Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)
Photo: Angela Bennett

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) and Dick Cluster

5 NOVEMBER 2023 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a reading by poet and jazz singer Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein), God in Her Ruffled Dress, and writer Dick Cluster, translator of the acclaimed poetry collection, Fiat Lux, by Paula Abramo, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 3:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).

Thank you for continuing to support Poetry Flash and our reading series.
Featured books for this reading will be available for signing at the event and Dick Cluster's will also be at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash.

MORE ABOUT THE READERS

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)'s new poetry collection, God in Her Ruffled Dress, from LA's What Books Press, appears thirty-four years after publication of her debut full-length poetry book The Transparent Body, from Wesleyan University Press. D.A. Powell says of God in Her Ruffled Dress, "A book of deep seeing, 'the code inside the code'…also a book of intense listening, 'the bright spurt of trumpet' and the train calling like a late-night lover…a series of divine pleasures transcribed faithfully by a skilled musician and writer." Lisa B's poems have appeared in more than sixty anthologies and periodicals, including City Lights Review, Field, Kenyon Review, Lilith, Ploughshares, Poetry International, Tikkun, and ZYZZYVA. She has received Creative Writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, and others. She is also a jazz and groove singer interweaving spoken and sung verse in her original songs and re-envisioned standards. She has released seven albums and various singles (available on all music platforms) to critical acclaim and international radio play, and performs with her band throughout the country. She also works as a professional psychic reader.

Dick Cluster has been translating Spanish-language literature for the past twenty-five years. His recent translations include Paula Abramo's Fiat Lux, nominated for the 2023 Northern California Book Award in California Translation, a cycle of poems about Abramo's ancestors—political refugees to and within Latin America—and about poetry itself. Alejandro Zambra said of it, "Amazing, unique and mind-blowing little book. Paula Abramo proves that there are territories where only poetry can take us." Dick Cluster also translated Gabriela Alemán's Poso Wells and Family Album, and Mylene Fernández Pintado's A Corner of the World, all from City Lights Books. He edited and translated his curated prose anthology, Kill the Ámpaya: The Best Latin American Baseball Fiction. Achy Obejas says of it, "If baseball is really a metaphor for life, then Kill the Ámpaya—Dick Cluster's wonderful collection of Latin American baseball stories—is an astonishing record of its beauty and coarseness, redemption and tragedy." Dick Cluster is also the author of a social history of Havana and a detective novel series.