Dear Friends of Poetry,
Tonight, July 2nd, at 8 PM we will offer a poetry reading via ZOOM. To participate, visit https://ucdavisdss.zoom.us/my/andyojones at 8 PM, or a few minutes before if you wish to chat with the other attendees.
Tonight’s short event will feature Lauren Rudewicz, Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas, and Laura Bertolini!
Lauren Rudewicz is a graduate student in the English Language & Literature PhD program at the University of Michigan, and a sometimes-poet writing mostly tercets about love and food. She has had poems published by Other Rooms Press, and is exploring the role of poetry and creative writing in her critical academic work on deep time, environmental humanities, and food studies.
Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas is currently enrolled in the Vermont College of Fine Arts, MFA in Writing program. She is a ten-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a seven-time Best of the Net nominee. In 2012 she won the Red Ochre Chapbook Contest with her manuscript Before I Go to Sleep. In 2018, her book In the Making of Goodbyes was nominated for The CLMP Firecracker Award in Poetry, and her poem “A Mall in California” took 2nd place for the Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize. In 2019, her chapbook An Ode to Hope in the Midst of Pandemonium was a finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards. Her new book Alice in Ruby Slippers, a book of form, was just released from Aldrich Press. Grellas work can be found online and in print and has been featured in Mezzo Cammin and Verse Daily. She was recently an Editor for the Tule Review and The Orchards Poetry Journal and a former member of the Sacramento Poetry Center Board of Directors. According to family lore, she is a direct descendant of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Laura Bertolini is from Cecina, Italy. Laura graduated with a degree in social work from the University of Pisa in 2007. She won her first poetry prize in 1989, when she was still a youth. Starting in 1998, Bertolini began to publish her poetry in a variety of Italian newspapers and magazines, mostly in the area of Tuscany where she was raised. Her first book, Sono un Angelo Dimenticato, was published in 1998 from Ed.La Palma; in 2008 a second book, called Nessuna Musa di Cristallo was also published. Her poem “Sto per lasciare tutto “(English version: “I’m about to leave everything”) was published in USA, for the Davis Poetry Book 2011 and the “Grandmother’s poem” was published by the Sacramento Poetry Now in 2012. Bertolini won Italian poetry prizes in 2016, 2017, and 2018, and in the United States in 2019. She also published poetry books in 2013, 2017, and 2019. In recent summers, she has been actively sharing her books and poems in more than 30 Tuscany cultural and poetry events.
There is no cost to attend this poetry reading, though you are encouraged to support your local independent bookstore by buying books of poetry, and to support the Yolo Food Bank with a donation. Your help is desperately needed.
The Poetry Night Reading Series, usually taking place on the first and third Thursdays of the month, is generously supported by the John Natsoulas Gallery and by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis.
Please do join us at 8 tonight.
Dr. Andy
P.P.S. Find the Facebook event page for tonight’s reading at https://www.facebook.com/events/305207097186434/
