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Sally Ashton

Sally Ashton and Rafaella Del Bourgo

14 SEPTEMBER 2025 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a reading featuring Rafaella Del Bourgo, launching her new book, A Tune Both Familiar and Strange, poems, and Sally Ashton, Listening to Mars, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm (poetryflash.org).

Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series. The featured books will be available for signing at the event and at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash. This event will be posted on the Poetry Flash YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UClwdR-uPFNz7XxbBbLcnoEA.

MORE ABOUT THE READERS
Sally Ashton's fifth book is Listening to Mars. Holly Iglesias says, "Listening is the quietest of talents, and the most fruitful. In this moving collection, Sally Ashton brings to readers what she heard as time and space had their way with us during the early years of the pandemic. In these poems, she creates Einsteinian thought experiments, tools for understanding and enduring the grief and beauty of a world where 'nothing stands still.' Loss and wonder, dread and awe gyrate throughout the book, spinning like heavenly bodies, the poet equally rigorous and tender in her search for 'words that make the world look like what it feels like.' Ashton reveres the mysterious movement of the world and offers it as a comfort: 'While Earth kept turning, gravity held us close.'" Her poem "4.6 Billion Years" is now archived on the Moon as part of the Lunar Codex project. A book of personal essays exploring a personal practice and the race to space, Going to the Moon, is forthcoming from Duke University Press. Former Santa Clara County Poet Laureate, Sally Ashton is also Editor-in-Chief of DMQ Review, an online journal featuring prose poetry and art. Now Faculty Emerita, she taught writing at San José State University and continues to teach workshops locally and online.
Rafaella Del Bourgo's brand new full-length collection launching at this event is A Tune Both Familiar and Strange, winner of the Terry J. Cox Award. Lynne Knight says, "These poems take us to places as far flung as Tasmania or Afghanistan, Israel or Iceland, letting us see across time and space into the lives of others, but also into the love and loss of Del Bourgo's own life. The strange becomes familiar as she braids her narratives with images so precise they seem cinematic. Whether elegies, love poems, or lyrics of wild imagining, these poems are marked by tenderness and compassion, even when the difficult or brutal is acknowledged." Rafaella Del Bourgo's honors include the League of Minnesota Poets Prize, Grandmother Earth Poetry Award, Paumanok Poetry Prize, Northern Colorado Writers Prize for Poetry, New Millennium Prize for Poetry, Mudfish Poetry Prize, and the 2025 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times. Her previous chapbook is Inexplicable Business: Poems Domestic and Wild. Her writings have has appeared in magazines and journals including Puerto Del Sol, Rattle, Oberon, Nimrod, and The Bitter Oleander. She lives in Berkeley.




Daily Listings

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2 AUGUST 2025 — saturday

3 AUGUST 2025 — sunday

  • Art and Poetry Night with a poetry reading by Toronto poet Ayana Farooq and Lena Kaouki, poetry and cookies, with an exhibit of visual art, featuring an interactive game of daring wordplay, RSVP for full location, $10 per person, 7:30 to 9:30 (RSVP required: https://partiful.com/e/l5FpfYdRomEhlGjwSMgY)
  • Poetry Flash presents a reading featuring Lee Rossi, Say Anything, poems, and Lenore Weiss, Video Game Pointers, poems, and Pulp into Paper, a novel, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm (poetryflash.org).

4 AUGUST 2025 — monday

5 AUGUST 2025 — tuesday

6 AUGUST 2025 — wednesday

7 AUGUST 2025 — thursday

  • Poetry Night Reading Series presents poet and translator Keith Ekiss, Burial Fragments, winner of the Barry Spacks Poetry Prize, and poet Robin Ekiss, with host Dr. Andy Jones, air-conditioned venue, John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street, Davis, 7:00 (www.poetryindavis.com)

8 AUGUST 2025 — friday

9 AUGUST 2025 — saturday

  • Sacramento Poetry Alliance presents a poetry reading by Susan Cohen and Jeanne Wagner, One Needful Song, winner of the Catamaran Poetry Prize, open mic follows, 1169 Perkins Way, Sacramento, refreshments, 4:00 (see Sacramento Poetry Alliance on Facebook)
  • Sonoma County Fair presents "Poetry Share at the Fair"; come hear poets read their original poems entered into the Sonoma County Fair competition, E.C. Center Craft Building, Sonoma County Fairgrounds, 1350 Bennett Valley Road, Santa Rosa, 1:00 (sonomacountyfair.com)
  • Willits Community Theatre presents a poetry experience with The Word-Music Continuum, "a unique performance ensemble uniting music with the spoken word," with Mendocino County poet Kirk Lumpkin, and Bay Area musicians Paul Mills on electric Guitar and Mark Wieder on electric and double bass, celebrating the release of their new CD, Wildflowers of Collaboration; an open mic will follow the featured performance, Willits Community Theatre Playhouse, 37 W. Van Lane, Willits, admission by donation but no one turned away for lack of funds, 7:00

10 AUGUST 2025 — sunday

  • Poetry reading by poet and translator Alan Bernheimer, From Nature, and poet, editor, and librarian Jacob Kahnon, Mine Eclogue, presented in a private home in Berkeley, $10 donation, 5:00 (Registration required, email event host at: Harry@fullplatemedia.com)
  • The 222 in Healdsburg presents David Seter, Sonoma County Poet Laureate, leading a generative writing workshop on Zoka Nature Writing, "Zoka" is the Japanese term for the transformative power of nature, seek out and discover overlooked natural objects in Healdsburg Plaza; participants will draft poems or pieces of short prose describing the nature subjects they find, The 222, located at 222 Healdsburg Avenue, 3:00-5:00 (Registration required, (the222.org/product/dave-seter)

11 AUGUST 2025 — monday

12 AUGUST 2025 — tuesday

13 AUGUST 2025 — wednesday

14 AUGUST 2025 — thursday

  • San Francisco Poet Laureate emerita Kim Shuck presents a poetry reading by Jennifer Hasegawa, Norma Cole, and Mary Burger, Poem Jam takes place on the second Thursday of each month unless otherwise noted, San Francisco Main Public Library, Latino/Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, free, 6:00 (415/557-4400, on.sfpl.org/08-14-25)

15 AUGUST 2025 — friday

16 AUGUST 2025 — saturday

17 AUGUST 2025 — sunday

18 AUGUST 2025 — monday

19 AUGUST 2025 — tuesday

20 AUGUST 2025 — wednesday

21 AUGUST 2025 — thursday

  • Poetry Night Reading Series presents Rhony Bhopla and Mariam Ahmed, with host Dr. Andy Jones, air-conditioned venue, John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street, Davis, 7:00 (www.poetryindavis.com)

22 AUGUST 2025 — friday

23 AUGUST 2025 — saturday

24 AUGUST 2025 — sunday

25 AUGUST 2025 — monday

26 AUGUST 2025 — tuesday

27 AUGUST 2025 — wednesday

28 AUGUST 2025 — thursday

  • Writers Read presents a featured reader, open mic follows, maximum time for each reader is six minutes, with emcee Michael Riedell, Grace Hudson Museum, 431 South Main Street, Ukiah, suggested donation $5, refreshments, featured reading 7:00, open mic 8:00 (For information, email: Michael Riedell, Innisfreeriedell@gmail.com)

29 AUGUST 2025 — friday

  • Cleyvis Natera reads from and presents her new novel, The Grand Paloma Resort, joined in conversation by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Mrs. Dalloway's Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, free admission, 7:00 (510/704-8222, www.mrsdalloways.com)

30 AUGUST 2025 — saturday

31 AUGUST 2025 — sunday


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