
Raffi Del Bourgo
Raffi Del Bourgo and David Watts
30 NOVEMBER 2023 — thursday
Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Raffi Del Bourgo, A Tune Both Familiar and Strange, forthcoming, and David Watts, Katy Bridge, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 7:00 pm PST (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 at bookshop.org/shop/poetryflash.
MORE ABOUT THE READERS
Raffi Del Bourgo's forthcoming poetry collection, A Tune Both Familiar and Strange, won 2023 Terry J. Cox Prize for Poetry, and will be published in 2025. Lynne Knight says, "Rafaella Del Bourgo takes bold and sometimes wild risks but never loses control of her intent and design. [She] embraces the conventions of the narrative even as she defies the narrow traps of the confessional…From loss to death and back again to exuberant whimsy, Del Bourgo never misses a beat or nuance." Her previous collections include I Am Not Kissing You and the chapbook, Inexplicable Business: Poems Domestic and Wild. Her writing has appeared in Nimrod, The Jewish Women's Literary Annual, The Adroit Journal, The Green Hills Literary Lantern, Caveat Lector, Puerto Del Sol, Rattle, Oberon, Spillway, The Bitter Oleander, and elsewhere. Her awards include Lullwater Prize for Poetry, New River Poets Award, Grandmother Earth Poetry Prize, Paumanok Prize, and Mudfish Poetry Prize. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times. She lives in Berkeley, California.
David Watts's new books are Katy Bridge, poems, Saint Julian Press; Seed Kites, haiku, Red Moon Press; ellis mode, deep conscious writing, Cyberwit Press (India); and Daily Bouquet, aphorisms. The Eyelids of the Wind, translations of Haiku from the Spanish, is forthcoming from Red Moon Press in January 2024. Dean Rader wrote, "'The past comes to me,' writes David Watts in one of the many excellent poems in Katy Bridge. And indeed, it does. In poems both meditative and ruminative, Watts helps readers see what he sees and feel what he feels when he is visited by particularly poignant memories. When merged with candid observations from the present, Katy Bridge becomes a kaleidoscope of invention and experience we are all invited to look through." Physician, poet, closet philosopher, and author of thirty-four books, David Watts has excelled in many fields, including medicine, classical music, scientific invention, radio and television hosting and production, and finally, as a poet and a writer. His literary credits include seven books of poetry, two collections of short stories, a mystery novel, a best-selling western and several essays. He lives in Mill Valley, California.


Daily Listings
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17 SEPTEMBER 2025 — wednesday
18 SEPTEMBER 2025 — thursday
19 SEPTEMBER 2025 — friday
- City Arts and Lectures presents Arundhati Roy reading from and discussing her new memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, a soaring account of how the author became the person and writer she is, shaped by circumstance and her complex relationship to her extraordinary mother, in conversation with award-winning reporter Deepa Fernandes, Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes Street, San Francisco, $59, 7:30 (www.cityarts.net/event/arundhati-roy-2)
20 SEPTEMBER 2025 — saturday
21 SEPTEMBER 2025 — sunday
- The 28th annual Petaluma Poetry Walk is an annual poetry festival founded in 1996, this year features 26 poets at eight venues: 11:00 am, Hotel Petaluma, Ballroom, 205 Kentucky Street: Sixteen Rivers Press kicks off the Walk with Judy Halebsky, Moira Magneson, and Patrick Cahill, with event presenter Terry Ehret; Noon, Keller Street CoWork, Main Lounge, 140 Keller Street: Unsolicited Press Poets, Cathryn Shea, LeeAnn Pickrell, and Kerry Donoghue, with event presenter Daedalus Howell; 1:00 pm, The Phoenix Theater, 201 Washington Street: Found Poets in The Round, Grayson Thompson, Original Giotis, and Bernice Espinoza, with event presenter Josh Windmiller; 2:00 pm, The Big Easy, 128 American Alley: Black Lawrence Press Poets, Cassandra Dallett, Tureeda Mikell, and Paul Corman-Roberts, with event presenter Ingrid Keir; 3:00 pm, Copperfield's Books, 140 Kentucky Street: The Headliners, Dorianne Laux, Life on Earth, and Joseph Millar, Shine, with event presenter Kary Hess; 4:00 pm, Usher Gallery, 1 Petaluma Blvd. North: the Translator Poets, Nancy Morales, Terry Ehret, Amanda Moore, with event presenter Dave Seter, Sonoma County Poet Laureate; 5:00 pm, The Petaluma Historical Library and Museum, 20 4th Street: The Library Youth Poets, Meg Hamill, Lisa Zheng, and Anaya Ertz, with event presenter John Johnson; 6:00-8:00 pm, Aqus Café, 189 H Street (this location is the farthest, you might want a ride for this venue): The Grande Finale: The Shape of Love with Jennifer Barone, Justin Cole Demeter, Ingrid Keir, Sonoma County Poet Laureate Dave Seter, Kelechi Ubozoh, Bill Vartnaw, with event presenter Kary Hess; all in walking distance across Petaluma, all free, 11:00 am to 8:00 pm (For more information, visit: petalumapoetrywalk.org)
22 SEPTEMBER 2025 — monday
23 SEPTEMBER 2025 — tuesday
24 SEPTEMBER 2025 — wednesday
25 SEPTEMBER 2025 — thursday
- Poetry Flash presents a poetry reading by Bruce Isaacson, Porpoisefully Wrong, and Paul Corman-Roberts, Bone Moon Palace, Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, 2905 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, two blocks north of Ashby BART, refreshments, free, 7:00 pm PDT (poetryflash.org).
26 SEPTEMBER 2025 — friday
27 SEPTEMBER 2025 — saturday
- Fourth Saturdays: Poetry at the Claremont Library presents a reading by the Fourth Saturdays Team, the organizers of the series: Lucia Galloway-Dick, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Genevieve Kaplan, and George Hammons, 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)
- The Sitting Room presents a Round Table Discussion on "The Poetry of Marianne Moore: Just Fiddle or Genuine?" led by Sonoma County Poet Laureate Dave Seter, bring your own favorite poems by Moore or poems of hers that you find challenging, The Sitting Room, Cotati, 2:00-4:00 (Registration required, sittingroomlibrary.org/events)
28 SEPTEMBER 2025 — sunday
- Rumi's Caravan returns to Berkeley for recitations of world poetry, featuring an improvised poetic conversation with music, the presentation quotes from the works Rumi, Hafiz, Mary Oliver, Kabir, Wendell Berry, Neruda, Rilke, Robert Bly, Yeats, Naomi Shihab Nye, William Stafford, Maya Angelou, Leonard Cohen, Seamus Heaney, Denise Levertov, Antonio Machado, May Sarton and others, ticket sales support the work of the Middle East Children's Alliance; The Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison Street, Berkeley, $30 Advance or $35 Door, 7:30 pm (rumiscaravan.com)
29 SEPTEMBER 2025 — monday
30 SEPTEMBER 2025 — tuesday
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