Passing of the Laurels 2017: Elsa Frausto, Dorothy Skiles, Marlene Hitt,
Joe DeCenzo, new poet laureate, Pamela Shea and Dr. Maja Trochimczyk
The joy of poetry continues in the foothills... After the 2017 Passing of the Laurels Ceremony and crowning PAMELA SHEA the Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga for the years 2017-2019, we are proud to present two of the most famous and accomplished poets of California, MICHAEL C. FORD AND JOHN BRANTINGHAM, both with an extensive record of book publications and public appearances (see below).
They will co-feature on Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 4:30 p.m. at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, the Historic Monument No. 2 in the City of Los Angeles. The Museum is located at 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042. and celebrated its centennial in 2013. The Museum is managed by the Little Landers Historical Society, a dedicated group of community volunteers.
.
It is only the second time in the history of Village Poets Monthly Readings (since 2010) that we feature a Pulitzer Prize Nominated Poet, Michael C. Ford. Our first Pulitzer Prize Nominee was John Z. Guzlowski (April 2011) who also recently received the Benjamin Franklin Prize for his poetry. The readings include a featured poet (20 min. each for two poets) and two open mike segments. Refreshments are served and $3 donations collected for the cost of the venue. The Village Poets group consists of: Marlene Hitt, Joe DeCenzo, Dorothy Skiles, Elsa S. Frausto, and Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, all former Poets Laureate of Sunland Tujunga.
MICHAEL C. FORD
Michael C. Ford
Michael C. Ford is a poet, playwright and recording artist. He has been
publishing steadily, since 1970 and credited
with over 28 volumes of print documents.
He’s been
featured on approx. 65 spoken word tracks that
include California Artists Radio Theatre productions
plus 4 solo recordings. Since 1985.
His debut vinyl {Language
Commando} received a
Grammy nomination [1987] and his Selected
Poems [1998] earned a Pulitzer
nomination on the 1st
ballot.
His poetic
narrative titled VIETNAM / PEACE CASUALTIES published
on-line for November 3rd Club was nominated for a 2006
Pushcart Prize. His first CD
document was Fire
Escapes; was a 1995
entry from New
Alliance Records & Tapes. His 2010
document is titled 20TH Century Goodbye: the production
being a collaboration between Michael Campagna and Larry
Thrasher: both of whom brought their
Psychic TV chops to the
project.
Hen House Studios has been promoting and marketing
his CD Look Each Other in the Ears [2014]. That
document, in both vinyl and CD
formats features a stellar band of musicians, not the least of
which were surviving members of a 1960s theatre
rock quartet
that most of you will remember as The
Doors. His
most recent volume of poetry published by Word
Palace Press is titled Women Under The Influence {2016}
BOOKS BY MICHAEL C FORD
- Stuttering in the Starlight (1970)
- There’s a Beast in My Garden (1971)
- The Mt. Alverno Review [editor: West Coast anthology in tribute to Kenneth Patchen] (1971)
- Sheet Music [chapbook-length poem] (1972)
- Lacerations in a Broom Closet [prose] (1973)
- Lawn Swing Poems (1975)
- Rounding Third (1976)
- West Point [chapbook-length poem] (1977)
- Sleepless Night in a Soundproof Motel (1978)
- Prologue to an Interview with Leonard Cohen [replicated broadside] (1979)
- Foreign Exchange [editor: National Anthology] (1979)
- Two American Plays (1980)
- Sloe Speed [chapbook-length poem] (1984)
- Prior Convictions (1985)
- Ladies Above Suspicion (1987)
- Twice [a sheath of broadsides] (1989)
- Tourguide Machinegun (1992)
- Cottonwood Tract [chapbook-length poem] (1996)
- Emergency Exits [ Selected Poems: 1970-1995] 1998 Pulitzer nomination – REVIEW – Michael C Ford immortalizes and, in many instances, resurrects not only past popular iconic figure, but those neglected regions and landmarks from the Pacific Northwest to the shores of Lake Michigan, marking passages of time in America. – Los Angeles Times
- Nursery Rhyme Assassin (2000)
- To Kiss the Blood off Our Hands (2007)
- The Marilyn Monroe Concerto [3-movement pamphlet edition] (2007)
- The Demented Chauffeur (2009)
- The Las Vegas Quartet [single poem pamphlet edition] (2011)
- San Joaquin County Solutions [collaboration with North Central Valley photo-journalist Rose Albano Risso (2011)
- Atonal Riffs to a Tone-Deaf Borderguard (2012)
- Women Under the Influence (2016)
A GET-WELL CARD
To Laurel Ann Bogen
we
have a good idea, Laurel Ann!
whenever you get real down and
sad and flippy and gloomy and
wig'd out and your whole head feels
like the Hindenburg making you feel
like you just want to crash in New Jersey,
why
not pretend all poets in Los Angeles
named Laurel Canyon after you: okay,
but for an assortment of alienated human
beings, it's a crappy canyon full of post
hippie love heads, secular humanists, a
few
reactionary corporate criminals with fat
wallets, an unwholesome variety of
me-generation burnouts; but I know most
LA poets would have the best intention:
holding
one of their own in high esteem; besides,
think about what pigeons in Buffalo, New
York do to the statues at Lafayette Square!
you
see, Laurel Ann, it's really not so terrible to
be able to move around: turning into some
monumental
petrified memory could be just another stone
drag.
(C) by Michael C. Ford
JOHN BRANTINGHAM
John Brantingham
John Brantingham teaches creative writing at Mt. San Antonio College, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, and the Center for the Arts. He is the author of Dual Impressions: Poetic Conversations about Art, an ekphrastic collection. He also published the following books and chapbooks:
- East of Los Angeles,
- Putting in a Window,
- The Mediterranean Garden,
- Heroes for Today,
- Mann of War,
- Let Us All Pray Now to Our Own Strange Gods,
- The Gift of Form,
- The Green of Sunset,
- In the Land of Bears, and
- Study Abroad.
Two of his poems were featured by Garrison Keillor on the Writer's Almanac and you can find his books on Amazon.com.
It is difficult to praise a book of poems that you already feel so emotionally connected to: it seems unnecessary, a gesture that only takes away from the beauty, wisdom, goodness, honesty, imaginativeness, and spirituality of the work itself. Nevertheless, John Brantinghham’s The Green of Sunset is the finest collection of poems he has ever written, which is saying something, considering he’s been producing excellent work for going on 20 years now. Let the prose poems contained in this collection stand alongside those in Mark Strand’s Almost Invisible and Jim Harrison’s In Search of Small Gods as some of the most accomplished of the past decade. Simply put, these poems are the work of a writer operating at the very top of his craft.
--Paul Kareem Tayyar, Author of In the Footsteps of the Silver King (Spout Hill Press) and Follow the Sun (Aortic Books).
Our best writers weigh their words carefully, and John Brantinghham is certainly one of them. He is a craftsman with a huge heart who cares deeply about people and stories and the chaos we call our lives. His characters are beautifully rendered, real and true, at once vulnerable and courageous. Wise and insightful, Brantinghham's work brilliantly captures the light and darkness in us all.
--James Brown, Author of The Los Angeles Diaries and This River.
No comments:
Post a Comment