Come on November 22, 2015 to Thank Jack Cooper and Jeanette Clough for their Poetic Gifts

So close to Thanksgiving, Village Poets' last Monthly Reading at Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, will feature poetry we have a reason to be really thankful for.  Jeannette Clough and Jack Cooper are both well known in Southern California poetry community, and beyond. Their presence with us will give us something to be thankful for...

The Monthly Village Poets Reading at Bolton Hall will take place on Sunday, November 22, 2015 at 4:30 p.m. There will be two segments of Open Mike Readings for our poets and refreshments will be served.  The Bolton Hall Museum is Historical Landmark No. 2 in the City of Los Angeles and is located at 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, CA 91042.

Jeannette Clough

Jeanette Clough’s 2014 collection, Flourish, was a finalist in the Otis College of Art and Design and Eastern Washington University annual book competitions. She has edited and reviewed for journals, and served as Artist in Residence for the National Parks. Recent poetry appears in the Laurel Review and Colorado Review.

A Sample Poem, from Flourish:

Salt

I choose salt, a common mineral unfit for jewelry. 

Its ladder is fragile and vital, which other jewels are not. 

Salt lives in the blood.

It does not care how it is seen

but cares a great deal how it is savored on the tongue.

I cannot live without you, jewel of choice. 

I work myself into your skin so we will last together a long time,

older and tougher. 

I adorn my body with salt.  You comply,

an animal drawn to the lick. 

Predators skirt the underbrush but we ignore them

because our hunger is more huge. 

I wish to be nowhere but encasing the saltiness of you.

(C) 2014 by Jeanette Clough

Jack Cooper

Jack Cooper's first poetry collection, Across My Silence, was published by World Audience, Inc., 2007. His work has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize, and chosen as a finalist in North American Review's 2012 James Hearst Poetry Prize and in the 2014 Eco Arts Award in Creative Excellence, and winner, Annual Flash Contest, Flash Fiction Chronicles, April 2015.  His poetry and/or flash and mini-plays have also appeared in Slant, Bryant Literary Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, and many other publications. He is a contributing editor at www.KYSOflash.com.

We are very happy that Los Angeles Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodriguez found time to visit our reading in Sunland-Tujunga. Here's a group photo of Mr. Rodriguez with Village Poets at Bolton Hall Museum on October 25, 2015.

L to R: Mira Mataric, Maja Trochimczyk, Dorothy Skiles, Elsa Frausto,

Janet Nippell, Luis J. Rodriguez, Peter Larsen, Joe DeCenzo, Mari Werner,

Tom Hall, Marlene Hill - at Bolton Hall Museum.