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 usSunday 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,
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.
Two segments of open mic will be available and refreshments will be served. Suggested donation $5 per person for the cost of refreshments and to donate to the Little Landers Society that manages the Bolton Hall Museum, a Los Angeles Historical Landmark built in 1913.
Puvungna is one of the most important sacred and cultural sites in Southern California. I’ll be reading mainly from my award-winning book, Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California, including ancient narratives about the history of this singular village site.
Located on the campus of California State University, Long Beach, with easy parking. On May 21st at 2 PM.
Puvungna is one of the most important sacred and cultural sites in Southern California. I’ll be reading mainly from my award-winning book, Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California, including ancient narratives about the history of this singular village site. Join us under the oaks for a wonderful afternoon!
Located on the campus of California State University, Long Beach, with easy parking.
Irrepressible spring leans toward summer. Even here, at the coast, inland heat simmers just beyond the fog and ocean clouds. With April comes National Poetry Month and with that come the festivals!
I’m reading in the Sierra Poetry Festival’s Poetic Crossings on North San Juan Ridge (just outside Nevada City), a site of artistic vitality when I lived in Nevada County in the late 70s and early 80s. I am grateful for the long friendships I have maintained with this place and these people who contributed immeasurably to my growth as a poet. With poppy fields!
Susan
From the organizer, Bishop Randall: In 1969 Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Dick Baker, and James Walter bought a piece of property along a spur of the San Juan Ridge. With their re-inhabitation came a slew of characters who would visit or eventually call this place home. This event honors our rich past and present ridge poetic tradition, with a night of history, remembering those who have gone, who we love. Each poet will share a bit of history about the poet they are reading and few of their poems, plus a few poems of their own.
In a letter to Bishop Randall, Gary wrote, “I was trying to say to you, that one does not become a poet or even a writer, without some background scrabbling. And a lot of reading and thinking, especially about the curious role “poetry” has in our culture, an inbuilt prestige but also no serious rewards. You do it for yourself and your artist comrades, but the literary public just gives it a look and moves on. And, as it often is in art, people give poetry lot of respect but then basically ignore it. When you have real issues, and a circle of lively minds, it gets interesting. That’s what we have here.”
Irrepressible spring leans toward summer. Even here, at the coast, inland heat simmers just beyond the fog and ocean clouds. With April comes National Poetry Month and with that come the festivals!
I’m reading in the Sierra Poetry Festival’s Poetic Crossings on North San Juan Ridge (just outside Nevada City), a site of artistic vitality when I lived in Nevada County in the late 70s and early 80s. I am grateful for the long friendships I have maintained with this place and these people who contributed immeasurably to my growth as a poet. With poppy fields! Susan
From the organizer, Bishop Randall: In 1969 Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Dick Baker, and James Walter bought a piece of property along a spur of the San Juan Ridge. With their re-inhabitation came a slew of characters who would visit or eventually call this place home. This event honors our rich past and present ridge poetic tradition, with a night of history, remembering those who have gone, who we love. Each poet will share a bit of history about the poet they are reading and few of their poems, plus a few poems of their own.
In a letter to Bishop Randall, Gary wrote, “I was trying to say to you, that one does not become a poet or even a writer, without some background scrabbling. And a lot
of reading and thinking, especially about the curious role “poetry” has in our culture, an inbuilt prestige but also no serious rewards. You do it for yourself and your artist comrades, but the literary public just gives it a look and moves on. And, as it often is in art, people give poetry lot of respect but then basically ignore it. When you have real issues, and a circle of lively minds, it gets interesting. That’s what we have here.”
Tom has asked me and others who wrote praises for his unusual, unforgettable book to read with him at the book launch celebration. This collection of prose poems takes us on a walk-about through Venice streets and alleys observed with captivating imagination and historical insight. Come help us celebrate OR watch the live stream note below)! Susan
Tom writes: On April 1st, please help me celebrate the release of my new collection of poems, Three Hundred Streets of Venice California, just out from FutureCycle Press.
Joining me will be poets Beth Ruscio, Mike Sonksen, and Susan Suntree. Reception will follow.
The details: 7pm Saturday April 1st at Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice 90291. (If you live at a distance, you can see the show at Beyond Baroque’s YouTube channel). The evening is free, but tickets are available at Eventbrite or at the door.
On the evening of Saturday, March 25, I’ll be reading in tandem with Phoebe McAdams from our books about Los Angeles. Her poems are drawn from her daily experiences and contemplations of living in Los Angeles, while my poems tell the origin stories of the region’s dynamic landscape in which the land and the sea are the main characters. Poet Jimmy Vega will round out the reading with his insights into the riches and complications of our urban lives.
Event: West Hollywood’s Ladies of Courage Art Festival
Location: West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood CA
March 25 at 5:50, outdoors under the Sky Tree. Free.
I would love to share my work with you! Please join us!
Irrepressible spring bursts from the tree buds on my front yard maple and sycamore. Flowers swing into bloom from the dark muddy ground. We are carried into the new season as the equinox marks the lengthening days amidst a world vivid with beauty and unease.
And with the season comes a blooming of poetry readings.
I’m so pleased to join this program of excellent poets at the famous Sims Poetry Library on March 25 at 2 PM. 2702 W. Florence Ave, LA CA, I’ll read poems from my new manuscript-in-progress: The Undertakers. Yes, Earth Day Every Day!
Winter tempests swirl across the country even as my front yard trees line their branches with thickening buds, small cocoons where spring leaves slowly ripen. And, like them, we move into the year with our unease and our pleasures. And what a pleasure it is to read with two marvelous poets: Tom Laichas and Brendan Constantine!
This reading is going to be lively, textured, varied, informative, and fun! Please join us– live and in-person– at one of my all-time favorite\LA bookstores: Book Jewel in Westchester. Old school in the best sense, comfortable, and staffed by people who truly know books. I think you will love this shop as much as I do.
Join us!
Susan
Here’s the discount link to the Sacred Sites audiobook where you can hear about the era when the earth’s atmosphere held as much CO2 as it does now and other news from climate antics and momentous evolutions: sacred sites: https://shop.authors-direct.com/collections/suntree-sacred-sites-audiobook or search Suntree Findaway Voices.
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