NEWS

Solo Novo Volume 7/8 : Psalms of Cinder & Silt has been released, featuring poetry written by survivors of the 2018 California wildfires.

Read further for more information about upcoming poetry readings.

Saturday, November 9

A book release reading for the poetry anthology, Psalms of Cinder and Silt hosted by the editors: Mary Kay Rummel, Friday Gretchen and Elaine Alarcon

Museum of Ventura County
100 E. Main Street, Ventura, CA
The reading starts at 2

Phil Taggart’s film/poem Fire Season

Psalms of Cinder and Silt is an outgrowth of a series of readings Phil Taggart organized at the museum the EP Foster Library and at other sites affected by the Thomas and Woolsey fires and the resulting mudslides

The anthology is published as a special edition of Solo Novo by the generosity of Glenna Luschei.

These voices in the anthology represent a vivid cross section of our community and its remarkable resilience; these poems bring the power of our stories to create connection in times of crisis.

Sunday, November 10th

Mary Kay Rummel and Glenna Luschei will be featured readers at a poetry reading during the 36th Annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival. They will be joined by Paul Lobo Portuges and Yun Wang.

Sun. Nov. 10th at 2:00pm
Coalesce Bookstore / Wedding Chapel
845 Main St. Morro Bay

More information about this reading and all the poetry readings during the 36th annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival can be found at the Language of the Soul website.

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Please join the poetry community in SLO throughout the month of November for the 35th Annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival.

There are big readings from Solo Press throughout the festival.

Saturday, November 10th at 2pm

GALA CENTER

1060 Palm St., San Luis Obispo

Our own Glenna Luschei will be reading with T C West, Don Wallis and Karl Kempton. An open reading will follow.

Sunday, November 11th at 2pm

Coalesce Bookstore / Wedding Chapel

845 Main St., Morro Bay

Tom Harrington (author of our most recent Solo Press book of poetry Tornado Man) will be reading with Steven Sher (recipient of the Glenna Luschei Distinguished Poet Award) and Chris Moody Schulz. An open reading will follow.

Saturday, November 17th at 2pm

SLO Library Community Room

995 Palm St., San Luis Obispo

Paul Willis, Mira Rosenthal and Hiram Sims will read. An open reading will follow.

Sunday, November 18th at 7pm

Linnaea’s Cafe

1110 Garden St., San Luis Obispo

Yours truly, Benjamin Daniel Lawless, will be reading with Michael and Tom McLaughlin. An open reading and the closure party will follow.

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Our very own Glenna Luschei will be reading with Bert Silva this Thursday, October 18th at 7pm.

Where:
St Lukes Episcopal Church
5318 Palma Ave.
Atascadero, CA

OPEN READING TO FOLLOW
5 MINUTES, ORIGINAL WORK
Hosted by Ivan Brown Otter

The fragrance of rain on cement:
my Nebraska memories jolt
night crawlers from their dens.

— Glenna Luschei, NIGHT CRAWLERS

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Join us at the Beacon Art Show
With Poetry Workshops featuring Glenna Luschei

Author of Singing and Dying
Winner, Nebraska Book Award

Saturday, March 3 at 10 am

Poetry Writing Workshop

Friday, March 2 at 7 pm

art show of local artists work to inspire poets

Saturday, March 17, 2 pm

Poetry Readings from the workshop

All events held at
SLO United Methodist Church
1515 Fredricks St, SLO

A booklet will be created celebrating the art and poetry created during the workshop.

Free and open to the public.

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The winner of the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry is Canadian poet Juliane Okot Bitek, of Uganda, for her collection 100 Days, published by the University of Alberta Press.

Here is what this year’s judge, John Keene, wrote about the selection:

In 100 Days, poet Juliane Okot Bitek set out to memorialize the tragedy of the Rwandan genocide, but the witnessing force of these brief, incantatory poems ripples outward to figuratively encompass multiple histories of violence and brutality, including the terror her own family and countless others faced under Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda. The lyric beauty, intertextual depth, and metonymic power of Okot Bitek’s poetry underscores the capacities of of art and language to cast light into the darkest corners of our human experience, and bridge the gulfs that lie between us.

In the prize’s fourth year, it is exciting to see the prize go to a woman — and a woman from a line of eventual poets. We look forward to continuing to broaden the global readership for these accomplished and urgent African voices.

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“Mr. Tambourine Man” is Chapter 16 of “Three Rivers: A Memoir” by Glenna Luschei. Read it here.

See more of Glenna Luschei’s work on interlitq.org on her bio page.

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The ongoing and excellent work of the African Poetry Book Fund recently received substantial support from the Ford Foundation, in the form of a $150,000 preliminary grant for the development of the African Poetry Digital Portal. APBF’s relationship with the Ford Foundation goes back a couple years, beginning when they brought poets and scholars from around the world together to edit The Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry. Since then, Ford Foundation has facilitated an additional meting regarding the Digital Index of Contemporary African Poetry and hosted a Celebration of African Poetry at their offices in New York. “The Ford Foundation has been extremely supportive of the work we’re doing,” said APBF Director Kwame Dawes. “There’s an appreciation on their part of the value and importance of this work, and a willingness to support the work financially and in terms of advice and guidance.”

Next up is beginning the developement of the hugely ambitious African Poetry Digital Portal. “The portal will index and provide access to the largest collection of manuscript images related to African poetry from antiquity to the modern era,” said Dawes. In addition to this incredible undertaking, it will also serve as a one-stop shop for a wealth of other materials related to African poetry, such as newspapers, periodicals, newsletters, audio and video recordings, websites, images, and more.

Looking toward the future, it’s not hard to see how this project fits into the larger vision of the APBF. “We are seriously committed to the mission of creating an environment that makes African poets feel confident that they are fully recognized in the larger literary community,” said Dawes. “Africans have been producing poetry for as long as any other civilization has, and new work by African poets comes out of a genuine artistic and intellectual context.” The portal, alongside other APBF projects, does much to place African poetry at the center of the larger discourse surrounding the art form, providing a needed injection of fresh voices and ideas. A heartfelt thanks to the Ford Foundation and our other supporters — like Laura and Robert F.X. Sillerman, whose generous support established the APBF, and Glenna Luschei, for whom the Luschei Prize for African Poetry is named — for sharing this ambitious vision, and making a commitment to support the hard work that is to come.

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Glenna Luschei will join Michael Hannon as featured readers at Coalesce Chapel in Morro Bay, at 2pm on Sunday November 12. This reading is part of the 34th Annual Language of the Soul Poetry Festival.

Illustration of William Shakespeare holding a microphone and reading poetry aloud from a pamphlet. Sun. Nov. 12th at 2:00pm
Coalesce Bookstore / Wedding Chapel
845 Main St. Morro Bay

Featured Readers
Michael Hannon
Glenna Luschei

The 2017 poetry festival will run November 4, 12, 17, 18 & 19. These events are funded in part by The Annual San Luis Obispo Poetry Festival / Corners of the Mouth, San Luis Obispo County Library, Poets and Writers Inc., through a major grant received from the James W. Irvine Foundation, and Glenna Luschei Horton. Donations will be accepted at all events.

Learn more about this reading and the other festival events at LanguageOfTheSoul.org, or contact Kevin Patrick Sullivan by email or by calling (805) 903-3595.

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A Nebraska Book Award Poetry Honor Book, this late-2016 collection of poems continues to prove that Glenna Luschei is “… one of the finest lyrical poets currently practicing in America.” (Grover Lewis)

Read more about the book here.

Singing and Dying

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Read Janet K. Brennan’s review of Crazed by the Sun, an anthology of poems edited by Lynn Strongin and Glenna Luschei here on cyberwit.net.

Purchase Crazed by the Sun on Amazon.

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