
Brian Komei Dempster
Brian Komei Dempster and Lee Herrick
14 MARCH 2021 — sunday
Poetry Flash presents a virtual poetry reading by Brian Komei Dempster, Seize, and Lee Herrick, Scar and Flower, online via Zoom, free, 3:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: please click here; you will receive an email with a link to join the reading)
MORE ABOUT THE READERS
Please join us for a Poetry Flash virtual reading on Sunday, March 14 at 3:00 pm PDT! We are excited to bring you Brian Komei Dempster and Lee Herrick via Zoom. To register for this reading, please click on the link in the calendar listing above. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series during these unprecedented times.
This reading is co-sponsored by Moe's Books in Berkeley; the featured books are available at bookshop.org/lists/poetry-flash-readings.
Brian Komei Dempster's new book of poems is Seize. Patrick Phillips says, "Brian Komei Dempster's central subject—his son's epilepsy—could not be more freighted with risk, and yet Seize achieves a pitch-perfect harmony of lament and praise, suffering and solace.…This is a stunning, heartbreaker of a book." His first collection, Topaz, won the 15 Bytes 2014 Book Award in Poetry. Widely published in literary journals, his poems have also been anthologized in Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond, Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation, and elsewhere. He is editor of From Our Side of the Fence: Growing up in Concentration Camps, which received a 2007 Nisei Voices Award from the National Japanese American Historical Society, and Making Home from War: Stories of Japanese American Exile and Resettlement. As poet, workshop director, and editor, he's received grants from Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Arts Foundation of Michigan, California State Library's California Civil Liberties Publication Education Program, Center for Cultural Innovation, and San Francisco Arts Commission.
Lee Herrick's latest book of poems is Scar and Flower, finalist for the 2020 Northern California Book Award. Juan Felipe Herrera says, "this is an incredible, luminous and most serious investigation, of being, of human suffering, of war and peace—of the factories of violence and the notebook of enlightenments.…Lee is concerned with the turning of beauty, the intimacy of death and the boundlessness of small moments, 'the broken body of a tiny bird,' fragments that can change a life." Herrick's previous poetry collections include Gardening Secrets of the Dead and This Many Miles from Desire. He is co-editor of the anthology The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit. His poems appear widely in literary magazines, textbooks, and anthologies such as HERE: Poems for the Planet, with an introduction by the Dalai Lama; Indivisible: Poems of Social Justice, with an introduction by Common; One for the Money: The Sentence as Poetic Form; and California Fire and Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology. His prose has appeared in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy. He served as Fresno Poet Laureate from 2015-2017 and co-founded LitHop, Fresno's literary festival. He has traveled extensively throughout Latin America and Asia and has taught in China and in California State Prisons. He received the Bill F. Stewart Award for Excellence in Education in 2011. Born in Daejeon, Korea and adopted to the U.S. at ten months, he teaches at Fresno City College, where he co-founded the forthcoming Social Justice and Cultural Center, and in the Sierra Nevada University MFA program.


Daily Listings
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2 OCTOBER 2025 — thursday
3 OCTOBER 2025 — friday
4 OCTOBER 2025 — saturday
- North Bay Letterpress Arts and ReVillage celebrate the power of the printed and spoken word at this one-day event featuring local vendors, food trucks, poetry readings, music, and the signature Steamroller Print Event, the festival brings together printmakers, poets, publishers, for a day of community and creativity, food trucks, handmade goods, local beer and wine, free, Graton Town Square, 9155 Graton Road, Graton, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm (www.northbayletterpressarts.org)
5 OCTOBER 2025 — sunday
- Annual Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop with poet Sarah Kobrinsky, part of the Emeryville Celebration of the Arts, a month-long juried show with the work of artists who live and/or work in Emeryville; ekphrastic refers to literary works written in response to visual art; the poetry workshop will be followed by a reading on October 26, when a jazz group will inprov from poems written in the workshop in response to the art; poems will be written in response to the art in this year's Emeryville Celebration of the Arts show, free but spaces are limited, register on Eventbrite, Emeryville Celebration of the Arts, 5905 Shellmound Street, Public Market, Emeryville, 2:00-4:00 (www.eventbrite.com/e/ekphrastic-poetry-workshop-with-sarah-kobrinsky-2025-tickets-1685553779729?aff=oddtdtcreator)
- Bazaar Writers Salon features a reading by poet and memoirist Alice Jones, Cadence of Vanishing, a mixed genre memoir; novelist Susanna Kwan, Awake in the Floating City; novelist Peter Mann, World Pacific; and poet Rachel Richardson, Smother, co-founder of Left Margin LIT; event hosted by Peter Kline, first Sunday of the month, Bazaar Café, 5927 California Street, San Francisco, 6:00 (www.peterklinepoetry.com/bazaar-writers)
6 OCTOBER 2025 — monday
7 OCTOBER 2025 — tuesday
8 OCTOBER 2025 — wednesday
- Womb House Books presents Diana Arterian, reading from Agrippina the Younger, her collection of poems that reach into the past to try to understand the patriarchal systems of today, in conversation with poet J. Michael Martinez, Womb House Books, 470 49th Street, Oakland, free, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm (www.eventbrite.com/o/womb-house-books-79447203573)
- City Arts and Lectures presents Daniel Handler discussing his new memoir, And Then? And Then? What Else?, which reflects on his childhood in San Francisco, the authors who shaped his voice, and the traumatic early-life experiences that have informed the way he moves through the world, in conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning author Andrew Sean Greer, The Story of a Marriage, Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, $49, 7:30 (www.cityarts.net/event/daniel-handler-5)
9 OCTOBER 2025 — thursday
10 OCTOBER 2025 — friday
11 OCTOBER 2025 — saturday
- Litquake presents An Evening with U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, reading from and discussing Startlement, New and Selected Poems, her new collection spanning nearly twenty years of emphatic, fearlessly original poetry; Limón looks back on her distinguished career and shares new work, Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market Street, San Francisco, $20 advance, $25 door, 7:30 pm-9:00 pm (www.ticketweb.com/event/an-evening-with-ada-limn-swedish-american-hall-tickets/13826814)
12 OCTOBER 2025 — sunday
13 OCTOBER 2025 — monday
14 OCTOBER 2025 — tuesday
15 OCTOBER 2025 — wednesday
16 OCTOBER 2025 — thursday
- City Arts and Lectures presents acclaimed historian, The New Yorker staff writer, and Dean of Columbia Journalism Jelani Cobb reading from and discussing his newest book, Three or More is a Riot, a collection of narrative journalism, criticism, and penetrating profiles that capture the crisis, characters, movements, and art of an era, in conversation with john a. powell, Professor of Law and African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, The Power of Bridging: How to Build a World Where We All Belong, Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, $49, 7:30 (www.cityarts.net/event/jelani-cobb-3)
17 OCTOBER 2025 — friday
18 OCTOBER 2025 — saturday
- City Arts and Lectures presents Andrew Ross Sorkin, journalist for The New York Times and co-anchor of Squawk Box, CNBC's signature morning program, reading from and discussing his new book, 1929: The Inside Story of the Greatest Crash of Wall Street, a spellbinding narrative of the most infamous stock market crash in history, in conversation with CEO of Stripe Patrick Collison, Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, $64-$69, 7:30 (https://www.cityarts.net)
19 OCTOBER 2025 — sunday
20 OCTOBER 2025 — monday
21 OCTOBER 2025 — tuesday
22 OCTOBER 2025 — wednesday
23 OCTOBER 2025 — thursday
- City Arts and Lectures presents photographer Richard Misrach discusses his new book, Half-Baked Stories about My Dead Mom, photographs of cargo ships to and from the Port of Oakland, in conversation with award-winning author and historian Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Nonexistence, Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, $49, 7:30 (https://www.cityarts.net)
24 OCTOBER 2025 — friday
- Transit Books presents A Very Fine Fête, a fundraiser celebrating Transit's tenth anniversary, eat and drink among friends, enjoy Edward Gorey tarot readings, a book apothecary, special edition merch, a prize for best costume, and more, Edward Gorey-inspired dresswear encouraged: Edwardian costume, fur coats, top hats, fascinators, or something that's been calling in your closet, Cellar Maker Brewing Co., 940 Parker Street, Berkeley, $30-$10,000, 7:00-10:00 (www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/a-very-fine-fete)
25 OCTOBER 2025 — saturday
- Fourth Saturdays: Poetry at the Claremont Library presents a reading by Nicelle Davis and Chiwan Choi, Claremont Helen Renwick Library, 208 N. Harvard Avenue, in the Claremont Village, Claremont, free, 2:00 (909/621-4902, www.claremontlibrary.org/monthly-poetry-readings.html)
26 OCTOBER 2025 — sunday
27 OCTOBER 2025 — monday
28 OCTOBER 2025 — tuesday
29 OCTOBER 2025 — wednesday
30 OCTOBER 2025 — thursday
31 OCTOBER 2025 — friday
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