Lummis Day - 2009

• 2009-home page •

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Begins May 2, 2009
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Listen to the PODCAST here !
- Suzanne Lummis, Brendan Constanine and liz gonzales talk about the Lummis Day "Viva Poetry" Library Series
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Viva Poetry! The Lummis Day Library Series is Set for May

Poets Brendan Constantine, liz gonzález, will appear at Viva Poetry!, The 2009 Lummis Day Library Series

Brendan Constantine

liz gonzález

Suzanne Lummis will lead the open reading and noted Southern California-based poets Brendan Constantine and liz gonzález will be featured in this year's Viva Poetry!, The Lummis Day Library Program Poetry Series, scheduled for the first three Saturdays in May at three Northeast Los Angeles branches of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Viva Poetry!, The Lummis Day Library Program, will lead into the gala poetry reading that serves as the opening event of the Lummis Day Festival on June 7 at Lummis Home (200 E. Avenue 43, 10:30 am-noon.) Three poets, to be announced soon, will appear at the June 7 event.

The schedule for the 2009 Lummis Day Library series is:

Saturday, May 2, 2:00pm-4:00pm
Cypress Park Branch
1150 Cypress Avenue, Los Angeles 90065
(323) 224-0039
••• Brendan Constantine reading with guest poets.

Saturday, May 9, 2:00 pm-4:00pm
Arroyo Seco Branch
6145 N. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles 90042
(323) 255-0537
••• liz gonzález reading with guest poets.

Saturday, May 16, 2:00pm-4:00pm
Eagle Rock Branch
5027 Caspar Avenue, Los Angeles 90041
(323) 224-0039
••• Open workshop led by Brendan Constantine and liz gonzález.

Saturday, May 23, 2:00pm-4:00pm
Braun Research Library at the Southwest Museum
234 Museum Drive, Los Angeles 90065
••• Open reading facilitated by liz gonzález and Brendan Constantine.

Brendan Constantine's first official full-length collection entitled “Letters To Guns” is has just been published by Red Hen Press. The Poetry Super Highway called it "the most anticipated first book by a Los Angeles based author since `The Big Sleep'."

Known for his dreamy abstraction and the emotional ferocity of his work both on the page and on the stage, Constantine has helped to shape the poetry scenes of Southern California. “Letters To Guns” follows the publication of six chapbooks by local small presses in both Los Angeles County and Orange County, several of which are still available from the author, or can be found at the Beyond Baroque collection in Venice Beach.

liz gonzález, a fourth generation Southern California native, earned her M.F.A. in English and Creative Writing at Mills College in 1999 and currently lives and writes in Long Beach, California.

liz's poetry, fiction and memoirs will soon appear in or have appeared in journals and periodicals such as BorderSenses, Cooweescoowe, Heliotrope, Luna, Brújula/Compass, Cider Press Review, The San Francisco Chronicle, and New Delta Review, and in anthologies such as Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles, So Luminous the Wildflowers: An Anthology of California Poets, and Grand Passion: The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond. She is the author of the limited edition chapbook “Beneath Bone,” published by Manifest Press.

She is a member of the Macondo Writing Workshop, a master-level workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros, and the assistant editor of the online magazine Speechless the Magazine. She teaches writing at Long Beach City College, literature at local universities, and creative writing at community centers, in private workshops, and through the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. liz gonzález was a featured reader at last year's Lummis Day Festival.

Viva Poetry!, The Lummis Day Library Program, is partially funded by Poets & Writers Inc through a grant it has received from the James Irvine Foundation.

The 4th Annual Lummis Day: The Festival of Northeast Los Angeles will be presented by the Autry National Center, the Annenberg Foundation and the neighborhood councils of Northeast Los Angeles on Sunday June 7. Program information can be found at www.lummisday.org.