Monday, March 4, 2019

Altadena Library to Host Special Reading by Nominees for Pushcart Prize for Poetry

STAFF REPORT

Enjoy a special reading by the talented nominees for the Pushcart Prize for Poetry from the Altadena Poetry Review 2018 hosted by its editors, Elline Lipkin (Altadena Poet Laureate 2016-2018) and Pauli Dutton, with publisher Thelma Reyna on Monday, March 18, 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Community Room of the Altadena Main Library.

The nominees include:

• Thom Cagle – is a native of Nashville, TN, and a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, where he studied poetry with Henry Braun. He is an alumnus of the long-running Wednesday night poetry workshop at Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA, and a past student of Laurel Ann Bogen. He makes his home in Santa Monica.

• Stephen Colley – a retired software engineer/manager, has written mostly meter-and-rhyme poetry for thirtysomething years (especially sonnet variations) and been a co-administrator of Facebook’s Poetry Altadena group page. He’s also written classical music, including a song cycle on Lord of the Rings poems, settings of fourteen Robert Frost poems; three screenplays, articles for Libertarian, animal-rescue, and vegan groups, and his own Southland Collie Rescue group.

• Briony James – born and raised on the east coast, Briony migrated west with marriage and has spent the last forty years in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of Ithaca College and the further university of life, working in art and letters, from copywriting to tattooing. The past decade she dedicated to poetry, learning Asian forms such as tanka and haiku, thanks to Kathabela Wilson. She has published in Bright Stars, Ribbons, Spectrum, and the Altadena Poetry Review.

• Sabrina Kaleta – a second-generation Pasadenan, has been a poet, music journalist, publicist, mother, performance artist, Doo-Dah Queen, reluctant debutante, jewelry designer, and boho hostess. Gracing both literary magazines and the pages of punk zine Flipside, Sabrina’s taken to the stage in both bars and bookstores. She continues to try to ignore the outside voices and the ones of her exuberant children and create when she can.

• Mary Torregrossa – often noted as a story-teller, is a story-listener, honed by her job as an ESL teacher in So Cal. Born in Rhode Island, she blends portraits of people, places and experiences from both coasts, into her poetry. Her chapbook, My Zocalo Heart, is published by Finishing Line Press. Poems appear in Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems, in Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond, an in Voices from Leimert Park Redux.

• Kathabela Wilson – has been published in many international journals including Eye of the Telescope, Illumen, Star*Line, Astropoetica, Pirene’s Fountain, Atlas Poetica and Scryptic. She is author of the Owl Still Asking, Tanka for Troubled Times, and Driftwood Monster, Haiku for Troubled Times, Locofo Chaps, Chicago, (available at Lulu.com). She hosts poetry events and creates a weekly Poet Salon for the online magazine CololadoBoulevard.net.

Altadena Library District, 600 E. Mariposa Street, Altadena, (626) 798-0833 or visit www.altadenalibrary.org.