Jesse Nathan

Diana Arterian and Jesse Nathan

12 APRIL 2026 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Jesse Nathan, Eggtooth, and Diana Arterian, Agrippina the Younger: Poems, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm (poetryflash.org).

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

MORE ABOUT THE READERS

Diana Arterian's most recent poetry collection is Agrippina the Younger. Brandon Som says, "In this stunningly lyrical book—rigorously researched and rigorously imagined—we hear history as lies but also lyre: an instrument, in Arterian's hands, attentively tuned and pitch perfect with song." She is also editor and co-translator of Smoke Drifts, a collection of poetry by the late Afghan poet Nadia Anjuman. Diana Arterian's first collection, Playing Monster :: Seiche, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was a Poetry Foundation Staff Pick. A Poetry Editor at Noemi Press and twice-finalist for the National Poetry Series, her creative work has been recognized with fellowships from the Banff Centre, Millay Arts, Yaddo, and elsewhere. Diana Arterian holds a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from USC, and is the 2026 Lurie Distinguished Visiting Professor at San José State University. She writes "The Annotated Nightstand" column at Lit Hub. She lives in Los Angeles.

Jesse Nathan's debut collection, Eggtooth, won the New Writers Award, the Housatonic Book Prize, and the Kansas Book Award. It was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award, the Golden Poppy Book Awards, and the Nossrat Yassini Poetry Prize. The San Francisco Chronicle said, "By turns finely wrought and bracingly direct…alert to the wonderful and terrible things that happen beneath our feet. Nathan's ear for language and eye for the intersection of natural splendor and trauma are informed by his youth…melding self-aware metaphor with age-old rigor." His poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, Poetry, and other magazines. His latest book is One Question: Short Conversations with Poets, a collection of prose and interviews with poets including Diane Seuss, Arthur Sze, Yusef Komunyakaa, Jorie Graham, Frank Bidart, Raúl Zurita, Robert Hass, Cathy Park Hong, Ross Gay, Safiya Sinclair, Fady Joudah, and many others, forthcoming from McSweeney's this April. Jesse Nathan's second book of poetry, The San Francisco Poem, is forthcoming from Scribner in 2027. He currently teaches literature at UC Berkeley.