On the 11/13/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

The GTFO poetry collective composed of Kay Miller, Anthony Robles, and Anthony Xavier Jackson join the show to discuss the release of their inaugural GTFO Journal, An Anthology of Sacramento Poets. Anthony Robles discusses GTFO’s goals of bringing the community together by giving local authors publication opportunities. Kay Miller shares some of their favorite Sacramento metro area open mics. Anthony Xavier Robles gives insight into the publication process and an event at Self Designs Art Gallery this Wednesday. Kay Miller then shares a poem, “It’s 9:30 P.M. On a Tuesday and I’m Trying to Remember a Password.”
The next guest on the show is Nancy Miller Gomez, who delineates her consistent effort to further her poetic craft. She elaborates on her academic journey obtaining her MFA at Pacific University, citing studying under many great poets as supporting her writing growth. Miller Gomez also discusses the release of her new book, Inconsolable Objects. She then shares two poems, “How are we doing?” and “Tilt-a-Whirl,” which appeared in the 2021 anthology Best American Poetry.

Anthony Xavier Jackson has been writing poems and songs since his teens, drawing inspiration from sci-fi, myths, all genres of music, and all manner of spiritual pursuits. He works in an ongoing manner on publishing his poetry and continuing to produce music to accompany his poems and songs. Anthony is also a recent winner of Sacramento Poetry Week’s Annual Poetry contest.

Anthony Robles is a minimalist poet who aims to exploit the haiku and cinqauin forms. He is also a contributor to the Sacramento Poetry Day Curriculum.

Kay Miller, a narrative poet from Sacramento, and has been captivating audiences with their poetry for decades. Their work offers a raw glimpse into the America in Sacramento, seen through liquor store windows and dirty car mirrors. Kay’s art serves as a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of LGBTQA+ perspectives in poetry.

Nancy Miller Gomez is the author of Inconsolable Objects (YesYes Books) and Punishment (Rattle chapbook series). Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, Prairie Schooner, Lit Hub, The Adroit Journal, New Ohio Review, The Rumpus, Rattle, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She received a special mention in the 2023 Pushcart Prize Anthology. She co-founded an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Prisons, Jails, and the Juvenile Hall. She lives in Santa Cruz, California. More at www.nancymillergomez.com.

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. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s projects 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 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.

On the 10/16/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Tim Hunt joins to share about his post-retirement writing habits, outlining that since retiring from the academy his poetry has not changed: rather, he just has more time to write. Hunt discusses the publication of his newest collection, Western Where, citing his California roots as a throughline throughout his work. He then shares two poems, “Rachel Lindsey Walks the Roads of Kansas Offering Poems for Bread” and “Rodeo Ride.” Thereafter, Michael Gallowglass phones in to discuss his upcoming reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery, where he is featuring and surprising his daughter for her birthday. Gallowglas shares a poem, “Under Martha’s Full Moon” and “How to Lose a Bad Woman on a Good Date” along with discussing past Irish poets.

A fourth generation Californian, Tim Hunt was born in Calistoga and raised primarily in Sebastopol, two small towns north of San Francisco. Educated at Cornell University, he has taught American literature at several schools, including Washington State University and Deep Springs College. At the end of 2016, he retired from Illinois State University, where he was University Professor. Hunt has published five collections of poetry: Fault Lines, The Tao of Twang, Poem’s Poems & Other Poems, Ticket Stubs & Liner Notes (winner of the 2018 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), and Voice to Voice in the Dark. Hunt has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, and been awarded the Chester H. Jones National Poetry Prize for the poem “Lake County Elegy.” In 2024, he saw the publication of his new book, titled Western Where. Hunt’s scholarly publications include Kerouac’s Crooked Road: Development of a Fiction, The Textuality of Soulwork: Jack Kerouac’s Quest for Spontaneous Prose, and the five volumes of The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers.

Michael Todd Gallowglas is a hybrid-author (with mainstream and alternative publications), storyteller, and educator from Northern California. Michael has written over 20 books, including novels, short story collections, poetry collections, and non-fiction books. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from Sierra Nevada College, and a Master in Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Nevada Reno, Tahoe.

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 10/9/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Leslie Madsen joins Dr.Andy in an extended conversation about her career and their shared background as onetime graduate students at UC Davis. Madsen shares how she embraces her sense of impostor syndrome because of her nonlinear career path as a multidisciplinary scholar and educator. She describes the intersection and differentiation between her undergraduate and three graduate degrees. Madsen also delineates the effect the COVID-19 had on her work practices. She and Dr. Andy also discusses the impact Generative AI has had on planning for course work and Academic Integrity policies. Madsen then speaks on her new career at Oregon State University, one which pivoted her away from faculty development and towards gardening!

Leslie Madsen is an educator who enjoys engaging with all kinds of people. Throughout her career, she has focused on designing inclusive, meaningful learning experiences—digital and analog—and leading teams that do the same. Her work as statewide manager of the OSU Extension Master Gardener Program builds on her extensive expertise and experience in formal and informal learning environments. Before arriving at OSU, Madsen served Boise State's students as an associate professor of History and supported faculty as associate director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Her professional experience includes instructional design, faculty development, academic and emerging technologies, exhibition design, and open educational resources, as well as writing, marketing, and publishing. Madsens holds a Ph.D. in cultural studies and an M.A. in creative writing from the University of California, Davis. My B.A. is in English from Grinnell College.

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 8/7/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Laura Rosenthal starts off the show describing how her poetry has grown by being more conscious of her reader. She states that maturing throughout life has allowed her to scribe her most complex emotions in her writing. Rosenthal then shares a poem of praise, “Psalm.” Poet Connie Johnson joins next to discuss her recent entrance into the poetry world. She shares a poem, “Winter Relay” before discussing the thematics of her upcoming chapbook The River of Perpetual Departure. The last guest on the show is prominent Polish poet and scholar Kacper Bartczak. Bartczak describes his early poetry as playing off his personal experience and moving towards confession, and recent poetry as more experimental with language. He says both Polish and American poets have influenced his practice such as John Ashberry and Frank O’Hara. He then speaks on his experience as a university teacher and how he tries to show his students that writers in the Romantic era shifted the perception of nature.

Laura Rosenthal is a recovering public interest lawyer and has published in Sacramento Voices, Tule Review, the Boog City Baseball Edition, Buddhist Poetry Review, Driftwood Press, and other journals. She leads workshops on writing and spiritual practice, has served as a senior editor of Tule Review, and is a member of the Community of Writers. In addition to degrees from Cornell University and Stanford Law School, Laura recently received her MFA in poetry from Pacific University.

Poetry found Connie Johnstone in 2021; her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Ginosko Literary Journal, The Scarred Tree, Poetry of Moral Injury, Orchards Poetry Journal, Ravenous: le terroir du Montolieu, The Amethyst Review, The Tule Review, Loss Anthology 9, The Calendula Review, Journal of Narrative Medicine, Spoon Knife Anthology: Numbers, Voices 24: Anomalies, Pathologies & Paradise; and elsewhere. Her chapbook, The River of Perpetual Departure, will be out in 2025 from Kelsay Books. She published a novel, The Legend of Olivia Cosmos Montevideo (Atlantic Monthly Press); edited an anthology, I’ve Always Meant to Tell You (Pocket Books); was a professor of English and chair of creative writing at American River College; changed careers and was a hospice chaplain with Kaiser Permanente, specializing in Narrative Therapy. Degrees include MFA Bennington and MTS Harvard Divinity School. She lives and writes in Davis, CA.

Kacper Bartczak is a Polish poet, scholar, and translator. Recent poetry volumes include Czas Kompost [Time Compost] (2023), Widoki wymazy (2021), Naworadiowa [Radionaves] (2019), Pokarm suweren [Food Sovereign] (2017), and Wiersze organiczne [Organic Poems](2015). He has translated and published volumes of poetry by Rae Armantrout, Charles Bernstein, and Peter Gizzi. and many other poets into Polish. In English translation, his poetry has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Interim, Berlin Quarterly, Aufgabe, Jacket2, and Lyric. He is an associate professor and department chair at the University of Łódź

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 9/25/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Tom Trudgeon phones in to discuss the intersection of poetry and technology. Trudgeon asks Dr.Andy about the history of the podcast and how the program’s goals have evolved over time. He then explains his career as a UX content designer, where he tries to create webpages with familiar and instructive language to optimize user experience. Trudgeon then shares how his background as a poet influences his practice in his profession before reading a poem, “Category 853.” Emeritus professor Robert J Blake is the next guest on the show; he shared the details of his upcoming jazz event at the Davis Wine Bar. He also shares some of the history of his band the “The Midnight Jazz Trio.”

Tom Trudgeon is a poet and UX Content Designer originally from Los Angeles. He's recently moved to Davis with his wife, who is a second year student at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. He received his bachelors in Literature and Music from UC San Diego, and received his MFA from Temple University in Philadelphia. He's won numerous academic awards including a teaching fellowship and tuition remission grant from Temple University, a UpennxTemple exchange fellowship, and the The Frances Tebet Israel Prize in Poetry for his MFA thesis Catalogue. His most recent publication was included in the anthology Best American Experimental Writing 2015 from Wesleyan University Press.

Emeritus Robert J Blake is a former UC Davis Professor of Spanish and Portuguese. He taught from 1999-2021 and is a retired Spanish linguist. Blake has been an amateur jazz musician for the last 15 years with his band, “The Midnight Jazz Trio”, and is a Former student of Calvin Keys.

The Poetry Night Reading Series, taking 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.