Dear Friends of Poetry,
The Poetry Night Reading Series is fortunate to feature William O’Daly and Stanley Zumbiel at 7 PM on Thursday, October 6, 2022, on the roof of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street in Davis. You are invited to join us!
William O’Daly has translated eight books of the late-career and posthumous poetry of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda and most recently Neruda’s first volume, Book of Twilight, a finalist for the 2018 Northern California Book Award in Translation. O’Daly’s chapbooks of poems include The Whale in the Web, The Road to Isla Negra, Water Ways (a collaboration with JS Graustein), and Yarrow and Smoke. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, he was a finalist for the 2006 Quill Award in Poetry and in September 2021 received the American Literary Award from the bilingual Korean American journal Miju Poetry and Poetics.
A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a founder of Copper Canyon Press, William O’Daly has long delighted audiences with his poignant poems and his advocacy for other poets. O’Daly’s poems, translations, essays, and reviews have been published in numerous journals and as part of multimedia exhibits and performances. He has received national and regional honors for literary editing and instructional design and served on the national board of Poets Against War. Currently, he is Lead Writer for the California Water Plan, the state’s strategic plan for sustainably and equitably managing water resources.
Stan Zumbiel is the author of a new (2022) book from Cold River Press, Hat Full of Leaves. Zumbiel taught English in middle and high school for thirty-five years, retiring in 2008, the same year that he earned his MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He sat on the board of the Sacramento Poetry Center for twenty-five years. His first book, Standing Watch, was published in 2016. Stan Zumbiel’s poems have been widely published, appearing in journals such as Poet News, Nimrod, The Suisun Valley Review, Primal Urge, Convergence, Word Soup, Late Peaches, Sacramento Voices, and Medusa’s Kitchen. He lives now in sight of the American River in a home he shares with his wife Lynn. Stan Zumbiel considers himself the world’s oldest emerging poet.
This event will take place on the roof of the Natsoulas Gallery (521 1st Street) at 7 PM on this Thursday, October 6th, 2022. Much like a variety show of creativity and discovery, an open mic will follow the featured performers. Open mic performances will be limited to four minutes or two items, whichever is shorter. As Tom Stoppard says, “Good things, when short, are twice as good.” The sun will set at about 6:45 on Poetry Night, so we encourage you to dress in layers to accommodate the drop in temperature between 7 and 9 PM.
The Poetry Night Reading Series is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, and by John Natsoulas and the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis. Special thanks to local arts hero and technical wizard Timothy Nutter for his ongoing help with amplification equipment. Below please see the lineup of all the amazing poets we will be featuring this fall.
Find out more about the Poetry Night Reading Series by visiting https://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list, and please add first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM to your digital calendar. To find out more about Dr. Andy’s latest thoughts, check out his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.
Please share this event with your (social) networks so we can fill the chairs for these two fine poets.
Dr. Andy
Upcoming Poetry Night Events:
October 6th: Bill O’Daly (author of a new book, The New Gods) with Stanley Zumbiel
October 13th: Bill Gainer with Laura Martin
October 20th: Margaret Ronda with Augusta Funk
November 3: Joshua McKinney with Matthew Chronister
November 17: Mary Mackey (author of a new book, Creativity: Where Poems Begin)
December 1: Katie Peterson and Christian Gullette
December 15: Beth Suter (author of a new book, Snake and Eggs) with Bethanie Humphreys
January 5: Allegra Silberstein
January 19: Brad Buchanan with Frank Dixon Graham
Upcoming readers (2023) at the Poetry Night Reading Series will include, among others, Pamela Houston, Lois Jones, Brad Henderson, Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, Julia Levine, and Rooja Mohassessy.
