A highlight of the recent trip to Long Beach was meeting Donna Hilbert (“Flowers” and”In Quintana Roo”). She teaches weekly poetry workshops and has for years (with many loyal students). When Joan Corwin and I were in Long Beach, we also learned about the latest project Donna and others in the vibrant Long Beach poetry community have been working on: Beside the City of Angels: A Long Beach Poetry Festival, which will be a daylong event Saturday, October 14. It will be held at 2nd City Council Gallery and there will be more than a half-dozen readings featuring writers such as: Erika Ayon, John Brantingham, Jeff Epley, David Caddy, G. Murray Thomas, Mehnaz Turner, Bill Mohr, Patty Seyburn, Cassandra Love, Rafael Zepeda, Clifton Snider, Barry Spacks, Dorothea Grossman, Rick Lupert, Amanda J. Bradley, Raymond Hammond, Grace Zabriske, Steve Kowit, Charles Harper Webb, David Hernandez, Joan Jobe Smith and Fred Voss.
On hand to host the events will be Kevin Lee (Aortic Books), Donna, Clint Margrave, Anna Badua, Paul Tayyar and Tamara Madison. BTW, we met Tamara on our trip out there. She was with us at the celebration after our event at Gatsby Books and we swapped books so I am now reading (and thoroughly enjoying) Wild Domestic, her book of poems. It is published by Pearl Books and just came out this year.
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