This coming Sunday, June 14th, a new reading series that will match up West Coast and East Coast poets will have its premiere Zoom “broadcast.” Several weeks ago, Lynn McGee and Susana H. Case contacted me and asked if I would help them coordinate a reading series that would feature poets who have never read together before. This Sunday afternoon, at 4 PM (Pacific Time) and 7 p.m. Eastern time, a half-dozen poets will read for ten minutes each. Should you wish to view this reading, please contact me at:
William.BillMohr@gmail.com (William DOT Bill Mohr @ gmail.com):
and I will be happy to send you the Zoom link.
Here are the poets who will be reading:
EAST COAST
INDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM (@indranmx /@Indran1960) writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. His17 poetry collections include The Migrant States, Coconuts on Mars, En busca de posada, The Splintered Face: Tsunami Poems and Paolo 9. The Elephants of Reckoning won the 1994 Paterson Prize and Uncivil War tells the history of the Sri Lankan Civil War. His musical releases include Rankont Dout. He edits the Beltway Poetry Quarterly, co-directs DC-ALT, an association of literary translators, and directs Poetry at the Port, a monthly spoken word series in the Washington, D.C. area. He has received fellowships from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, The US/Mexico Fund for Culture and the MacDowell Colony.
JENNIFER FRANKLIN is the author of two full-length poetry collections, most recently No Small Gift (Four Way Books, 2018). Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, New England Review, Gettysburg Review, JAMA, The Nation, Paris Review, “poem-a-day” on poets.org, and Prairie Schooner. She currently teaches in the Manhattanville MFA program. For the past seven years, she has taught manuscript revision at the Hudson Valley Writers Center, where she serves as Program Director and co-edits Slapering Hol Press. She lives in New York City.
MERVYN TAYLOR (www.MervynTayor.com), a longtime Brooklyn resident, was born in Belmont, on the island of Trinidad, where he spends part of year and is leading literary figure and teacher of poetry. He is the author of six books of poetry, including No Back Door (2010), recognized by the Paterson Poetry Prize for literary excellence, and most recently, Voices Carry (2017). He has widely, at Bronx Community College, The New School and in the NYC public school system and serves on the advisory board of Slapering Hol Press at The Hudson Valley Writers Center. A new collection, Country of Warm Snow, is due out from Shearsman Books in 2020.
WEST COAST
LYNNE THOMPSON is the author of Start With a Small Guitar and Beg No Pardon, winner of the Perugia Book Award and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award. In 2018, Jane Hirshfield selected her manuscript Fretwork as the winner of the Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. Thompson’s recent work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry, New England Review, Pleiades, American Poetry Journal, and the 2020 Best American Poetry anthology, among others. Thompson serves on the Boards of Cave Canem and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
LAUREL ANN BOGEN is the author of 11 books of poetry and short fiction including Washing a Language and Psychosis in the Produce Department: New and Selected Poems 1975-2015, which was published by Red Hen Press. From 1996 until 2002 she was literary curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and coordinated its Writers in Focus poetry series. Her work has appeared in over 100 literary magazines and anthologies including Stand-Up Poetry: An Expanded Anthology, The Maverick Poets, Poetry Loves Poetry, Grand Passion, and Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. She has taught for many years in UCLA’s Extension Program.
Poet/photographer ALEXIS RHONE FANCHER (www.alexisrhonefancher.com) has authored six collections of poetry, including EROTIC: New & Selected, forthcoming in August 2020 from New York Quarterly, and a full-length collection (in Italian) forthcoming in 2021 from Edizioni Ensemble, Italia. Other as well as Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). Her work appears in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Cleaver, Diode, Poetry East, Nashville Review, Pedestal Magazine and elsewhere. Her photographs are featured worldwide. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly.
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