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.