I have the pleasure of having been invited to be a featured reader at the upcoming fall Peninsula Literary event.
I’ve been asked to read some of my poems from The Poetry Booth and to discuss the process. That should be a lot of fun. Come with your questions.
Here’s the back of the flyer, with some information about my co-featured reader, Lori Ostlund.
Come to the Cupertino Library Story Room, Thursday evening, October 8 at 7 pm to join a friendly, relaxed group of people who are not poetry experts but love to write poems. I hope this means you.
Free and open to the public. All ages welcome.
October 2015 will be full of great poetry-related events!
October 8, Thursday: Write Your First Poem workshop
October 16, Friday: Peninsula Literary ( Jennifer Swanton Brown, Featured Reader) — check out the flyer and more details here.
October 17, Saturday: Cupertino Diwali Festival
October 24, Saturday: Cupertino Library Diwali Celebration
As one of the co-founders* of Media Poetry Studio it was my huge pleasure to attend the celebratory viewing of the students’ video poems. The event was held August 1, 2015, at the Milpitas Library. Not having ever been to that really really interesting venue, I enjoyed the historic building almost as much as the poetry.
If you head over to the MPS website, you can see the videos of the poems, created by the students. You can follow MPS on Facebook and see more photos.
*It was a “Three Poets Laureate” project, but I was never one of the directors — all kudos and huzzahs for the fabulous outcome of MPS goes to Erica Goss and David Perez. Here we are, three poets laureate: Erica, me and David.
Click through here for the announcement on the Cupertino Library Foundation’s website.
The selection process was frequently advertised in local papers, the Cupertino Scene and the Courier.
The Mercury News/Cupertino Courier also placed our advert.
After several months of committee meetings and planning, and several weeks of interviewing talented applicants, the Cupertino Poet Laureate Selection Committee recommended to the Cupertino Library Commission one poet for the third incarnation of this city volunteer position.
That poet is Amanda Williamsen (above center–with PL1 Dave Denny and PL2 Jennifer Brown–after her appointment by the city, August 18, 2015).
From this link, you can watch the video of the city council meeting in which Amanda was introduced and the vote was made appointing her. You can also download and read the draft resolution from the Library Commission as well as Amanda’s bio. (The video for “Agenda Item 14” starts at 2:04:02; Library Commissioner Ann Stevenson begins speaking at 2:04:24).
Congratulations to Amanda! She begins her term in January 2016.
Here are a few selection committee members who were able to attend the council meeting.
Bev Lenihan, Adrian Kolb, Amanda Williamsen, Dave Denny, Jennifer Brown, Ann Stevenson, Pushpa MacFarlane
Summer has been a busy time, for me, and for Cupertino poetry lovers. I’ve been away from this blog, doing my poetry work, spending time with family and vacation. But there’s been poetry action, and with this post I want to give an overview of what’s been happening in the past three months.
July
July 7: Poets in the Park at Rancho San Antonio
July 11: California Poets in the Schools at the Silicon Valley STEAM Festival
July 21: Media Poetry Studio Guest Lesson
July Cupertino Poet Laureate Selection Committee & Interviews
August
August 1: Media Poetry Studio Videos Presentation
August 18: Cupertino City Council Appoints New Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate Vacation Adventures
I had a great vacation and spent some time with poetry and favorite American poets.
In one of my other poetry guises, as a California Poets in the Schools poet/teacher, I hosted a poetry play booth at the Silicon Valley STEAM Festival yesterday.
We had hundreds of kids and parents making poetry about planes in our booth. It was a lot of work, but fun and rewarding. Here I am with my pals Erica Goss and Amanda Williamson at the end of the day — looking as stunned, sunburned and windblown as we were!
Here are a couple of photos of some of the great poems kids wrote (click through the “poetry play booth” link above to read all about the way we built the booth and to see more photos).
Did you know Cupertino has it’s own public radio station? KKUP (FM 91.5) is a sweet little station filled with volunteers and subscribers who broadcast out of a funky studio in East San Jose.
Last month I was invited to read poetry and talk about the current search for the next Cupertino Poet Laureate. Pushpa MacFarlane, a member of the search committee and a friend and awesome local poet, arranged the time with KKUP music mixer extraordinaire, David Stafford.
David Stafford, KKUP at his sound board (Photo by Pushpa MacFarlane)
Pushpa MacFarlane, reading her poems
Jennifer Swanton Brown, reading her poems at KKUP (Photo by Pushpa MacFarlane)
I read my “Softball Sestina” (published in The Sand Hill Review 2006) which I wrote for my daughter and her team, The Purple Power. I read “In A Dry Time” which I wrote for the 2014 Silicon Valley Fall Festival, and “Dog Park Rules” which I wrote for Cupertino’s Mary Avenue Dog Park.
I also read “My Elements: Earth” by a student I taught last year while working as a poet/teacher with California Poets in the Schools. This poem was published in If the Sky Was My Heart (the California Poets in the Schools 2014 Statewide Anthology). I teach a lesson based on one by Maureen Hurley, CPITS Area Coordinator from Alameda County.
My Elements: Earth
I shake like an earthquake,
I erupt like a volcano.
My outside is as hard as a rock.
My inside is soft,
a dark brown soil.
Inside, I have peace,
hills, fields, and valleys.
Don’t judge on what you see outside,
look past that boulder, look past that mountain!
Behind them grows peace.
Mounds of green, birds are free!
My soft, underground soil
is better on the inside.
Outside, I am hard,
boulder, grime, and rocks.
When I’m mad, I’m a volcano,
when I’m mad, I’m an earthquake.
Outside, there’s mud, muck, and dirt.
Two completely different sides.
Please don’t judge on what you see.
Both sides of me bring all my harmony.
Alicia Chen
Grade Four, Gomes Elementary School
Alameda County
The rest of these photos show the inside of the KKUP station — I admired the signs and the pictures. All around, a great place!
One of the joys of being the city’s Poet Laureate is that your name gets circulated among poetry lovers all over the county. I had the honor last month of being invited to read some of my poetry as part of the Sunday Assembly Silicon Valley meeting, June 14, 2015. (Photo above by Vickie Thompson, (c) Sunday Assembly.)
The featured reader for the morning was Lester Deanes, assistant dean at Santa Clara University’s Office of Student Life. He gave a great talk called “Man in Progress – A Conversation on Redefining Manhood and Family.” For me the highlight was a video he showed at the end of the talk of kids at a camp singing songs about gender issues.
Sunday Assembly is a group that meets, sings, listens to lectures and poems, shares adversity and adventure. They meet in the absolutely gorgeous old San Jose Women’s Club building, which has a lovely auditorium. I took several photos of the light fixtures while I was warming up my poetry mojo.
I especially love Sunday Assembly’s motto: Live Better. Help Often. Wonder More. I took these photos of the palms they use to define a more intimate space for meeting. Look closely for their little signs of joy.
Wonder More!
I read two of my newer poems, “Liver & Onions,” and “Hold What He Made” about my own father. I read “The New Season: A Baseball Sestina,” which celebrates my son and husband, and Little League Teams everywhere (published in What the World Hears, California Poets in the Schools 2009 Statewide Anthology). I also read a CPITS student poem, “My Father’s Hands” (published in If The Sky Was My Heart, California Poets in the Schools 2014 Statewide Anthology), and which I reproduce here:
My Father’s Hands
Scarred are my father’s
hands and wrists
from cuts,
never self-inflicted,
but the scars
of a working man.
Unfortunately, also those
of a junkie,
the poison needle
long gone,
but its marks
ever present,
the veins standing out.
He wears fantastic
silver bracelets,
drawing attention away
from the marks.
I think he’s ashamed,
embarrassed,
or both.
The hands of my father,
loving and caring,
despite the permanent marks
and the roughness.
(c) Cassidy Bailey
Grade Nine, Six Rivers Charter School
Humboldt County
Cupertino Poet Laureate 