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Poetry Flash Reading Series
Mary Mackey and Susan Kelly-DeWitt
5/18, Berkeley
more info
Dan Alter, Judy Halebsky, Maw Shein Win
5/29, Berkeley
more info
Susan Browne and Jeanne Wagner
6/12, Berkeley
more info


Lubna Safi

Leila Chatti and Lubna Safi

23 JUNE 2022 — thursday

Poetry Flash presents a reading by Lubna Safi, Your Blue and the Quiet Lament, Walt McDonald First Book Poetry Prize-winner, and Leila Chatti, Deluge and , The Mothers: Poems in Conversation & A Conversation, co-authored with Dorianne Laux, online via Zoom, free, 7:00 pm PDT (Register to attend: please click here; you will receive an email with a link to join the reading)


Please join us for a Poetry Flash virtual reading on Thursday, June 23, at 7:00 pm PDT. We are pleased to bring you this exciting event via Zoom. To register, please click on the link in the calendar listing above. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event. Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.

Featured books for this reading are available at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash, www.writerscenter.org/product/the-mothers, and at Texas Tech University Press, www.ttupress.org/search-results/?supapress_order=publishdate-desc&page_number=2. This reading is co-sponsored by Moe's Books in Berkeley.
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MORE ABOUT THE READERS
Leila Chatti's debut full-length collection is Deluge, winner of the 2021 Levis Reading Prize and longlisted for the 2021 PEN Open Book Award. Naomi Shihab Nye said in The New York Times, "To write a series of poems out of extreme illness is a bracing accomplishment indeed. In Deluge…, Leila Chatti, born of a Catholic mother and a Muslim father, brilliantly explores the trauma. In a frightening two-year saga of a tumor and the 'flooding' it caused, Chatti finds not disassociation but deeper association with her own experience." She is also co- author of The Mothers: Poems in Conversation & A Conversation, a chapbook, with Dorianne Laux, and other chapbooks. Tunisian-American dual citizen born in Oakland, Chatti has lived in the United States, Tunisia, and Southern France. Her poems have received prizes from Ploughshares's Emerging Writer's Contest, Narrative's 30 Below Contest, Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize, and the Pushcart Prize, among others, and appear in The New York Times Magazine, Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day, POETRY, The Nation, The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Tin House, American Poetry Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Georgia Review, New England Review, Kenyon Review Online, Narrative, The Rumpus, and Best New Poets.

Lubna Safi's debut poetry collection is Your Blue and the Quiet Lament, winner of the Walt McDonald Prize First-Book Series in Poetry. Texas Tech University Press says, "Your Blue and the Quiet Lament records the textures of grief after a cousin's murder at the hands of the Syrian state reaches the poet through a long-distance phone call. The poems trace a narrative of arrest, imprisonment, and torture in Syria and interweave the difficulties a family experiences in the diaspora. Shifting between the death of poet Federico García Lorca and that of her cousin, Lubna's poetry contends with personal loss by distancing the meaning of one death through the intermediary of another. Yet the distortion of distance is already there—in the language, in the geographic space, in time, in the grief itself—tinged with blue." Along with poetry, Lubna Safi also writes fiction, literary criticism, and lyric essays. Her work has appeared in Guernica, The Journal, MIZNA, and elsewhere. She is currently completing a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley.




Daily Listings

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15 MAY 2025 — thursday

  • San Francisco Poet Laureate emerita Kim Shuck celebrates non-English poetry by inviting Clara Hsu, Preeti Vangani, Keana Aguila Labra and special guests to read at SFPL's monthly poetry reading, the Main Library's Poem Jam poetry reading series takes place on the second Thursday of each month. unless otherwise noted, San Francisco Public Library, Latino/Hispanic Room, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, free, 6:00 pm PDT (415/557-4400, on.sfpl.org/05-15-25)

16 MAY 2025 — friday

  • The Tritone Poetry Series features poets Juliana Spahr, Violet Spurlock, and Norma Cole, Tamarack, 1501 Harrison Street, Oakland, 6:00-8:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: tamarackoakland.com)

17 MAY 2025 — saturday

18 MAY 2025 — sunday

  • 50th Annual Mendocino County Spring Poetry Celebration, honoring Mendocino County Poets Gordon Black, Sharon Doubiago, Bill Bradd, and Dan Roberts for their poetry and contributions to the local poetry community Michael Riedell will host; all poets are invited to read their poems, time limit is four minutes each poet per session; there are two sessions, poets may sign-up to read once in each session, potluck between readings, bring a dish to share; the reading will be recorded and most of it will eventually be broadcast on Dan Roberts' Rhythm Running River show on KZYX, where the poems will be played alternating with world music and archived on www.outfarpress.com; JD Center, 208 Dana Street, Fort Bragg; free admission, First Session: sign-up at Noon, reading at 1:00 pm; Second Session: sign-up at 5:00 pm, reading 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, email: bookem@pacific.net)
  • Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading featuring Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Frangible Operas, and Mary Mackey, In This Burning World: Poems of Love and Apocalypse, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).

19 MAY 2025 — monday

20 MAY 2025 — tuesday

  • Oakland Poetry Slam, monthly on the third Tuesday, Tamarack, 1501 Harrison Street, Oakland, 6:30-10:30 pm PDT (For more information, visit: tamarackoakland.com)
  • Shelby Van Pelt discussed her debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, which traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus, with novelist and short story writer Karen Joy Fowler, We are all completely beside ourselves, Kepler's Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/shelby-van-pelt)

21 MAY 2025 — wednesday

  • Ron Chernow, whose novel Alexander Hamilton was adapted into the Broadway play Hamilton, will discuss his book, Mark Twain, in conversation with Jonathan Bass, Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, $80, 7:30 pm PDT (For more information, visit: www.cityarts.net/event/ron-chernow)
  • The ZYZZYVA Issue 129 Celebration and 40th Anniversary Kick-off, Issue 129 contributors reading include Katherine Franco, writer and futurist Dominica Phetteplace, fiction novelist Marian Palaia, and poet D.A. Powell, emceed by ZYZZYVA Editor Oscar Villalon, limited seating, Kerouac Alley, between City Lights Bookstore and Vesuvio Cafe, 257 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/zyzzyva-issue-129-celebration-40th-anniversary-kick-off)

22 MAY 2025 — thursday

23 MAY 2025 — friday

  • The Tritone Poetry Series features poets José Vadi, Chipped: Writing From a Skateboarder's Lens, Hector Son Of Hector, and Christine No, Whatever Love Means, Tamarack, 1501 Harrison Street, Oakland, 6:00-8:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: tamarackoakland.com)

24 MAY 2025 — saturday

25 MAY 2025 — sunday

  • Michelle Tea celebrates the release of Witch: Anthology, which she edited, with readings and rituals featuring Lily Burana, Kathe Izzo, Molly Larkey, Shelley Marlow, Brooke Palmieri, Mia Tsang, and Sarah Yanni, limited seating; Secret location will be emailed to you after registration, San Francisco, 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/michelle-tea-and-friends)

26 MAY 2025 — monday

27 MAY 2025 — tuesday

  • Director, actor, essayist, playwright and screenwriter Ralph Remington reads from his book, Penetrating Whiteness: What Racism Really Is and What We Can Do About It, both onsite and online, see website for Zoom registration, City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/ralph-remington)

28 MAY 2025 — wednesday

  • Nonfiction author Sophie Lewis reads from her book, Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation, both onsite and online, see website for Zoom registration, City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, 7:00 pm PDT (For more information, visit: citylights.com/events/sophie-lewis)

29 MAY 2025 — thursday

  • Poetry Flash presents a book launch for Dan Alter, who will read from his new collection Hills Full of Holes; he'll be joined in the celebration by Judy Halebsky, Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged), 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, 7:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).

30 MAY 2025 — friday

31 MAY 2025 — saturday

  • Sixteen Rivers Press presents a poetry reading with Rosa Lane, Called Back, and Camille Norton, A Folio for the Dark: Poems, Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, Berkeley, 3:00-5:00 pm PDT (sixteenrivers.org)

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