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.
1250 Bellflower Blvd, Long Beach, CA 90840
I look forward to sharing this event with you!
Susan
Dear Friends,
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.
1250 Bellflower Blvd, Long Beach, CA 90840
I look forward to sharing this event with you!
Susan
Dear Friends,
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.”
Doors 6:00. Reading 7:00 PM; $15 suggested donation.
Proceeds benefit the Schoolhouse & Nevada County Arts Council/Sierra Poetry Festival.
Dear Friends,
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.”
Poetic Crossings, Past & Present: San Juan Ridge
Doors 6:00. Reading 7:00 PM; $15 suggested donation. Proceeds benefit the
Schoolhouse & Nevada County Arts Council/Sierra Poetry Festival. Here is a link to the Facebook events page,
Hi Everyone,
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.
I hope to see you there!
Best,
Tom
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!
Please join us!
5 February 2023 Full Moon
Dear Friends,
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.
Dear Friends,
I’m happy to announce the following events celebrating the release of Dear Traveler and the multiple award-winning audio and paperback revised edition of Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California. I’ll also be reading new work including chants from “The Undertakers.” Please join us!
Tom Laichas’s recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rupture, Disquieting Muses, Stand, Ambit, Moon & Sun and elsewhere. He is a winner of the Nancy Hargrove Poetry Prize from the Jabberwock Review and the author of Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (forthcoming from FutureCycle Press, 2023), Sixty-Three Photographs from the End of a War (3.1 Press, 2021), and Empire of Eden (The High Window Press, 2019).
Briana Muñoz is a writer from Southern California. Raised in San Diego, she spent a lot of her time at her mother’s Mexican folklore dance classes and at ranches where her father trained horses into the sunset. She is the author of Loose Lips (Prickly Pear Publishing 2019) and Everything is Returned to the Soil/Todo vuelve a la tierra (FlowerSong Press, 2021). Her work has been published in Dryland, the Bravura Literary Journal, LA BLOGA, and in the Oakland Arts Review, among others.
Susan Suntree is a poet and performer whose work investigates the dynamics of science, art, and spiritual philosophies as they engage contemporary life. She has presented her award-winning poetry and performances nationally and internationally, and has published books of poetry, biography, and creative nonfiction, as well as translations, essays, reviews, and book chapters. Awards include the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association Award for Nonfiction, the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Poetic Narrative, and a Mellon Foundation Elemental Arts Award, and the audiobook of Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California was a finalist for a Society of Voice Arts and Sciences prize.
A. K. Toney is a poet, writer, educator, and performance artist. As a World Stage Performance Gallery alumnus, he had the honor to be mentored by jazz great, community leader and founder of the World Stage Billy Higgins. Toney’s skills as a performance artist have taken him across the nation and abroad. His experience as a performance artist and educator has allowed him and his organization, Reading Is Poetry, to teach workshops with LA Unified schools, NAMI, and the Natural History Museum. Toney is also a contributing writer to KCET
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