Barbara Ras
Barbara Hamby and Barbara Ras
28 MARCH 2021 — sunday
Poetry Flash presents a virtual poetry reading by Barbara Hamby, Holoholo, and Barbara Ras, The Blues of Heaven, 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 28 at 3:00 pm PDT! We are excited to bring you Barbara Ras and Barbara Hamby 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.
Barbara Ras's new book of poems is The Blues of Heaven, both personal, dealing with grief over the death of a brother and memories of growing up in a working-class neighborhood of Polish immigrants, and national, reflecting on gun violence, the climate crisis, and the fecklessness of an ignorant, corrupt government. Naomi Shihab Nye said, "The Blues of Heaven radiates with immense tenderness—here are poems of vivid painterly wonderment, perfect pacing and weight, elegantly woven counterpoints of shimmering imagery." Ras's previous collections include Bite Every Sorrow, winner of the Walt Whitman Award and a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, One Hidden Stuff, and The Lost Skin. Her poetry has been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, Granta, Orion, and elsewhere, and she's been awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, among others. She lives in San Antonio, Texas, and is the founding director emerita of the Trinity University Press.
Barbara Hamby's new book of poems is Holoholo, the Hawaiian word for strolling without a fixed destination. A collage of one woman's consciousness, spoken in an American lingo, including Yiddish and street talk, its three sections motor across wars, racial tension, street violence, and other assorted national chaos. Billy Collins said, ""Barbara Hamby's poems are wild, outspoken, seriously funny, motor-mouth rambles that take us through hoops of association to places both unexpected and unimpeachable. This collection offers a generous helping of poems so crackling with references and busy with verbal energy you might feel them buzzing in your hands." She's the author of seven previous collections, most recently Bird Odyssey and On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems. Her book of linked stories, Lester Higata's 20th Century, was the winner of the 2010 University of Iowa John Simmons Award. A 2010 Guggenheim fellow, she is also co-editor, with her husband David Kirby, of Seriously Funny, an anthology of poetry.
Daily Listings
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7 DECEMBER 2024 — saturday
8 DECEMBER 2024 — sunday
- Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading featuring Kathleen McClung, Questions of Buoyancy, Kim Shuck, Pick a Garnet to Sleep in, and Maw Shein Win, Percussing the Thinking Jar, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm PST (poetryflash.org).
9 DECEMBER 2024 — monday
10 DECEMBER 2024 — tuesday
11 DECEMBER 2024 — wednesday
- Poetry Second Wednesdays at the Newbury Park Library presents Mary Kay Rummel, Little River of Amazements, former Poet Laureate of Ventura County, share your poem with the group afterwards, hosted by poet Ron Fullerton, Newbury Park Library Meeting Room, 2331 Borchard Road, Newbury Park, and Virtual on Zoom, free, 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm PST (For more information, visit: libcal.tolibrary.org/event/12621402)
12 DECEMBER 2024 — thursday
- San Francisco Poet Laureate emerita Kim Shuck, Pick a Garnet to Sleep In, hosts "Poem Jam," featuring poetry from poet/essayist Wanda Sabir, poet/educator Karla Brundage, Blood Lies: Race Trait(or), and poet/social worker Sara Biel, Prescribed Burn, Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room A and B, San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, free, 6:00 pm PST (For more information, visit: sfpl.org/events/2024/12/12/performance-kim-shucks-poem-jam)
13 DECEMBER 2024 — friday
14 DECEMBER 2024 — saturday
- Poetry on Eighth at the Blanchard Library takes place second Saturdays monthly, share a poem with the group, hosted by artist Anita McLaughlin, Blanchard Library, 119 N. 8th Street, Santa Paula, free, Noon to 2pm PST (For more information, visit: blanchardlibrary.libcal.com/event/11797749)
15 DECEMBER 2024 — sunday
16 DECEMBER 2024 — monday
17 DECEMBER 2024 — tuesday
18 DECEMBER 2024 — wednesday
19 DECEMBER 2024 — thursday
20 DECEMBER 2024 — friday
21 DECEMBER 2024 — saturday
22 DECEMBER 2024 — sunday
23 DECEMBER 2024 — monday
24 DECEMBER 2024 — tuesday
25 DECEMBER 2024 — wednesday
26 DECEMBER 2024 — thursday
27 DECEMBER 2024 — friday
28 DECEMBER 2024 — saturday
29 DECEMBER 2024 — sunday
30 DECEMBER 2024 — monday
31 DECEMBER 2024 — tuesday
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