Dear Friends of Poetry,
The Poetry Night Reading Series is excited to feature California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick at 7 PM on Thursday, November 2nd, 2023, on the first floor of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street in Davis. Opening for Lee Herrick will be flutist Dr. Rachel Taylor Geier. She will perform the Paganini Caprice No. 24, arranged for solo flute by Jasmine Choi.
Lee Herrick is the California Poet Laureate. He is the author of three books of poems: Scar and Flower, finalist for the 2020 Northern California Book Award; Gardening Secrets of the Dead; and This Many Miles from Desire.
He is co-editor of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit (Orison Books 2020). His poems appear widely, in The Poetry Foundation, Academy of American Poets, The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems from the San Francisco Bay Watershed, Indivisible: Poems of Social Justice with a foreword by Common, HERE: Poems for the Planet, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama, and Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, among others. Herrick serves on the advisory board of Terrain.org and Sixteen Rivers Press. He co-founded LitHop in Fresno. He has taught in Qingdao, China, and for Kundiman.
He was born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted as an infant. He lives with his family in Fresno, California and served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017. He teaches at Fresno City College and in the low-residency MFA program at University of Nevada Reno at Lake Tahoe. He is the 10th California Poet Laureate, and the first Asian American to serve in the role. Find out more about Lee Herrick at https://www.leeherrick.com/.
Opening for Lee Herrick will be flutist Dr. Rachel Taylor Geier.
Dr. Rachel Taylor Geier holds a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree in Flute Performance, with an emphasis in Historical Musicology, from the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities, a Masters of Music (MM) in Flute Performance from San Francisco State University, and a Bachelors of Music (BM) in Flute Performance from DePauw University. Dr. Geier has performed as Principal Flute with the Camellia Symphony Orchestra, UC Davis Symphony Orchestra, Diablo Valley College Symphonic Band (as featured soloist), Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, and the Gonzaga University Symphony Orchestra (as featured soloist).
Dr. Geier hosts a successful flute blog and her weekly Flute Friday posts are read and shared with flutists around the world. In addition to her musical pursuits, Dr. Geier also serves as an Academic Personnel Analyst at the Vice Provost’s Office for Academic Affairs at UC Davis and supports burgeoning staff in her role as a mentor for the UC Davis Group Mentoring program. Dr. Geier is active as a performer and flute teacher in Davis, California and currently teaches flute lessons at Watermelon Music. Find out more about Dr. Geier at https://racheltaylorgeier.org.
This event will take place on the first floor of the John Natsoulas Gallery (521 1st Street) at 7 PM on Thursday, November 2nd, 2023. An open mic will follow the featured performers. Open mic performances will be limited to three minutes or two items, whichever is shorter. As Robert Southey says, “Be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams – the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.” The open mic list typically fills by 6:50 PM, so please arrive early if you would like to perform something during the 8 o’clock hour. Attendees who request to be added to the list after 7 PM will be invited to try again at a subsequent event.
Find the Facebook event for this delightful evening of poetry and music at https://www.facebook.com/events/298172606419631
From Steve Martin to Jimmy Kimmel to Dr. Andy’s mom, Covid test positivity is up in California. Attendees are encouraged to mask up when inside the John Natsoulas Gallery.
The Poetry Night Reading Series, taking place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, and by Thea and the other members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis. This event is supported by Katerina Hanks, producer of The Poetry Night Reading Series.
Find out more about the Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting https://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, check out his weekly podcast at https://poetrytechnology.buzzsprout.com/. Find his other musings at https://andyjones.substack.com/.
Upcoming Poetry Night Events:
November 16: William Mohr and José A. Alcántara
December 7: Elana K. Arnold and Mischa Kuczynski
December 21st: A ticketed event with Rumi’s Caravan
Future readers will include Joe Wenderoth, Kim Stanley Robinson, Alan Williamson, Jeanne Foster, Julia Connor, Clarence Major, Bob Stanley, Mario Hill, and other favorites.
The Poetry Night Reading Series has been committed to serving the literary and arts community in the city of Davis since 2011. Happening every 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month at the Natsoulas Gallery, each reading contains two featured poets followed by an open mic. Poetry in Davis was voted “Best Open Mic” in The California Aggie’s “Best of Davis″ edition and has been featured in Davis Life Magazine. Readers have included UC Davis faculty Francisco X. Alarcón, John Boe, Zinzi Clemmons, Joshua Clover, Jack Forbes, Sandra Gilbert, Brad Henderson, Pamela Houston, Clarence Major, Sandra McPherson, Katie Peterson, Margaret Ronda, Joe Wenderoth, and Alan Williamson, as well as many regional and traveling poets, including Molly Peacock, Jane Hirshfield, Dana Gioia, and James Ragan.
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