Nicelle Davis put on an amazing event! On Saturday, Feb. 28, 10 poets read at the freakishly fast carousel in Griffith Park (and other strange and wonderful things happened too). See the video here.
Also, buy Nicelle’s new book, In the Circus of You, here. It’s amazing too!
I had expected to go to this event without my family, but then I couldn’t bring myself to leave my poetry-and-carousel-loving 3 year old at home, so my husband and sons came with me.
I read bizarre pregnancy dream poems from my chapbook I Awake in My Womb. I made it through most of my reading just fine, but before my last poem, I saw my Elliott’s crumpled sad face in the back of the crowd. He wanted mommy and the microphone. I decided in a moment that I cared less about appearing “polished” and more about letting my son know that I’d stop the world for him, so I called him up to me. He said hello in the microphone, and I read the last poem with him on my hip.
In a few hours, I get to read poetry at Stories Books & Cafe with some awesome poets: Sarah A. Chavez and Wendy Oleson. Join us at 7 p.m. for a reading in celebration of National Women’s History Month.
Update: Here are some photos from this reading. What a fun night!
Here are the images for my poetry trading card! Nicelle Davis created this card as a ticket for my reading at The Poetry Circus. Join us at the Griffith Park carousel on the evening of February 28. More details here.
I got to visit my poet-friend Nicelle’s class yesterday evening at Antelope Valley College, and her students were so wonderfully engaged and thoughtful in their observations and questions about The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman. Then Nicelle took me out to a fantastic Thai dinner with two of her high school poetry club students. For someone who loves poetry, people, and Thai food, this was as close to perfect as an evening gets. 🙂 Thanks, Nicelle!
55 poetry presenters on 16 panels over 3 days: 2014 Schedule
I was so busy organizing and attending the Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry sessions at the PCA/ACA Conference in Chicago mid-April that I never posted about it on here. It was fantastic! I fully intended to see more of the city and to take naps while I was on this conference trip, but I couldn’t tear myself away from the poetry panels. I was so impressed with the presentations: readings and performances of original poems, paper presentations, discussions about teaching and community involvement, and more. One of the extra special highlights was getting away from the conference hotel for an off-site poetry event: we saw Kate Gale and Nicelle Davis read at the Seminary Co-Op Bookstore, followed by a delicious dinner at The Nile Restaurant. I loved getting to know some new poet-friends and getting to visit with some already dear ones.
I look forward to helping poets further infiltrate the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association Conference in New Orleans next year…
If you’ll be at the AWP conference in Seattle this week, you can find me here:
Thursday, 11:30-12:30 – Book signing with Nicelle Davis at Red Hen Press (tables 1802-1806). We will very likely be dressed as Jesus and Judas to get people to stop and talk to us about our books: Becoming Judas (Nicelle Davis) and The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman (Katie Manning).
Thursday, 3-5 p.m. – Reading on the Glass Slipper (a glass-bottom boat) at South Lake Union with Lauren K. Alleyne, Nicelle Davis, Michelle Lin, and Alexis Vergalia. We’ll be the mid-run poetry entertainment for participants in the Run of the Ancient Mariner, but you could just come to sit and watch us if you want.
Friday, 9-10 a.m. – Book signing at Yellow Flag Press (table J21) to promote I Awake in My Womb.
Friday, 10:30 – 11:45 a.m. – Book signing at Fairy Tale Review (table K26) to promote The Gospel of the Bleeding Woman and I Awake in My Womb.
Friday, 3:00-4:15 p.m. – Panel – When Genres Collide: Teaching Prose Poetry and Flash Fiction with Forrest Roth, Tyrone Jaeger, and John Talbird. Room LL4, Western New England MFA Annex, Lower Level.
I’ll also be wandering the book fair, attending other panels and off-site events, and generally enjoying time with writer-friends in Seattle. I can’t wait!
P.S. You should also find my friend Nicelle Davis, whose post at The Bee’s Knees Blog inspired this one.
I had a wonderful time reading tonight at The Studio Theatre by Universal Studios. My fellow readers were fantastic: Karen Kevorkian, who teaches at UCLA, and Hugh Martin, who is an Iraq vet and a Stegner Fellow. It’s not often that I come home from a poetry reading with a book by each of the other readers, but I sure did this time!
As for my work, I read a few poems from each chapbook. They seemed to go over well; the audience laughed heartily in all the right places and occasionally talked back between poems. 🙂 I love interactive audiences. They bought a few of my books too.
Thanks, Alex M. Frankel for running this series and inviting me to participate. Thanks also to Tarumi for the wonderful affirmation and for buying a copy of each of my books.
Alex Frankel invited me to read in the Second Sunday Poetry Series over a year ago, and we finally found a good time for me to do it: tomorrow night. I plan to read a few things from each of my three chapbooks. There will be a few other poets reading and an open mic time afterwards, so feel free to come for any or all of the evening.
Second Sunday Poetry Series
November 10, 2013 at 5pm
The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building
3433 Cahuenga Blvd West
Los Angeles, CA 90068
(Near Universal Studios)
I had such a wonderful time as the guest poet for PLNU’s annual Poetry Day! Here’s a photo taken by Carol Blessing during the Q&A at the evening reading.
Thanks Carol Blessing, Edie Chapman, and Linda Beail for inviting me and planning all of the events during the day (and some on the next day too!) I was so impressed with the turn out for the afternoon literary tea and the evening reading, and I loved meeting so many engaged and insightful students.