Thursday, April 16th at 8 PM Pacific / 11 PM Eastern
Dear Friends of Poetry,
Tonight, April 16th, we will feature a short Zoom poetry reading featuring three remarkable and varied poets: Sacramento’s own Kellie Raines, Penn Kemp (from London, Canada), and Heidy Steidlmayer, winner of many poetry awards. Each will be reading for about nine minutes, and then we will allow time for informal conversation afterwards for anyone who wants to stick around, though I imagine that we will conclude by about 9 PM. The link to join us tonight at 8 PM Pacific time is https://ucdavisdss.zoom.us/s/6168073878.
Kellie Raines is a local actor, director, writer, and visual artist. She is an Associate Artist with KOLT Run Creations for which she directed The Adoration of Dora. Her KOLT performance credits include Escape from Happiness, Vinegar Tom, Antigone, and My Own Stranger. Other notable performances include Motherf**ker With The Hat and The Underpants (Big Idea Theatre); Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth (Theater Galatea); and God’s Ear and Five Women Wearing The Same Dress (Resurrection Theatre). She has a bachelor’s degree in Dramatic Art from the University of California, Davis. She can also be seen on-air and behind the scenes for PBS KVIE. Visit kellierainesart.com for her artistic pursuits and projects.
Poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has been celebrated as a trailblazer since her first publication of poetry by Coach House (1972). She was London Canada’s inaugural Poet Laureate and the League of Canadian Poets’ Spoken Word Artist of the Year, Kemp has long been a keen participant/activist in Canada’s cultural life, with thirty books of poetry, prose and drama; seven plays and ten CDs produced as well as award-winning videopoems. Joining us remotely from London, Canada, Kemp will perform new work that responds to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Heidy Steidlmayer is the author of the poetry collection Fowling Piece (Northwestern University Press, 2012), which received the John C. Zacharis Award from Ploughshares and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, The Cortland Review, Literary Imagination, and Michigan Quarterly Review, among others, and in Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology, by Helen Vendler (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002). Of Steidlmayer’s work Christian Wiman has written, “She is a remarkable poet (who) writes poems of great compactness and density, as technically accomplished as they are emotionally devastating. This is an age of irony and sprawl, and she’s going – bravely and with great success – her own way. People may not know much about her work now, but they will soon.” Steidlmayer has been awarded the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry magazine and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award.
Hosted by Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis, California, the Poetry Night Reading Series once met in person on every first and third Thursday evening of the month at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis. We all look forward to returning to this grand temple of the arts once large groups can safely meet again. Until then, please join us on Zoom, and keep reading poetry!
Find the Facebook page for this event at https://www.facebook.com/events/1110208856028843/
