It has happened. We will not pretend it did not. We joined the mad dash of poetic lemmings off the cliff, from live in-person readings and celebrations of poetry/poets to online Zoom readings. Our very first Zoom with Ed Rosenthal, Beverly M. Collins and Mariko Kitakubo was repeated on July 19, 2020 after its original epic fail on June 28, 2020.
And thus, without further ado, we are proud to invite all Village Poets and lovers of poetry to the next Zoom reading, on August 23, 2020 at 4:30 pm, featuring RD "Raindog" Armstrong - the publisher of annual Lummox Poetry Anthologies, musician, editor, poet and a force of nature in the poetry world and Dr. Thelma T. Reyna, the publisher of Golden Foothill Press, former Altadena Poet Laureate and an inspiration and leader to so many poets who follow her gentle voice.
VILLAGE POETS ON ZOOM
Maja Trochimczyk is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Village Poets Present R.D. Armstrong and Thelma T. Reyna
Time: Aug 23, 2020 04:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting - information will be sent by email.
This presentation is partly sponsored by the Dignity Health Foundation, through a grant for "Close to Nature" Project for Phoenix Houses of Los Angeles, with the California State Poetry as one of the collaborating partners.
RD ARMSTRONG
RD Armstrong is the editor of Lummox Poetry Anthologies (this year's is the 9th) and the author of many books, including: On/Off the Beaten Path (2000); RoadKill (2002); Last Call: The Legacy of Charles Bukowski (2004); The Hunger (2007); El Pagano and Other Twisted Tales (2008); Fire and Rain Selected Poems 1993-2007 Vol. 1 (2008); E/Or: - Living Amongst the Mangled (2010); Working the Wreckage of the American Poem: Todd Moore Remembered (2011); Unchainable Spirit: A Poetic Farewell to Mike Adams (2014); and Tracking the Rabbit (2016);
Read his biography in his own words: http://www.lummoxpress.com/lc/about-the-head-lummox/ See him talk about Lummox at a recent event held in Long Beach at Made by Millworks… courtesy of Steven Deeble. Read an interview (go to page 62) conducted by Jonathon Murietta for Long Beach 908 And here’s a follow up video that the folks from www.lb908.com shot recently at Portfolio Coffeehouse. Watch the interview on Poetry LA.
It Is What It Is
Before virus
beans and rice.
During virus
rice and beans.
After virus
beans and rice.
RD Armstrong
THELMA T. REYNA, Ph.D.
Thelma T. Reyna’s books have collectively won 14 national literary
awards. She has written six books: a short story collection, The
Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories; two poetry chapbooks—Breath
& Bone and Hearts in Common; and three
full-length poetry collections—Rising, Falling, All of Us; Reading Tea
Leaves After Trump, which won six national book honors in 2018; and Dearest
Papa: A Memoir in Poems, (Golden Foothills Press, 2020). As Poet
Laureate in Altadena, 2014-2016, she edited the Altadena Poetry Review
Anthology in 2015 and 2016. Thelma’s fiction, poetry, and nonfiction
have appeared in literary journals, anthologies, textbooks, blogs, and regional
media, print and online, for over 25 years. She was a Pushcart Prize Nominee in
Poetry in 2017; and winner of a California state legislators’ award, “Women in
Business/ Author, Most Inspirational” in 2011. Thelma is the founder and
owner of an editing consultancy, The Writing Pros, based in Pasadena, CA, and
of the multiple-award-winning indie book publisher, Golden Foothills Press. She
received her Ph.D. from UCLA.
Interview on Latina Book Club: http://www.latinabookclub.com/2014/07/interview-with-poet-laureate-thelma-t.html.
This is How Grief
Goes
“When
we are grieving, people may wonder about us,
and we may wonder about ourselves.”
--Elisabeth Kubler-Ross*
When loss is swift, when it strikes
like a viper in a pot,
blunting hopes and well-laid plans,
the hole
that swallows us is bottomless and
fierce.
Emptiness unspools like mummy’s tape,
endless, frayed, muffling,
gagging, dooming lips and eyes to
tombs devoid of words and light,
stripped of loving hands,
caverns of ululations.
Loss flattens us.
But this is how grief goes.
This is how we sink, to rise,
how brokenness is patched together
again,
how despair ultimately defies death.
From We Are Here: Village Poets Anthology (ed. Maja Trochimczyk and Marlene Hitt, 2020)
