Farnaz Fatemi and Lisa Allen Ortiz celebrate the political work that poetry can do. In the shadow of our recent election, they read poems by Rick Barot, Lorna Dee Cervantes and Gary Copeland Lilley; they also discuss Farnaz’ own work and parse out what it means to define a poem as political. Listen here.
Julie Murphy interviews award winning poets Ellen Bass and Cynthia White about their poems and the work of Jericho Brown and Paul Tran included in the new gender-inclusive anthology Grabbed: Poets and Writers on Sexual Assault, Empowerment and Healing. Please join us as we read stunning poems and engage in a lively discussion of the power of poetry, how to write about difficult subjects, art and healing, and more.
From the Grabbed website:
“The editors asked writers and poets to add to the conversation about what being “grabbed” means to them in their own experience or in whatever way the word “grabbed” inspired them. What they received are often searing, heart-rending works, ranging in topic from sexual misconduct to racial injustice, from an unwanted caress to rape, expressed in powerful, beautifully crafted prose and poetry.
This book is for everyone who has ever felt alone in their experience of being grabbed, violated, overlooked, and silenced. This anthology is their voice. It is their war cry. It is their plea to be heard and be seen. We want this volume to provide hope to those who have yet to harness the power of their own story. Years in the making, the stitching together of this important narrative chronicles a moment in time which is, unfortunately, also timeless.”
Resources:
If you or anyone you know is a victim of domestic violence, please call The National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 1-800-787-3224 (TTY) En Español: 1.800.799.7233
LINKS:
BOOKS:
Grabbed: Writers and Poets on Sexual Assault, Empowerment and Healing edited by Richard Blanco, Caridad Moro, Nikki Moustaki, and Elisa Albo
The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse 20th Anniversary Edition by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis
I Never Told Anyone by Ellen Bass
Listen here to the buzz of the Morton Marcus annual event!
Award-winning poet, essayist, and novelist Morgan Parker was the featured guest at the 11th annual Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Reading, which took place this year as a virtual event on November 12. Danusha Lameris and Dion O’Reilly dive deep into Morgan Parker’s poetry.
The Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Reading is held each year to honor poet, teacher, film critic, and Santa Cruz cultural icon Morton Marcus (1936-2009). It was created to continue Marcus’s tradition of bringing acclaimed poets to Santa Cruz County, to acknowledge the significant role poetry has played in the community’s history, and to help preserve poetry’s influence in the county’s culture.
This community event is presented by the The Humanities Institute and co-sponsored by Bookshop Santa Cruz, the Cabrillo College English Department, Cowell College, the Living Writers Series, Ow Family Properties, Poetry Santa Cruz, the Porter Hitchcock Modern Poetry Fund, and Porter College.
Listen HERE.
Dion O’Reilly interviews fellow Terrapin Poets Karen Holmes and Ann Fisher-Wirth. We hear a few poems from their books, The Bones of Winter Birds, by Ann Fisher-Wirth and No Such Things as Distance, by Karen Holmes.
The Hive Poetry Collective 