[Charlotte Innes]

Hi everyone,

I am very fortunate to be hosting an OUTSTANDING POETRY EVENT with three remarkable poets who rarely read here in Los Angeles (though two of them live here!). They are: TIMOTHY STEELE, CATHERINE CHANDLER and KEVIN DURKIN.

This will be at Beyond Baroque on Venice Blvd. in Venice, CA on Saturday, September 27 at 8:00 p.m. Just eight days away!

Please come if you possibly can.

None of them really need any introduction here. But just to remind you:

TIMOTHY STEELE is one of the greats. He is the author of four collections of poems: Uncertainties and Rest (1979), Sapphics against Anger and Other Poems (1986), The Color Wheel (1994), and Toward the Winter Solstice (2006). The first two were reprinted in 1995 as a joint volume, Sapphics and Uncertainties: Poems 1970-1986. Currently, he says, he is “two-thirds of the way to another collection of poems.” Steele has also published two widely discussed books of literary criticism, Missing Measures: Modern Poetry and the Revolt against Meter (1990) and All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing: An Explanation of Meter and Versification (1999); and he has edited The Poems of J.V. Cunningham (1997). A Reader’s Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers calls him, "One of the finest poets of this century."

CATHERINE CHANDLER has just published a second full-length collection, Glad and Sorry Seasons with Biblioasis Press, Windsor, Ontario, 2014. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Lines of Flight (Able Muse Press, 2011) was shortlisted for the 2013 Poets’ Prize. A collection of sonnets, This Sweet Order, was published by White Violet Press in 2012. Richard Wilbur says that Chandler’s poems “offer the reader a plain eloquence, a keen eye, and a graceful development of thought.” And X. J. Kennedy says, "A keen observer of the natural world, she can also capture human life in all its harsh crudity... and yet is able to convey what she calls ‘the delicate forensics of the heart.’ Her instrument has many strings.”

KEVIN DURKIN’s first collection of poetry, Los Angeles in Fog, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2013. Durkin’s poems, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Poetry, The Yale Review, American Arts Quarterly, The New Criterion, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and have been anthologized in Poetry Daily, Irresistible Sonnets, and Able Muse Anthology. Poet Catherine Tufariello notes that his "poems are remarkable for their clear-sighted responsiveness to the outer world, both natural and human… Again and again he manages to discover—in his adopted city of noisy neighbors, car exhaust, glass-littered freeways and office cubicles—fugitive moments of human empathy and connection… "

PLEASE COME! It's such a beautiful place too.

Here is a link to Beyond Baroque.

All best,
Charlotte

[Charlotte Innes]

Clearly, I need to bump this up!

O Sphereans and Formalists and Others of ALL Poetical Stripes in Los Angeles and Southern California in General... this is truly a tremendous gathering of poets.

Do come! It's THIS Saturday (Sept. 27).

Charlotte

[Siham Karami]

Wish I could be there. What a lineup! (Maybe there might be a video or two?) Sounds spectacular.

Siham

[W.F. Lantry]

Wow, Cathy. Venice Beach. Very cool. But you're going to need a pair of roller skates! And maybe some headphones, even...

Best,

Bill

[Charlotte Innes]

Thanks, Siham and Bill. I'm excited! I know it's going to be fantastic. And we're all having dinner together beforehand... Wish you could all be there!

Hmm, how many Sphereans ARE there in So. Cal? I've never checked...

Charlotte

[Catherine Chandler]

Charlotte, We have arrived! Spent the afternoon at the beach. Sorry, Bill, no roller skates for me!

[Nausheen Eusuf]

So, how'd it go? Can we have some reports, so those of us on the east coast (and elsewhere) can enjoy the event vicariously? Pictures or video would be great too, if available.

Thanks,
Nausheen

[Charlotte Innes]

Dear Nausheen,

Thanks so much! It went splendidly. I don't have pictures of the reading, though I do have a very nice picture of us all (poets and friends) having dinner at a restaurant in Venice Beach called Mao's Kitchen beforehand. But I'm not sure if everyone would want their pics on the web. That includes Cathy Chandler, Frank Osen, Tim Steele, Leslie Monsour, Bruce McBirney, and Kevin Durkin.

At any rate, it was a great leisurely dinner, and I finally got to meet Cathy, which was a real pleasure, and later her husband Hugo.

We had a decent audience at the reading. I didn't count, and it wasn't huge, but it felt like a real audience.

It was a joy to hear everyone read. Such gorgeous work! And Tim kindly accepted my request to read one of my favorite poems "Didelphis Virginiana," which I call "the possum poem." In fact, everyone read poems that I might call favorites of mine. Kevin read "Lives of the Apartment Dwellers," and Cathy read "Automat" based on a Hopper painting, which I first read on the Sphere, actually! (It was subsequently published in Quadrant magazine, Cathy told me.) But it was all good, and I could have gone on listening to these poets, all night. I think everyone felt that way.

I'm very grateful to Richard Modiano, the director of Beyond Baroque for allowing us to have what's amounting to a formalist reading series there. So far we've had Frank Osen and David Rosenthal, along with B. H. Fairchild, back in April. Also, Quincy Lehr and I read there in 2012.

Coming up, on March 18, 2015, Rachel Hadas will read there. It will be a joint presentation with her partner Shalom Gorewitz, who is a video artist. More on that later!

All best,
Charlotte

[Nausheen Eusuf]

Thanks, Charlotte. I remember Kevin Durkin's "Lives of the Apartment Dwellers" from his reading at West Chester this year. I love how he does all the voices. I also remember Cathy Chandler's "Automat" from one of the workshop boards. And I'll have to go look up Tim Steele's possum poem...

Congrats on a successful event! And thanks for the report,

Nausheen

[Charlotte Innes]

Thanks so much, Nausheen! The "possum poem" is in Tim Steele's last collection, "Toward the Winter Solstice." Worth having, I would say.

Charlotte