Reading! Slides, Music!

Dear Friends, 

Many indigenous cultures celebrate the fall equinox as a time when completion and harvest portend a new year, a new cycle, imminent spring.  I am celebrating my own renewal after a gravelly year that culminated in Alaska where I saw the Aurora Borealis and so much more. Soon I’ll post photos on my website and social media. I distinctly recommend the train from Anchorage to Fairbanks! 

 And I’ll soon share with you information about a couple of new, unusual publications! Stay tuned!

Please join us Sunday afternoon, 22 October, at 4:30, when I’ll read with the excellent poet, Ambika Talwar. My selection and slides from Sacred Sites reveal roots of the climate crisis, and Dear Traveler and new poems ponder how we might live now. See flyer below or the events page on this site.

With brightening leaves and the (most likely) coming rains,

Susan

SACRED SITES AUDIO BOOK LAUNCH PARTY!

With my heart brimming with appreciation for your support, I am thrilled to announce that we will launch our Sacred Sites Audio Theater via Zoom on Saturday, March 6, at 5PM PST!

Our team has worked for a year, with support from so many of you, to create what we feel is an audio performance that speaks to the heart of the current climate and social crises and summons us to live in balance with all beings. As Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gary Snyder writes in his foreword (read by Peter Coyote): This book “brings us home.”

Please join our celebration sponsored by 18th Street Art Center! It’s going to be a joyful show! Meet the cast and crew, hear clips from the book, experience Sacred Sites presented in the oral tradition which is its source. Though there is much left to do to bring this work fully into the world, now is the time to stir up a party!

Register right away! https://us02web.zoom.us/…/reg…/WN_jfvznkHpRUysh-jLwffbHA

Please post and share with your friends and family. All are welcome!

With gratitude!

Susan

Spring Letter 20 March 2018

20 March 2018

Dear Friends,

The winter heat, fires, and mudslides give way to short but mostly sweet March rains. Though they don’t dissolve the drought, they rinse the leaves that have been laden with ash and Santa Ana dust and we all breathe more deeply.

Good news on the literary front:

!. I am delighted to announce that Jerome Rothenberg, the iconic poet and anthologist famed for his influential poetry collections, especially Technicians of the Sacred recently released in a 50th Anniversary edition, has included commentary about Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California on his blog:

http://poemsandpoetics.blogspot.com/search?q=sacred+sites

Technicians of the Sacred is one of my foundational texts, a book whose presentation of tribal poetry infused with shamanism from around the world, shaped my developing sense of the range, depths, necessity of poetry.

  1. On Thursday, 22 March 2018, at 7:30, I’ll be reading new work at the E.P Foster Library in Ventura. This series is curated by Phil Taggart whose brilliant contribution to promoting poetry is widely praised. People LA to Santa Barbara attend his events in Ventura and Ojai. I’m honored to be included! Please join us! Tell your friends!

EP Foster Library in the Topping Room 

Poetry every Thursday at 7:30pm

651 E. Main Street – Ventura

host:  Phil Taggart

  1. On Sunday, 6 May 2018,(NOTE: THIS DATE MAY CHANGE– I’ll keep you posted!) at 3:30 PM, I’ll be reading in the poetry series at Britt Marie, a marvelous restaurant in Albany that supports the arts! Please join us! Tell your Bay Area friends!                                                        Britt Marie Restaurant

1369 Solano Ave.     Albany, CA

 

On the Historic 11th Street Bungalow Cluster Campaign:

We hope to be on the Landmarks Commission agenda for May 14 (DATE IS NOT SET FOR SURE AT THIS TIME) and are planning a rousing show! Please mark your calendars and join the fun in Council Chambers at Santa Monica City Hall! More information to follow about time and free parking.

I will also send information about emailing your notes of support closer to the meeting date. Stay tuned! And check our Historic 11th Street Facebook page where you can read the current edition of our Community Consultants Report on history of our block and the wonderful bungalows we intend to save.

Our vision is supported by all the Santa Monica neighborhood groups, the Santa Monica Conservancy, and important local organizations plus other conservancies like the Pasadena Heritage.

Additionally, I’m collecting a set of new work: The Traveler Poems  and have begun another collection. Spring, with its burgeoning from winter ground lifts my spirits some. January brought the loss of a dear friend and others whom I admired. Not to speak of the harsh currents that challenge the very air and every aspect of what we have sometimes called civilization. But, from the mouth of chaos comes the call to action. May we respond!

 

With the burgeoning green grass and brave new leaves,

Susan