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From 1982 to June 2006, Poetry Flash curated one of the West Coast's most exciting, inclusive, and longest running reading series at Cody's Books on Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, one of the nation's most historically significant independent bookstores. That store closed on July 10, 2006. However, the Poetry Flash reading series will go forward. Over one-hundred writers---primarily poets---will continue to be introduced each year by our host, Poetry Flash Associate Editor Richard Silberg. Now, as in the past, our diverse series is open to every style, while providing a consistent place to hear poetry's best. In the summer of 2006, readings were hosted at Moe's Books in Berkeley and DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland; we thank them so much for their support of poets, poetry readings, and Poetry Flash. In the fall 2006 season, our readings will be held at Black Oak Books in Berkeley and at Berkeley City College in downtown Berkeley, co-sponsored as off-site events by an independent bookstore. We thank The Chancellor's Initiative, University of California, Berkeley, for their help in supporting and maintaining the Poetry Flash reading series. For a statement by former owner Andy Ross on the closing of Cody's on Telegraph, see below.

For more information, call Poetry Flash at (510) 525-5476.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 7:30
Poetry Flash presents at Black Oak Books:

GLORIA FRYM & DAVID MELTZER

Poet and short story writer Gloria Frym has just published a new book of poems, Solution Simulacra (United Artists); her previous book of poems, Homeless at Home, won an American Book Award. Each of these two books is intensely political without sacrificing poetic quality, Each finds a distinctive voice, distinctive devices, to bring politics into literature. Anne Waldman says of the new book, "Poetry, prose poems, polemic exist in a polyvalent, quotidian, urgent universe. Poetry is, in this visionary powerful response, the rival government. Gloria Frym is the patriot I'll vote for, every time." Born in Brooklyn, Frym has lived for many decades in Berkeley. She's published several earlier collections of poetry, many essays and reviews, and she's the author of the two critically acclaimed books of short stories, How I Learned and Distance No Object (City Lights Books).
David Meltzer is one of the key poets of the Beat generation, also a jazz guitarist, Cabalist scholar, core member of the New College faculty in San Francisco, and an entrancing performer. The author of more than fifty books of poetry and prose, he is most recently the author of David's Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer, (Penguin Poets), edited by Michael Rothenberg, with an introduction by Jerome Rothenberg, and Beat Thing (La Alameda Press), his epic poem on the Beat generation, called by Jack Hirschman "Meltzer's most important lyri-political work to date...written by a poet who, in terms of the rhythms and verbal inventiveness and the naming of figures of popular culture, is without equal anywhere." His other books include No Eyes, poems on the great Lester Young, and a book of interviews, San Francisco Beat: Talking with the Poets (City Lights Books).
BLACK OAK BOOKS, 1491 Shattuck Avenue at Vine, Berkeley, (510) 486-0698. blackoakbooks.com

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 8, 7:30
Poetry Flash presents at Black Oak Books:

THOMAS HEISE & ROBIN EKISS

Thomas Heise's first book of poems is Horror Vacui (Sarabande Books), 'horror of the vacuum', absence poetically configured. Dean Young says of it, "Poem after poem reimagines itself formally, driven not only by imaginative restlessness but also, impressively, felt need. It is as if each poem honors the emotional vividness of individual experiences with its own true shape." His work appears in many literary publications, is anthologized in American Poets of the New Century and elsewhere, and his honors include the Gulf Coast Prize for Poetry. He's currently at work on a second book of poems as well as a study of twentieth century urban American culture and literarure.
Robin Ekiss is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Widely published in such literary journals as Poetry, Kenyon Review, AGNI, and many others, she was a finalist for the prestigious Walt Whitman Award with her first poetry manuscript. Ironic and lyrical at once, Ekiss's poetry sings mechanism, the Russian doll-like nesting of things within things; beautfully phrased and haunting, these lyrics limn the tenacity of will, gray-on-gray intricacies powering buds, migrating birds, and poets.
BLACK OAK BOOKS, 1491 Shattuck Avenue at Vine, Berkeley, (510) 486-0698. blackoakbooks.com

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 7:30
Poetry Flash presents at Black Oak Books:

ELLINE LIPKIN & LISA SEWELL

Elline Lipkin's first book of poems, The Errant Thread, won the Kore Press First Book Award, selected by Eavan Boland who says of it, "There is real verve, real invention and, above all, true craft...a writer certain of what the craft is there to do." Lipkin earned her Ph.D. in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Houston in 2003 and has worked as an editor in both New York and Paris. Widely published in literary magazines, she has also been anthologized in The Poets' Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales.
Lisa Sewell has published two books of poems, The Way Out (Alice James Books), and her new one, Name Withheld (Four Way Books); Bin Ramke enthuses about it, "Brilliantly energetic, emotionally tough and intellectually engaging, this book...is a daring, powerful kind of poetics...a gendered engagement with the world---as if Emily Dickinson's transforming skills were suddenly seen as a way of saving the world." She's co-editor with Claudia Rankine of American Poets in the 21st: The New Poetics (Wesleyan University Press). She teaches at Villanova University.
BLACK OAK BOOKS, 1491 Shattuck Avenue at Vine, Berkeley, (510) 486-0698. blackoakbooks.com

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29, 7:30
Poetry Flash presents at Black Oak Books as part of the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival:
NORMAN FISCHER & PAUL NAYLOR

Norman Fischer is a Zen Buddhist priest and teacher. He served as co-abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, among many other monastic positions. His daily writing practice has resulted in many books of poetry, most recently, Success, Slowly but Dearly, and I Was Blown Back. Michael Palmer said of this last collection, "The two distinctive sequences that form I Was Blown Back explore the elusive, even ungraspable, nature of memory, perception and personhood with moving immediacy, and with a modest of tone that cloaks a striking acuteness." To quote from Fischer's work, "The air talks to me in fluttering words… Human mind's not human nature--- / looking out at landscape I hear the songs."
Paul Naylor's two previous poetry collections are Playing Well With Others and Book of Changes; he's also published a study of five contemporary poets, Poetic Investigations: Singing the Holes in History. Arranging Nature is his new book of poems; Nathaniel Mackey says, "Exchanges between terse, declarative prose and cryptogrammatical verse conduce to an abidingly long view, deep and wide as well. Odic, diaristic, playful, prayerful: a rich, multiply-aspected book." Paul Naylor is also the editor-publisher of Singing Horse Press.
BLACK OAK BOOKS, 1491 Shattuck Avenue at Vine, Berkeley, (510) 486-0698. blackoakbooks.com

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 7:30
Poetry Flash presents at Berkeley City College:

ELIZABETH ARNOLD & GRAHAM FOUST

Elizabeth Arnold's first book of poems, The Reef, appeared in 1999. Her new collection, Civilization, has just been published. Eleanor Wilner says of it, "[Her] high-tension lines cross a vast space---astronomical, historical and personal---a space expansive and annihilating…These spare and unsparing lines, taut with a formidable restraint, vibrate to frequencies that her almost preternaturally acute perception allows us to share." Among Arnold's honors are a Bunting fellowship and a Whiting Writers' Award.
Graham Foust has published two previous books of poems, As in Every Deafness and Leave the Room to Itself; his brand new collection is Necessary Stranger. Robert Creeley said of him, "In fact, he's the first person who ever moved me to look up the etymology of…think: 'tong- To think, feel…Old English thancian, to thank…' Anyhow, methinks I owe this poet thanks for fact of us both finding wit in stone and much else. He feels, therefore he knows." Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, he's lived in a bewildering number of places and worked a bevy of jobs to arrive here in Oakland teaching in the Writing Program at Saint Mary's College.
BERKELEY CITY COLLEGE, Auditorium, 2050 Center Street, Berkeley;
For more information, call Poetry Flash: (510) 525-5476.
One half-block west of Downtown Berkeley BART.

Additional Poetry Flash readings will soon be announced. Check back for details!

The last Poetry Flash at Cody's Telegraph reading was held on June 4, 2006. Sad news for a Bay Area institution, but there it is. Poetry Flash readings will continue at Black Oak Books and at Berkeley City College in fall 2006.

BERKELEY'S TELEGRAPH AVENUE TO LOSE CODY'S BOOKS;

CODY'S REMAINS STRONG ON FOURTH STREET IN BERKELEY

AND ON STOCKTON STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO

May 10, 2006

Andy Ross, owner and president of Cody's Books, Inc., has announced that Cody's oldest store, on Telegraph Avenue near the University of California in Berkeley, will close its doors on July 10, 2006.

Cody's Books on Fourth Street in Berkeley and Cody's Stockton Street in San Francisco, as well as Cody's School and Book Fair division, remain open, healthy, and intent upon continuing to provide the best of independent bookselling.

Ross noted the fifteen-year sales decline in the south-of-campus area, resulting in Cody's Telegraph Avenue doing only one-third of the business it did in 1990. The company's attempt to keep this store open has caused a loss of over $1,000,000.

"It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that Cody's will be closing our doors at the Telegraph Avenue store for the last time on July 10. We will continue to operate our stores on Fourth Street in Berkeley and on Stockton Street in San Francisco.

The Telegraph store has been declining in sales for more than 15 years. We are now doing only 1/3 of the business that we did here in 1990. We have lost over $1,000,000 attempting to keep the store open. As a family business, we cannot continue to afford these ruinous losses.

The book business has changed over this period. Many of our customers have found other sources for their books. In particular, the Internet has taken quite a bite out of sales, particularly the scholarly and academic titles that have always been our specialty.

This is Cody's 50th year in business and our 43rd year at this location. During this period, Cody's has been engaged in the great issues of our time. As America increasingly turned to huge mass merchants and disembodied Internet retailers in their buying habits, Cody's always urged people to support stores in their communities.

During the 60's, Cody's was part of the great anti-war movement that began in Berkeley. In 1989, we were the first victim of international terrorism in the United States. We were bombed during the Rushdie Affair. After the bombing, Cody's staff voted unanimously to continue carrying The Satanic Verses, even in the face of threats to our lives. This was a great and heroic act of commitment to humanistic values by simple booksellers. It was truly our finest hour.

Throughout this period, we spoke of the dangers of economic concentration in bookselling on the part of chain stores. Sadly our warnings have come to pass. Stores like Cody's have become truly rare. The few that remain are cherished by their communities.

Cody's is an idea, not a building. That idea will endure in our other stores on Fourth Street and in San Francisco. 

We leave Telegraph with great sadness, but with a sense of honor that we have served our customers and our community with such distinction; and that in our own way, we have changed the world for the better and will continue to do so.

Thank you, dear customers, for giving us that opportunity."

---Andy Ross               

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