return to home page

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
SANDRA STONE & TBA
Sandra Stone’s first book of poems, Cocktails with Breughel at the Museum Café, won the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Award. A subtle, edgy writer whose language is syntactical and representational, in its dreamy, slippery fashion, and yet folds musically back on itself. She won the 2007 Dana Award in Poetry for her cycle of poems, “A Comparison of Silt,” and she was honored with a fellowship from Oregon Literary Arts for her short fictions.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

return to home page

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
ROSE BLACK, RAFAELLA DEL BOURGO & JOSEPH ZACCARDI
Rose Black’s new book of poems is Winter Light. David St. John says of it, “Rose Black is a remarkable and heartbreaking poet. Her meditations on the passages of experience and the psychological resonances of childhood are compelling and powerful. . .” Her first book of poems is Clearing; both books are prose poetry, her chosen form.
Widely published in literary magazines, Rafaella Del Bourgo is the author of I Am Not Kissing You. Among her honors are the Lullwater Prize for Poetry in 2003 and a New River Poets Award in 2006.
Joseph Zaccardi’s latest book of poems is Reader. James Downs has said of it, “. . .dig into the earth. . .reach sky. . .hands into the soil of the world. . .buddhist sensibility. . .the love comes through.” Joseph Zaccardi is the Associate Editor of the Marin Poetry Center Anthology.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

return to home page

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2009, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
ALISON HAWTHORNE DEMING & TBA
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965, dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
A CELEBRATION FOR VAN GOGH’S EAR, THE LOVE EDITION
Published jointly by French Connection Press (Paris) and Committee on Poetry (New York), Volume Six of this international literary and art journal was edited by Dawn-Michelle Baude, who will be on hand to intro the readers along with Poetry Flash’s host Richard Silberg. This contributors reading will feature a wild and wonderful range of Bay Area poets and prose writers.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

return to home page

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
BARBARA CLAIRE FREEMAN & ENDI BOGUE HARTIGAN
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

return to home page

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2009, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
MARILYN KALLET & SUSAN COHEN
Marilyn Kallet’s latest book of poems is Packing Light, a new and selected; X.J. Kennedy says, “Marilyn Kallet writes with candor, infectious humor, and verve. Her poems keep delivering enjoyable jolts that you don’t see coming&an immensely skilled crafter of fat-free free verse.” Marilyn Kallet is the author of fourteen books, including the book of poems Circe After Hours, Last Love Poems of Paul Eluard, translation; The Movable Nest: A Mother/ Daughter Companion, which she co-edited; and Sleeping With One Eye Open: Women Writers and the Art of Survival.
Susan Cohen’s new poetry book is Finding the Sweet Spot; Molly Fisk enthuses, “Susan Cohen’s poems praise the world in all directions, from the autistic boy who sings to a canyon at four in the morning to the huge flock of crows whose ruckus ‘saws into our sleep.’&Cohen’s words are well-earned, they sear us with a fierce joy.” An earlier collection, Backstroking, was a winner of the Acorn-Rukeyser Chapbook Award. She has had a long, varied career as a journalist, for the San Jose Mercury News, as a freelancer, a faculty member of the Graduate School of Journalism, and other positions, with a special interest in science, health, and ethics questions. She is co-author of the new book Normal at Any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys, and the Medical Industry’s Quest to Manipulate Height.
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965, dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
FRESH INK WRITERS WORKSHOP READING
featuring ADAM DAVID MILLER, BARBARA MINTON,
SUE PRINCE, JULIAN WALLER & DAVID WHITE
This long-running community-based writers group will publish a new anthology of their work this fall. Started by East Bay poet and examiner.com columnist Jannie Dresser, this group has been meeting regularly to workshop their poems since 1989. All of the poets reading are featured in the new anthology.
Adam David Miller is know for both his collections of poetry, including Forever Afternoon, Apocalypse is My Garden, and his coming-of-age memoir, Ticket to Exile, on growing up in the “Jim Crow” South. Ticket to Exile was nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Creative Nonfiction.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
TONY BARNSTONE & TIFFANY HIGGINS
This reading has the special theme of war.
Tony Barnstone’s newest book of poems, Tongue of War, a series of dramatic monologues set in the Pacific in World War II, won the John Ciardi Prize in Poetry. His previous collection, The Golem of Los Angeles, won the Benjamin Saltman Award in Poetry. A translator and a critic, as well, with many books and publications to his credit, his honors include an NEA Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize, among many others.
Tiffany Higgins’s first book of poems, and Aeneas stares into her helmet, won the 2008 Carolina Wren Press Poetry Contest; Patrick Herron says of it, “Tiffany Higgins’ anachronistic and recast hero is one brilliantly charged nexus of exploitation and war; she is captured, tortured, and released as a sequence of heartbreaking lyrics. A stunning book.” Her poetry, critical essays, and her translation of the poetry of the Lebanese writer Nadia Taéni from the French, have been widely published in literary journals, including Poetry Flash.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

return to home page

THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 2010, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
ANDREI CODRESCU & WILLIS BARNSTONE
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

return to home page

THURSDAY, JANUARY 21, 2010, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
BRETT EUGENE RALPH & JASON MORRIS
Brett Eugene Ralph’s first book of poems is Black Sabbatical. Andrew Hudgins says of it, “&the giddy energy of the writing doesn’t exist for its own sake. It’s generated by the poems struggling with endangered and extinct species, ill and abused children, nuclear war, and war unadorned with nuclear weaponry&Ralph’s poems are&all the more powerful for their complex awareness of how to delight and to instruct are, at the highest level, all the same thing.” Ralph is also a musician who began in punk rock and currently leads a country rock ensemble called Brett Eugene Ralph’s Kentucky Chrome Revue.
Jason Morris grew up in Vermont and now lives in San Francisco, where he edits Big Bell. He’s been widely published in literary journals including Mirage #4 Period(ical), Jacket, TRY!, puppyflowers, and Salt Hill. His new collection of poems, Spirits & Anchors, is forthcoming from Auguste Press.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2010, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
CHERYL KLEIN & TERRY WOLVERTON
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965,
dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

 

~Check back for more readings.~

Recent Past Events:
THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
CYNTHIA KRAMAN & EMILY WARN
Cynthia Kraman’s long awaited book of poems from Bob Holman’s Bowery Books is The Touch. Marie Ponsot calls it: “Rich, lyrical, sharp, a big world well perceived, Cynthia Kraman’s poems are alive with real ideas. Reading them sent me to e-mailing friends to say what I now say, to you, ‘You have to read this,’” She’s published three previous collections, Taking on the Local Color, Club 82, and The Mexican Murals. She’s been widely published in literary journals and anthologized in Ordinary Women, New York Women, and Bowery Women: Poems. Also a prose writer and a playwright, her career spans the dizzying gap from lead singer/lyricist with the Seattle punk rock band Chinas Comidas to a Ph.D. in Medieval Literature and her study of the French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.
Emily Warn’s new book of poems is Shadow Architect. Publishers Weekly says, “Warn’s clear, inviting lines draw on the shapes of the [Hebrew] letters, [she] has created a serious meditation on Jewish prayer and cosmogony in lyrical prose and in accessible verse, a book that belongs not only on poetry shelves, but amid other Judaica and books of prose and verse on religious themes.” Author of two previous books of poems, Emily Warn is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She has divided her time between Seattle and Chicago, where she was the Webby Award-winning editor for PoetryFoundation.org.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com. Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, JUNE 7, 2009, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
A READING FOR
LYRIC POSTMODERNISMS: AN ANTHOLOGY
OF CONTEMPORARY INNOVATIVE POETRIES
featuring contributors
GILLIAN CONOLEY, C.S. GISCOMBE,
AARON SHURIN, & CAROL SNOW
The late poet Reginald Shepherd edited this rich collection from Counterpath,
Lyric Postmodernisms: An Anthology of Contemporary Innovative Poetries, with an aim towards depth and variety. There are twenty-three poets represented, spanning two generations, with some publishing since the 1960s, in a wide range of poetics. Each poet is given space for a poetics statement, sections of longer poems and uncollected work, as well as signature pieces. Publishers Weekly says: “These poems by Peter Gizzi, Brenda Hillman, Nathaniel Mackey, Martha Ronk, and Marjorie Welish, among others, ask questions like what is poetry, a looking out or a looking in? This will be a helpful anthology for readers and students looking to orient themselves toward this vital American tradition.”
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965,
dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
STEVEN NIGHTINGALE
Steven Nightingale’s new book of poetry is Cinnamon Theologies, a collection of reënvisioned sonnets from The Black Rock Press, University of Nevada; he also has two previously published collections of sonnets. “Steven Nightingale is faithful to his name, being the invisible singer of sonnets disguised in form but overheard as a master should be. He addresses the world. Steven is a throwback to art with the morning air of reality.”—Willis Barnstone. Steven Nightingale is also the author of two novels, The Lost Coast and The Thirteenth Daughter of the Moon. “Nightingale’s novel [The Lost Coast] takes us through erotic peregrinations in a parallel universe to our own. . .a delicious book.”—Diane Middlebrook.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, MAY 21, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
Red Hen Press Reading:
TIMOTHY GREEN & JOEL BARRAQUIEL TAN
Timothy Green’s first full-length book of poems is American Fractal; Denise Duhamel says, “The poems in Timothy Green’s American Fractal find love within love; landscape within landscape; the ‘I’ and ‘you’ nestled within the bigger ‘I’ and ‘you’. Unpredictable, uproarious, and true to the wonder of the moment. . .“ He’s the editor of RATTLE magazine, and he’s been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and the Rhysling Award; an earlier version of his book was a finalist for the New
Issues Poetry Prize.
Joël Barraquiel Tan’s new book of poems is Type O Negative; Marianne Villanueva calls it, “A narrative of pain and loss, a memory piece of such raw emotion and sadness it will make you weep. Nothing I have read in the past several years comes close to matching Joël Tan in the nightmarish intensity of his vision.” His previous collections include El Canto de Animal and Monster. Among his honors are grants from the NEA, California Council for the Humanities, and San Francisco Arts Commission, and a fall 2004 Best Poem Prize from Spoon River Review. He’s worked extensively in HIV prevention, and he’s the Director of Community Engagement at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
CHAD SWEENEY & FARRAH FIELD
Chad Sweeney’s new book of poems is Arranging the Blaze. He’s also the author of Parable of Hide and Seek, runner up for the Beatrice Hawley Award, forthcoming in 2010. Sharon Doubiago says of Arranging the Blaze, “I am entralled by Chad Sweeney’s exquisite poems. Philosphical, exploratory in the way the mind naturally wanders—gentle, humorous, of history and time and geography, human tragedy and joy too. And, there are stunning love poems.” His books of poems include An Architecture and A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer, a chapbook. He edited the anthology Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds, poetry, fiction, and memoir by members of the national WritersCorps. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Crazyhorse, New American Writing, Colorado Review, Black Warrior, Runes, Verse, Volt, Barrow Street, American Letters & Commentary, and elsewhere. He is co-editor of Parthenon West Review and is working toward a Ph.D. in literature at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, where he teaches poetry and serves as assistant editor of New Issues Press.
Farrah Field’s first book of poems, Rising, is the winner of the Levis Prize, judged by Tony Hoagland, who says of it, “These poems possess a wonderful combination of irony and soul, satire and vulnerability, which shines a warmly human light.” She has been widely published in such literary journals Margie, Chelsea, Massachusetts Review, Mississippi Review, Pool, and Typo. “Farrah Field is a slinger of the colloquial phrase, the slangy, side-of-the-mouth aphorismcryptic and in your face, her voice is flavored by a Southern regionalism, but the country manners are deployed at a metropolitan speed. So the best of her poems represent, perhaps, the hybrid dilemma
of an inside-outsider, who isn’t sure how much of her belongs to any tribe.” —Tony Hoagland.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, MAY 3, 2009, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
CAROL MOLDAW, JULIA B. LEVINE & RUTH L. SCHWARTZ
Carol Moldaw’s new book, The Widening, calls itself a “lyric novel” and is written throughout in numbered, prose poem-size sections. Rikki Ducornet says of it, “In this irresistible evocation of an erotic life, Carol Moldaw’s juvenile lead—impetuous, unbridled, unexpectedly funny and self-deceiving—is always wildly interesting. I dearly love this book.” Carol Moldaw has published four books of poetry, including The Lightning Field, which won the 2002 FIELD Poetry Prize. Among her honors are a Lannan Foundation Marfa Writer’s Residency, a Pushcart Prize, and an NEA Fellowship.
Julia B. Levine’s new book is Ditch-tender. Dennis Schmitz calls it “a book of longings and healings. Julia Levine doesn’t conjure as much as coax the magic to happen by itself. The poems lift and move us in currents—shifts, insinuations and splendid runs, delicate textures, depths.” Among her other honors are a Discovery/The Nation Award for Emerging New Writers and the Pablo Neruda Prize. Her previous books include Practicing for Heaven, winner of the 1998 Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and Ask, winner of the 2002 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry.
Ruth L. Schwartz has published three books of poetry: Edgewater, selected by Jane Hirshfield for the National Poetry Series 2001; Singular Bodies, winner of the 2000 Anhinga Prize for Poetry; Accordion Breathing and Dancing, winner of the 1994 Associated Writing Programs Award. She’s also published a book of memoir, Death in Reverse: A Love Story. She has won over a dozen national literary prizes, including two Nimrod/Pablo Neruda Awards, New Letters Prize in Poetry, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Jane Hirshfield says of Edgewater, “Ruth L. Schwartz writes with consummate passion, precision, and honesty of the raw hungers that give rise to the world&she grapples with her twofold, central question: How can we love fully, open-eyed and open-hearted amid all the flaws and beauty, each other and the world? How could we not?”
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965, dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
Sixteen Rivers Press Reading:
LYNNE KNIGHT & CAROLYN MILLER
This reading celebrates two new books from Sixteen Rivers Press.
Lynne Knight’s new book of poems is Again. Grace Schulman says of it, “Her poems are luminous and musical. . .She plumbs the depths of grief and joy, and this reader is with her all the way.” Her two most recent previous collections are The Book of Common Betrayal and Night in the Shape of a Mirror. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, and she’s won a Theodore Roethke Award from Poetry Northwest and a Lucille Medwich Memorial Award from Poetry Society of America.
Carolyn Miller’s new book of poems is Light, Moving. Forrest Hamer calls it “an elegant celebration of close attentiveness from a poet ever engaged in and humbled by living. Carolyn Miller’s poems are sensual, care-filled, and shining. . . .” Her previous full-length collection, also from Sixteen Rivers, is After Cocteau. She has received a James Boatwright Award from Shenandoah and the Rainmaker Award from Zone 3.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
JULIE CARR, CAROL SNOW, & BRIAN TEARE
Julie Carr has published two books of poems, Mead: An Epithalamion, and Equivocal; she’s widely published in literary journals and appeared in the anthology Best American Poetry 2007. She is co-publisher of Counterpath Press and teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Carol Snow’s new book of poems is Placed: Karesansui Poems. Cole Swensen says of it, “This delicate, masterful book joins Zukofsky, Waldrop and others in a growing body of work honoring the preposition and the primacy of relationship over objects. . . .” Her three previous books are Artist and Model, chosen by Robert Hass for the National Poetry Series, Fore, and The Seventy Prepositions. She’s collaborated on two text-dance works with choreographer Alex Ketley, Syntax: A Reading Danced and Vessel.
Brian Teare’s new book of poems is Sight Map. D.A. Powell says of his work, “Brian Teare’s poetry is turning the lyric on its ear. No one is safe in any of these poems, in any sense of the word. What a brave new voice, vivid and gutsy and fresh.” A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, he won the Brittingham Prize for his first book of poems The Room Where I Was Born.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, APRIL 5, 2009, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
Poetry Solos, Duos & Three-sided Exchanges:
DIANE di PRIMA, MICHAEL McCLURE & DAVID MELTZER
These are three great poets from the heart of the Beat generation.
Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters, her youthful classic, has been published in a new, expanded edition; other recent publications are the memoir Recollections of My Life as a Woman and a revised, expanded edition of Loba, di Prima's ongoing epic of the wild feminine spirit. Michael McClure, of course, was one of the five readers at the Six Gallery reading where Ginsberg first read “Howl.” Prolific poet, Obie-winning playwright, essayist, and novelist, he continues to publish and to perform, most recently with Big Mix, with Ray Manzarek from the Doors and other musicians. McClure’s most recent poetry books are Rain Mirror and his book of Zen poems Touching the Edge.
David Meltzer is a prolific poet, Kabbalist, and jazz guitarist; among his recent publications are No Eyes: Lester Young, poems from the life of the jazz saxphonist, Beat Thing, poetizing in and around that movement and its times, and David’s Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer.
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965, dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART. For more information, Poetry Flash:
(510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
D.A. POWELL & HUGH BEHM-STEINBERG
D.A. Powell’s new book of poems is Chronic from Graywolf Press; J.D. McClatchy says of it, “Whenever I change the channel to D.A. Powell’s work, there beneath the screen’s headlines runs the simultaneous quicksilver crawl of news from elsewhere: from underneath, behind the scenes, the half-secret places where love is brokered and power is spent. . .Chronic gives us the time of our lives in ways both ardent and exhilarating.” Powell’s previous collections are Tea, Lunch, and Cocktails, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Hugh Behm-Steinberg’s book of poems is Shy Green Fields; Jane Miller says his debut volume “. . .is in company with books by poets who wrote about glorious ordinary days in extraordinary times. In a pillowbook of a hundred seven-line poems, this life, as it is written, has the shadow of Robert Creeley’s A Day Book behind it, and the shadow of Federico Lorca in his famous, reiterated line, Green, I love you, green, . . .” A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Hugh Behm-Steinberg has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. He is the editor of the California College of Arts literary journal Eleven Eleven.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2009, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
ETEL ADNAN, HAYAN CHARARA & FADY JOUDAH
Etel Adnan’s new book, a book-length series of prose poems, is Seasons. Megan Pruiett says of it, “A series of mediations following the sun...Intimate with ephemera, alert to what’s hidden, Seasons seeks the universe within and beyond the spirit’s changeable weather, finding everywhere its center.” Adnan, born to a Greek Christian and a Muslim Syrian father, has published seven books of poetry and the novel Sitt Marie-Rose.
Hayan Charara is the editor of Inclined to Speak, An Anthology of Arab American Poetry which includes Adnan, herself, and such well-known poets as Naomi Shihab Nye, Jack Marshall, Lawrence Joseph, and many others. Charara is a poet himself, author of two poetry books.
Fady Joudah’s first book of poems, The Earth in the Attic, has been chosen by Louise Glück for this year’s Yale Younger Poets selection. In her Foreword to the book she says, “These are small poems, many of them, but the grandeur of conception is inescapable. The Earth in the Attic is varied, coherent, fierce, tender, impossible to put down, impossible to forget.” Joudah, also in Charara’s anthology, is a Palestinian-American medical doctor and a field member of Doctors Without Borders since 2001. He has translated the late Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry in a recently published collection, The Butterfly’s Burden.
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965, dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
DOBBY GIBSON & MATT HART
Dobby Gibson’s new book of poems is Skirmish from Graywolf Press; Tony Hoagland says of it, “This is a poetry of—in Gibson’s own terms—echolocation, that makes us grapple with the ghosts of speech and world at once. The poems of Skirmish are both entertaining and troubling and full of complex contemporary sensibility.” Gibson’s first collection, Polar, was a Beatrice Hawley Award-winner from Alice James Books.
Matt Hart’s full-length collection of poetry is Who’s Who Vivid; he’s also the author of three chapbooks: Revelated, Sonnet, and Simply Rocket. A collaborative chapbook, Deafening Leafening, with poet Ethan Paquin, is forthcoming from Pilot Books. Additionally, his work has appeared in many print and online journals, including Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, Jubilat, and Octopus. He lives and teaches in Cincinnati where he edits Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking, & Light Industrial Safety.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry ON TOUR
with editor Francisco Aragón
& contributors: John Olivares Espinoza, Venessa Fuentes
Adela Najarro, Paul Martínez Pompa
This reading celebrates The Wind Shifts, the anthology edited by Francisco Aragón with a Foreword by Juan Felipe Herrera, and published by the University of Arizona Press.
Francisco Aragón will be at the reading with four of his exciting contributors flown in as part of a national tour. John Olivares Espinoza’s first full-length book of poetry is The Date Fruit Elegies; he’s appeared in many journals and anthologies, most recently in The Bear Flag Republic: Prose Poems from California. A working member of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Venessa Fuentes has appeared in Between the Heart and the Land/Entre el Corazón y la Tierra: Latina Poets in the Midwest, and other literary journals; she has received the SASE/Jerome Award.
Adela Najarro has appeared in many literary journals, including Crab Orchard Review, Cimarron Review, and Another Chicago Magazine. Paul Martínez Pompa’s first full-length book of poems, While Late Capitalism, was selected by Martín Espada as winner of the 2008 Andres Montoya Poetry Prize and will be published by University of Notre Dame Press in 2009; he is a former editor of Indiana Review. Francisco Aragón is the author of Puerta del Sol; he is currently Director of Letras Latinas, the literary unit of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame (www.franciscoaragon.net).
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2009, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
Scarlet Tanager Press Reading:
MARC HOFSTADTER & ZACK ROGOW
This reading celebrates two new poetry releases from Scarlet Tanager Press.
Zack Rogow’s new book of poems is The Number Before Infinity; Cornelius Eady says of the book, “I was reminded of young Neruda’s love poems: here is that passion, tempered and informed by the briars and grace of marriage and family. Bravo Love, Bravo Poetry.” Zack Rogow is the author, editor, or translator of seventeen books and plays, including six books of poetry, three anthologies, four volumes of translation, and a children’s book.
Marc Hofstadter’s new book of poems is Luck. He’s published three previous books of poems, House of Peace, Visions, and Shark's Tooth. His poems, translations, and essays have been
published in over sixty literary journals, and also in Steeped, an anthology of writings about tea.
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965, dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 2009, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
JOHN ISLES & RUSTY MORRISON
John Isles’s new book of poems is Inverse Sky; Donald Revell praises it: “The poems of Inverse Sky transpire in a magic climate conducive to old Edens and new evangels. Here are wantonness and water-lights written starkly. And here, too, are tender shades I have not met before, in a further America.” John Isles’s first poetry collection was Ark. He received an NEA fellowship and an award from The Los Angeles Review.
Rusty Morrison’s new book of poems is the true keeps calm biding its story; winner of the 2007 Sawtooth Prize from Ahasahta Press, it was also chosen by Rae Armantrout, Claudia Rankine, and Bruce Smith for the 2008 James Laughlin Award for most outstanding second book of poetry
published in America that year. Claudia Rankine says of it, “. . .the poem transforms into a machine for transmitting lines across impossible distances. . . .In the end we, as readers, are left with a stunning collection, written into the silence of everlasting loss.” Her first book, Whethering, won the 2004 Colorado Prize for Poetry, and also received the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, among other honors. Rusty Morrison is the co-publisher of Omnidawn.
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965, dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2009, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
SHARON DOUBIAGO & JUDITH ROCHE
Sharon Doubiago’s Love on the Streets: Selected and New Poems has just been published and is receiving heartfelt acclaim from journals like Bloomsbury Review, ALA Booklist, and others; here is the LA Weekly: “Her poetry is narrative by nature and epic by intent, and it achieves its state of white-hot imagination because Sharon Doubiago meets life so imaginatively.” Among her many books of poems are the feminist epic Hard Country, South America Mi Hija, and her most recent, Body & Soul. She’s published two collections of short stories, The Book of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes and El Niño. Her long-awaited memoir, My Father’s Love, is forthcoming.
Judith Roche’s new book of poems is Wisdom of the Body, winner of an American Book Award; Sharon Doubiago says of it, “Steeped in biology, Judith Roche’s poems come close to saying the Unspeakable---Wisdom of the Body is an outstanding achievement, the work of one of our most important poets in full maturity.” She’s published two previous books of poems, and she’s co-editor of First Fish, First People: Salmon Tales of the North Pacific Rim, poems, folk tales, histories, essays, and stories on this fish, so important to so many different peoples, with writing that tells of its near extinction through over fishing in our own time. This anthology also received an American Book Award.
This event is supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com. Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2008, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
RICK BAROT & VICTORIA CHANG
Born in the Philippines and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Rick Barot is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His first book of poems, The Darker Fall, was the winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry. His new collection is Want. Terrance Hayes says of it, “...I’ve grown too intoxicated, too gripped by this wonderful collection to reduce it to a single idea. In Rick Barot’s hands every poem casts at least two luminous shadows. Want is masterfully merciless and merciful at the same time.”
Victoria Chang’s first book of poems, Circle, was chosen for the Crab Orchard Review Award Series in Poetry and also won the Association of Asian American Studies Book Award. Her new book is Salvinia Molesta: Poems, whose title refers to a particularly virulent invasive species which, as Linda Gregerson says, “...can smother a lake in days. And under its proliferant injunction, Victoria Chang surveys the paths that brought us here. She charts her course through biosphere and boardroom, the intimate spaces of private infidelity, the vast terrains of state-supported slaughter...in art this finely pitched we have the one true antidote.”
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965, dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2008, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe's Books
PETER NEIL CARROLL & JARED SMITH
Peter Neil Carroll’s new book-length narrative poem, Riverborne: A Mississippi Requiem, tells of two friends repeating their young men’s trip along the Mississippi in late middle age, a journey that flows through geography and history, intercut with quotes and allusions to Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This is a skillful, captivating book, a resonant, American journey that rises to an epiphany, a transcendent historical surprise as they approach the Mississippi delta. Former editor of the San Francisco Review of Books, Carroll is also the author of the prose work Keeping Time: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Art of History.
Jared Smith’s new book of poems is The Graves Grow Bigger Between Generations, selected as top pick in the September/October edition of Small Press Review, and recently favorably reviewed in The Midwest Quarterly and Home Planet News. He has published seven volumes of poetry. A two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, he was also nominated for the National Book Award for his 2007 collection, Where Mages Become Imbued With Time. He has also released two CDs, Seven Minutes Before The Bombs Drop and Controlled by Ghosts. For more on Jared Smith, see http://www.jaredsmith.info/.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com. Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2008, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
MICHAEL McGRIFF & ANDREW GRACE
Michael McGriff’s first book of poems, Dismantling the Hills, is the winner of the 2007 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. Ed Ochester praises it, “The poems...are love songs to the forests of the Pacific Northwest....Distinguished by their masterful craft and human sympathy, these poems constitute not just an unusually fine and readable first collection, but an evocation of place and spirit....” He is also the translator of Tomas Tranströmer’s The Sorrow Gondola. Among his honors are a Stegner fellowship from Stanford University, a Michener Fellowship from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.
Andrew Grace, also a Stegner Fellow at Stanford for the last two years, has won an Academy of American Poets prize and the Southern Poetry Review’s Guy Owen Prize. His first book of poems, A Belonging Field, was published in 2002; his second, forthcoming collection, Shadeland, won the 2008 Ohio State University/The Journal Award.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2008, 3:00
Poetry Flash at DIESEL, A Bookstore
JAN BEATTY & MOLLY FISK
Jan Beatty’s new book of poems, her third, is Red Sugar; Alicia Ostriker enthuses about it, “Jan Beatty’s Red Sugar is a hard-rocking book, a gorgeous sexual book, a fearless way high up and way down deep roller-coaster book of poetry....It is full of strong language and full of love....” Beatty’s previous two collections are Boneshaker and Mad River, which won the 1994 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. She’s also won the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, and she’s received two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Beatty is the co-host and producer of “Prosody,” a weekly radio show featuring the work of national writers.
Molly Fisk’s full-length book of poems is Listening to Winter, about which Jane Hirshfield said, “Molly Fisk brings to her readers a poetry of great emotional power, linguistic invention, and courage. She looks long and hard at the world, and speaks to what she sees with both clarity and depth.” Molly Fisk has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and directs the Poetry Boot Camp online peer poetry workshop. She has also released two CDs of her popular radio commentaries, Using Your Turn Signal Promotes World Peace and Blow-Drying a Chicken.
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, (510) 653-9965, dieselbookstore.com. Near Rockridge BART.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2008, NOON-4:00
WATERSHED ENVIRONMENTAL POETRY FESTIVAL
Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Jane Hirshfield,
California Poet Laureate Al Young with bassist Dan Robbins,
Joseph Lease, Camille Dungy, Avotcja with bassist Eugene Warren, Sonoma County Poet Laureate Mike Tuggle, Chris Olander, open mic, CPITS/River of Words/Poetry Inside Out K-12 student poets & much more
presented alongside the Berkeley Farmers' Market, near Berkeley BART,
Civic Center Park, downtown Berkeley (rain venue: Berkeley City College)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2008, 7:30
Poetry Flash at Moe’s Books
ED PAVLIC & SEAN HILL
Ed Pavlic’s new collection of prose poems, Winners Have Yet to Be Announced, is about 1970s soul singer Donny Hathaway, who died, presumably of suicide, at the age of thirty-three, and who is known for his many recordings, including “A Song for You” and “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black.” Terrence Hayes says of the collection, “Ed Pavlic shapes the ineffable (some call it Duende, some call it Soul) into a language haunting the borders of the sayableand unsayable, the sung and the unsung.” Other of Pavlic’s books include Labors Lost Left Unfinished and Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue. He’s also the author of a scholarly work, Crossroads Modernism, on African American literary culture.
Sean Hill’s debut collection of poetry is Blood Ties & Brown Liquor. Each poem builds on the poetic landscape created from his hometown, Milledgeville, Georgia, offering a portrait of the town’s black community. A multitude of voices rises from the pages to celebrate to create a call and response across six generations of the family of the fictional character Silas Wright, a black man born in 1907. These poems spread before us a sensuous world of quotidian lives punctuated by love and violence. Sean Hill is a Cave Canem fellow; he is currently a Stegner fellow at Stanford University. “Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Bishop: these are among the select few whose first books signaled a new vision of form and vernacular, an everyday elegance. We can now add Sean Hill’s transcendent debut to that remarkable list.”---Kevin Young.
MOE’S BOOKS, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 849-2087, moesbooks.com.
Parking at the Durant/Channing Garage, close to Telegraph. Channing is one block north.
For more information, Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.