Willis Barnstone

Willis Barnstone and Tony Barnstone

1 MAY 2016 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Willis Barnstone, Mexico in My Heart, and Tony Barnstone, request ASL interpreters one week in advance from editor@poetryflash.org, wheelchair accessible, Diesel, A Bookstore, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, 3:00 (510/653-9965, dieselbookstore.com)

MORE ABOUT THE READERS
Willis Barnstone's new book of poems is Mexico in My Heart: New and Selected Poems. He is a translator, memoirist, editor, and Biblical and Gnostic scholar as well as a poet; a man who's authored and edited some seventy books. Recent books of poems include Moon Book and Sun Book and Stickball on 88th Street; among his scriptural works and translations are The Other Bible and The New Covenant Commonly Called the New Testament. He has been four times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and in 2015 he was awarded the Fred Cody Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Northern California Book Reviewers at the Northern California Book Awards.
Willis's son, Tony Barnstone's new book of poems is Pulp Sonnets. Dorianne Laux says, "Tony Barnstone takes a walk on the wild side, the darkest dark of the wild side, and stabs us with his manic sonnets of gore, tossing up the meat we call human before taking it down with his forked tongue." His recent collections include Tongue of War, winner of the John Ciardi Prize, and The Golem of Los Angeles, winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award for Poetry. Translator, editor, and fiction writer, too, he's published seventeen books and a music CD. His honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pushcart Prize, and the Pablo Neruda Prize.