Because of the extreme heat anticipated on June 17th, we hope you will join us via ZOOM for Poetry Night at 8 PM on Thursday, June 17th, 2021.
Dear Friends of Poetry,
That great American yogi Yogi Berra, once said, “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.” We will find out Thursday night how right he was as we welcome two talented poets to Poetry Night 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 host and the other attendees.
This short (35ish-minute) reading will feature poetry by Brian Komei Dempster and Lucille Lang Day. Please join us Thursday night at 8 via Zoom for the particular pleasures of poetry, or what Arnold Adoff calls “making music with words and space.” We are reverting to Zoom because of the extreme Davis heat on June 17th. Join us from your air-conditioned home!
Brian Komei Dempster’s debut book of poems, Topaz (Four Way Books, 2013), received the 15 Bytes 2014 Book Award in Poetry. His second poetry collection, Seize (Four Way Books, 2020), was Silver Winner of a 2021 Human Relations Indie Book Award and a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award, Julie Suk Award, and National Indie Excellence Award in Poetry. Dempster is editor of From Our Side of the Fence: Growing Up in America’s Concentration Camps (Kearny Street Workshop, 2001), which received a 2007 Nisei Voices Award from the National Japanese American Historical Society, and Making Home from War: Stories of Japanese American Exile and Resettlement (Heyday, 2011). He is a professor of rhetoric and language at the University of San Francisco, where he serves as Director of Administration for the Master’s in Asia Pacific Studies program.
Lucille Lang Day is the author of seven full-length poetry collections and four chapbooks. Her latest collections are Birds of San Pancho and Other Poems of Place and Becoming an Ancestor. She has also coedited two anthologies, Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California and Red Indian Road West: Native American Poetry from California, and published two children’s books and a memoir, Married at Fourteen: A True Story. Her many honors include the Blue Light Poetry Prize, two PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Awards, the Joseph Henry Jackson Award, and eleven Pushcart Prize nominations. The founder and publisher of Scarlet Tanager Books, Day lives in Oakland, California. Her website is www.lucillelangday.com.
The Poetry Night Reading Series, taking place on the first and third Thursdays of the month, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, and those from many other locations via the magic of Zoom. Your host is Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis. See Dr. Andy’s (free) weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com – Please subscribe!
Please join us on Thursday, June 17th, at 8 PM via ZOOM!
Dr. Andy
Find the Facebook Event Page for this Reading Here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/534527170900163
P.S. Future Poetry Night readers will include Emily Hughes (July 1), DR Wagner (July 15), Charles Halsted, Tess Taylor, Julia Levine, and Hannah Stein (likely this fall). Please plan always to join us on first and third Thursdays of the month! Also, plan to join us at the Natsoulas Gallery this July and beyond.
