On the 11/6/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Julia B. Levine joins Dr. Andy in conversation after her 2024 Pushcart Prize win, stating the gratitude and shock she felt upon winning. She then shares high praise for her peer Murray Silverstein, who will be reading with her at the Poetry Night Reading Series on November 7th, 2024. Levine then shares a poem centered around joy titled “The Dove.” She also recommends John Murillo’s collection Kontemperary Amerikan Poetry. The next guest on the show, Natalie Shapero, phones in to discuss her upcoming reading at Shields Library, and her excitement to see the trees of Davis, California. Shapero describes her poetic life and career from Washington D.C, to Boston, and now to California. She thereafter shares the thematic throughlines of her most recent collection, Popular Longing, a collection that outlines the power dynamics at play within the financial structures of art institutions. Shapero then shares two poems, “My Hair is My Thing” and “Magpie.” Shapero also discusses the natural time it takes her to assemble a collection of poetry,

Julia B. Levine is the poet laureate emerita of Davis, California. Levine’s poetry has won many awards, including a 2021 Nautilus Award for her fifth poetry collection, Ordinary Psalms (LSU press, 2021), as well as the 2015 Northern California Book Award in Poetry for her fourth collection, Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight (LSU, 2014). Recently she has won the 2024 Pushcart Prize, the 2023 Oran Perry Burke Award from The Southern Review, the 2022 Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, the 2020 Bellevue Literary Review Poetry Award, as well as a 2022 American Academy of Poetry Poet Laureate Fellowship for her work in building resilience in teenagers related to climate change through poetry, science and technology. Her work has appeared in many literary journals, including Ploughshares, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, The Nation and Prairie Schooner. She earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from University of California, Berkeley and an MFA in poetry from Pacific University.

Natalie Shapero was born in Chester, Pennsylvania and earned a BA in Writing Seminars from the Johns Hopkins University, an MFA in Poetry from the Ohio State University, and a JD from the University of Chicago. For the 2011-2012 year, Shapero served as the Steven Gey Fellow with Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She is the author of the poetry collections No Object (Saturnalia, 2013), Hard Child (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), and Popular Longing (Copper Canyon Press, 2021). Her writing has appeared in The Believer, The New Republic, Poetry, The Progressive, and elsewhere, and she is an editor at the Kenyon Review. In 2012-2014, she was a Kenyon Review fellow. Shapero teaches at Tufts University. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches writing at UC Irvine.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, visit his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, visit his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com and follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andyojones.

On the 10/30/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Vincent Kobelt calls in to share about his upcoming reading at the Kings and Queens of Poetry event in Sacramento. Kobelt discusses his undergraduate experience at UC Davis and how he came about poetry in academia. He cites discussing work among his classmates in a Sandra McPherson poem as a main mechanism that helped him grow as a young writer. He then reads a poem “Allentown,” a recently authored piece. Kobelt also describes the poetry album he released last year, A Pinch of Salt. Sarah Pape is the next guest on the show, and she phones in with exciting news of her debut poetry collection, Forgive the Animal. Pape states that the publication of her book feels like closing the circle, as some of the poems and ideas in the book are over a decade old. She also discusses her hardy revision process with her manuscript, saying she is grateful for all of the poets in her life who helped along the way. Pape then shares the collection’s first poem “Kin,” which was spawned from a prompt she gave her students. She also delineates her constant attempt to be present in our “dailiness” to improve her vocabulary before sharing another poem, “A Gardener’s Guide to the End.”

Vincent Kobelt’s early work explored the murals of the Mission where he grew up, the music of jazz, a cry for justice, the birth of my daughters, the milkweed in the cracks of concrete, the music of speaking between people, and bird shit on the sidewalks of the city. For some time now Kobelt has been experimenting with poetry that lends itself to musical accompaniment. This can be seen in his work with Fo’shang at Sacramento’s Earth Day, Catchakoala at the MET, and with KME Band at the Oak Park Farmers Market in Sacramento. Recently Kobelt started an Open Mic in Sacramento at the Classy Hippy on the Third Thursday of the Month.

Sarah Pape teaches English creative writing and coordinates the Literary Editing and Publishing program at Chico State. Her poetry and prose have recently been published in: The New York Times, New England Review, Passages North, Ecotone, and others. Her debut poetry collection, Forgive the Animal, was published last month by Cornerstone Press. She curates community literary programming at the 1078 Gallery in Chico and is a member of the Community of Writers.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, and by Thea and the other members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, visit his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, visit his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com and follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andyojones.

On the 10/23/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

William O’Daly calls in to discuss his love of reading poetry to live Jazz. Specifically, he talks about his upcoming reading, at which he will be sharing poems from his latest release, The New Gods. O’Daly shares a poem about his daughter’s graduation, “Handout” before sharing the exciting news that he is transitioning away from his occupation to focus on living a life even more committed to writing. Dr. V.S. Chochezi is the next guest on the show. She describes the background of her mother-daughter poetry performance duo Straight Out Scribes, which started one night in Oakland, California. Dr. Chochezi also delineates how she aims to incorporate social justice into her poetry readings and writing processes. The last guest on the show is Patrick Grizzell, who joins Dr.Andy to remember the late Sacramento poet B.L. Kennedy. Grizzell recalls the impact Kennedy had on Sacramento, its poetry scene, and poetry publications.

William O’Daly has translated nine books of Chilean Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda’s poetry, most recently Neruda’s first volume, Book of Twilight. He has published four chapbooks of poems and, in 2022, his first full-length volume, The New Gods, with Beltway Editions. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, he has received national and regional awards and honors for his poetry and translations, literary editing, and instructional design. In September 2021, he received the American Literary Award from the bilingual Korean American journal Miju Poetry and Poetics. O’Daly is the Lead Writer for the California Water Plan.

Dr. V.S. Chochezi is a writer, poet, artist, photojournalist, and college professor. She is the daughter member of Straight Out Scribes (Staajabu is the mother member), a renowned mother/daughter spoken word duo who have self-published eight books of poetry, one sci-fi anthology and two CD compilations. They have produced and coordinated a number of writing, poetry and art related programs and workshops in Sacramento since 1991.

Patrick Grizzell is a songwriter, poet, journalist, and visual artist. His books include Dark Music, 13 Poems, It's Like That, and The Goat of Esmerelda. He was a founding member & current director of the Sacramento Poetry Center and serves as an editor for its publications. He has performed music and poetry with, among others, Leon Redbone, Jim Ringer, Ed Sanders, Allen Ginsberg, and Anne Waldman. Grizzell is the primary songwriter for Proxy Moon, a popular Sacramento group that is about to begin recording its 2nd collection of songs.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, and by Thea and the other members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, visit his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, visit his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com and follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andyojones.