryan reading on KQED. She laughed out loud, turned the car around and drove to Berkeley, where she bought the only two Kay Ryan books she could find. She soon began writing again, and has been at it ever since.

Judy Bebelaar's poetry has been published widely in magazines and online, and has won many awards, most recently a first prize, two thirds, and the Grand Prize in the Ina Coolbrith Circle Poetry Contest. Her work is also included in many anthologies, among them The Widows’ Handbook (foreword by Ruth Bader Ginsberg) and River of Earth and Sky. Walking Across the Pacific is her first poetry chapbook. And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple from High School to Jonestown, non-fiction, is about the students from Peoples Temple she and co-author Ron Cabral came to know before most of them were sent to Jonestown. Ron and Judy were recently named Library Laureates 2019 by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.

The Last Word Reading Series is now presented 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. There is ample parking in the lot next to the restaurant.


Monday, February 18, 2019

Juba Kalamka Features 2/25/2019



2/25/19 Juba Kalamka  hosted by Gary



Juba Kalamka is most recognized for his work with performance troupes Sins Invalid and Mangos With Chili, and as cofounder of the queer hip hop group Deep Dickollective (D/DC). Kalamka's personal work centers on intersectional dialogues on race, identity, gender, disability, sexuality and class in popular media.  


His essays and creative writing appear in numerous journals and anthologies including Working Sex:Sex Workers Write About A Changing Industry (2007), Vi ä
misfits! (2009),The Yale Anthology of Rap (2010), Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Menand Queer and Trans Artists of Color: The Stories of Some of Our Lives (2014).    His third solo album Nguzo Sabatage: A Jig School Confidential and first collection of poetry, Son Of Byford, will be published in late 2019.

jubakalamka.bandcamp.com
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Wameru

Late for the study job
Where i contemplate 
Bout the lil’ thang-thangs 
That doo rag bruh-bruh
like him cross the aisle from me trades in
So despite his tea being clocked
He’s right on time
Right next to sistah girl
We gonna give our seats up to homeslice
His skinny seed holding the right hand tight
His youngest holding the left
Sitting in the wagon smiling while

Radio Flying to Sunnyvale

Monday, February 11, 2019

Jan Steckel Features 2/18/19

2/18/19 Jan Steckel  hosted by Bruce 



Jan Steckel is a former pediatrician who stopped practicing medicine because of chronic pain. Her latest poetry book is Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, December 2018). Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks(Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, New Verse News, November 3 Club, Assaracus and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Oakland, California. Her newest book is just out in December, 2018.



Thursday, February 7, 2019

2/11/19 Carl Kopman Features



2/11/19 Carl Kopman hosted by Jim

Carl Kopman is a writer living in Berkeley, California.
He is the publisher of ~ interconnectingcircles.com/ ~
a community based web journal for writers and visual artists.
He is a founding member of The Elk Kelp Choir.


HOOTOWL


It is not me who can explain this mystery

which bemusedly I deflect with charming excuses  
explaining away a growing history
of what to some have become my many abuses.       

Toothpaste tubes left uncapped,

cookie crumbs on my lap,
messages prematurely erased from an answering machine, 
“Someone called, dear, but I can’t remember who”
inbetween increased doses of Ginko Balboa
and a wifely reminder my mind is much slower.

No this cannot be me walking this cast                                    

confusing names first and last
having to create detailed lists
of whom I liked and who I kissed
when I was young and twenty-one
and knew the difference between humiliation and fun.      

Who could have foretold that this would be me

searching the forgotten for his destiny
forgetting his keys or misplacing his morning cereal     
Wiping his mouth on inappropriate material

No this is not me growing so old

becoming a story soon to be told
by those who capture 
the generational baton

leaving behind 
what cannot move on