Vacant Storefront - Greg Kuzma

For more than 45 years the poetry of Greg Kuzma has been attracting the attention of poets and critics from around the world who have followed his writing career from its early work, centered in youthful exuberance and angst, through the dark times of his younger brother’s death, to the depth and profound wisdom that this poet’s engagement with the world has brought to his work.

Professor Emeritus at University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Greg Kuzma has published thousands of poems in literary magazines throughout the country, including several appearances of his work in The New Yorker, Hudson Review, Poetry Northwest, etc. He has published more than 30 books and chapbooks of poetry, including an early book, Good News, published by Viking Press, which was re-published by Carnegie-Mellon University Press in their “Contemporary Classics” series.

He lives in Crete, Nebraska, with his wife Barb. They are the parent of two, and the grandparents of one.

Vacant Storefront - Patty Seyburn

Patty Seyburn has been added to the readers line-up. Patty is known as a poet, but she'll be reading non-fiction for us at Vacant Storefront. 

Patty Seyburn's third book of poems, Hilarity, won the Green Rose Prize given by New Issues Poetry & Prose. She has published two books of poems: Mechanical Cluster (Ohio State University Press, 2002) and Diasporadic (Helicon Nine Editions, 1998) which won the 1997 Marianne Moore Poetry Prize and the American Library Association's Notable Book Award for 2000. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including The Paris Review, New England Review, Field, Slate, Crazyhorse, Cutbank, Quarterly West, Bellingham Review, Connecticut Review, Cimarron Review, Third Coast and Western Humanities Review. Seyburn grew up in Detroit, earned a BS and an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University, an MFA in Poetry from University of California, Irvine, and a Ph.D. in Poetry and Literature from the University of Houston. She is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Long Beach and co-editor of POOL: A Journal of Poetry, based in Los Angeles. She lives with her husband, Eric Little, and their two children, Sydney and Will.

SAVE THE DATE!

Vacant Storefront 2012

Music

Visual Art

Fiction

Poetry

Non-Fiction

Sunday, 27 May 

5 PM

We're adding more readers, so check back for updates and highlights from last year's Vacant Storefront.

MFA Graduate Reading

Did you miss it? Check out the MFA Graduate reading, listed by readers below:

Larry Duncan

Linda Delmont

Mallory Reeves

Nicole Street

Samantha Mehlinger

Rola Eldanaf

Eric Forrester

Kelley Gillaspy

Merica Teng

Luisa Peña

Anna Mavromati

Tamar Altebarmakian

Photos courtesy of Merica Teng!

MFA Faculty Reading

In case you missed CSULB's MFA Faculty Reading on May 3rd, check out the profs in action below:

Bill Mohr

Lisa Glatt

Ray Zapeda

Patty Seyburn

Suzanne Greenburg

Stephen Cooper

RipRap Journal #34 Release Party

On behalf of California State University, Long Beach and its English Department, the 2012 staff of RipRap cordially invites you to its annual release party. We will be unveiling the thirty-fourth issue of our literary journal and hearing this year's contributors present their work. Everyone who attends will receive their free copy of RipRap #34. 

The release party will be held during the evening of Friday, 11 May 2012 at the Beach Auditorium (1^st floor of the University Student Union in the center of campus) from 7:00-9:00pm, 1212 N. Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90840.

RipRap #34 features poetry, short stories, non fiction essays, interviews and visual art. We look forward to your attendance and hope you'll continue to support RipRap.

MFA Grad Reading

Final MFA reading of the school year! 

Hosted by Patty Seyburn.

We'll have beverages, snacks, and a musical intermission.

You should go. 

Tuesday, 8 May 

7.00 PM

Soroptomist House (SOR on map below)

CSULB

You can park in nearby Lot 1

See map: http://daf.csulb.edu/maps/parking/index.html

The One Day Poetry Festival

In case you missed The One Day Poetry Festival at CSULB on April 16th (or if you'd like to relive it), you can watch video of our readers by clicking the links below:

Ron Silliman

Michelle Mitchell-Foust

Sandra Gilbert

5th MFA Reading @ Gamboa Theater

Kevin Chidgey

Rola Eldanaf

Sean McDougal

Linda Delmont

Photos courtesy of Merica Teng.

Location Announcement

Poetry Workshop lead by Paul Kareem Tayyar

5 PM

CSULB's University Student Union - Room 220

Bring a poem and a dozen copies.

Paul Kareem Tayyar, a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, is the author of four collections of poetry: Everyday Magic (West-Coast Bias Press), Scenes From A Good Life (Tebot Bach), Postmark Atlantis (Level 4 Press), and Follow the Sun: Poems, Stories, and Reflections (Aortic Books).

The One Day Poetry Festival - UPDATES

In addition to the aforementioned readings by Ron Silliman (2 PM) and Sandra Gilbert (7 PM), CSU Long Beach's English Department and HipPoetics Creative Writing Club are pleased to announce:

Meet & Greet (FOOD provided!!)

3.30 PM

Pyramid Annex

CSULB

Michelle Mitchell-Foust

4 PM 

Pyramid Annex

CSULB

Dr. Michelle Mitchell-Foust lives in Dana Point, California, where she is an instructor at Irvine Valley College. Graduating from Eastern with a BA from Eastern Illinois University and a doctorate in English from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Antioch Review, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, Interim, Black Warrior Review, American Literary Review, Columbia, Southern Poetry Review, The Academy of American Poets New Voices Anthology, Elixir, Equinox, Fabric, The Honest Ulsterman, and Quarterly West. She has been an American Poet in Residence in Donegal, Ireland since 1996. Her poetry manuscript entitled The Five Dreams of the Body was published in Chinese in 1999 by T & K Publishing, and her book Circassian Girl received the Elixir Press Poetry Prize and was released in the Fall, 2001.

Michelle is a winner of the Missouri Arts Council Writers' Biennial Award, a Writers At Work Fellowship, Columbia University's poetry competition, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and the 1996 "Discovery" / The Nation award. A limited edition chapbook version of her poem Poets at Seven was published by Sutton Hoo Press in 1995. A second chapbook, Exile, was published by Sangha Press in 2000. Her chapbook The Marriage Bed of Chang and Eng is forthcoming from Sangha Press. She has written her first novel, Wet Collection, and she is nearing completion of a new poetry collection entitled Imago Mundi.

Poetry Workshop lead by Paul Kareem Tayyar

5 PM

CSULB's University Student Union - exact location TBA

Bring a poem and a dozen copies.

Paul Kareem Tayyar, a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, is the author of four collections of poetry: Everyday Magic (West-Coast Bias Press), Scenes From A Good Life (Tebot Bach), Postmark Atlantis (Level 4 Press), and Follow the Sun: Poems, Stories, and Reflections (Aortic Books).

BEACH AUDITORIUM

University Student Union

California State University, Long Beach

1250 Bellflower Boulevard

Long Beach, CA 90840

FREE ADMISSION

Parking available in Lot 16

(Funded in part by the Associated Students, Incorporated, CSU Long Beach, the CSULB English Department, HipPoetics Creative Writing Club, and the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies.)

The One Day Poetry Festival

Ron Silliman

2 PM

Beach Auditorium

CSULB

Ron Silliman is internationally recognized as one of most significant and influential poets and commentators on contemporary poetry in the United States. He has written and edited more than a score and a half books, including The Alphabet, Tjanting, and The Age of Huts. His anthology, In the American Tree, remains the most interesting and vital collection of avant-garde poetry since Donald Allen’s New American Poetry. This reading will be his only Los Angeles area appearance in 2012. He has been the recipient of two NEA grant as well as the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation in 2010. His blog  RonSilliman.blogspot.com enters its second decade of daily operation as one of the “must visit” spots on the internet.

More Poets & Poetry

4 PM - 6 PM

TBA

Check back for further details

Sandra Gilbert

7 PM

Beach Auditorium

CSULB

Sandra M. Gilbert is one of America’s foremost poets and also a major voice in literary criticism. She has published eight collections of verse, which have garnered praise and prizes that include the American Book Award (for Kissing the Bread), the Patterson Prize (for Ghost Volcano), The John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, the Premio Lerici Pea Award from the Liguri nel Mondo Association, and several awards from Poetry Magazine. Her most recent work, Aftermath, has been called by former poet laureate Billy Collins a “collection by a virtuoso with heart.” A prolific and highly influential literary critic, Gilbert’s works have become classics in English studies: she is the co-author, with Susan Gubar, of four major works of feminist literary theory, including the ground-breaking Madwoman in the Attic and the three-volume work No Man’s Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century, and she has co-edited, also with Gubar, The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. A collection of thirty years of her literary critical essays entitled Rereading Women has just been published by Norton.

BEACH AUDITORIUM

University Student Union

California State University, Long Beach

1250 Bellflower Boulevard

Long Beach, CA 90840

FREE ADMISSION

Parking available in Lot 16

(Funded in part by the Associated Students, Incorporated, CSU Long Beach, the CSULB English Department, HipPoetics Creative Writing Club, and the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies.)

5th MFA Reading

4th MFA Reading @ Gamboa Theater

Hannah Huff

Anna Mavromati

Fabiola Guzman Mercado

Eric Forrester

Kelley Gillaspy

Photos courtesy of Jax Ntp