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POETRY-FRIENDLY BOOKSTORES |
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A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books
Opera Plaza
601 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA
(415) 441-6670
Bookshop Santa Cruz
825 Front Street
Santa Cruz, CA
(831) 423-0900
City Lights Book Store
261 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA
(415) 362-4921
Cody's Books, Inc.
1730 Fourth Street
(510) 559-9500; Berkeley, CA
Depot Bookstore & Café
87 Throckmorton
Mill Valley, CA
(415) 383-2665
Diesel
5433 College Avenue
Oakland, CA
(510) 653-9965
Duttons Brentwood
11975 San Vicente Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA
(310) 476-6263
Keplers Books & Magazines
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA
Kinokuniya
123 Onizuika Street
Los Angeles, CA
(213) 687-4480
Mrs. Dalloway's Literary and Garden Arts
2904 College Avenue
(510) 704-8222
Berkeley, CA
Pegasus Books
2349 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA
(510) 649-1320
Reader's Books
127 E. Napa Street
Sonoma, CA
(707) 939-1779
Small World Books
1407 Ocean Front Walk
Venice, CA
(310) 399-2360
Vroman's
695 E Colorado Boulevard
Pasadena, CA
(626) 449-5320
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LITERARY MAP |
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The Association of Teachers of English: An online map is posted at www.cateweb.org. It includes 200 web pages devoted to individual authors. Individual pages may be printed from the website. For more information, contact: Don Mayfield
1835 Sunset Boulevard
San Diego, CA 92103
(619) 296-5740 |
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From the very beginning in my work, the California coast was an extraordinarily powerful image and metaphor, especially the area from Big Sur to Mendocino. That long California shore coast became one of the twin compass points of the book, The Shore.
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Featured Poets |
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Allen Ginsberg
In 1954, Allen Ginsberg moved to San Francisco and he quickly became a central figure of the Beat Movement. His poem "Howl" garnered world-wide attention for him and the poets he associated with. |
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Adrienne Rich
Born in 1929, Adrienne Rich won the National Book Award in 1974 for Diving into the Wreck, a collection of exploratory and often angry poems that redefined feminist poetics. She lives in northern California. |
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Robert Duncan
Born in Oakland, California in 1919, Robert Duncan forged a style uniquely his own, despite his affiliation with several major movements in American poetry of the fifties and sixties. |
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Lyn Hejinian
Born in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1941, Lyn Hejinian is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is also the author of numerous books of poetry, including My Life. |
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Gary Snyder
Born in San Francisco in 1930, Gary Snyder received the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 for Turtle Island. He is a professor of English at the University of California, Davis. |
Other California Poets
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Literary Organizations & Centers |
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Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center
Located in Venice, Beyond Baroque sponsors a renowned reading series and hosts the longest running free poetry workshop in Los Angeles (on Wednesday nights). Beyond Baroque's collection of small press poetry books, chapbooks, and broadsides is perhaps the largest one available to the general public at any independent arts organization on the West Coast.
California Arts Council
The CAC provides grants and fellowships through a variety of programs that strive to make available and accessible quality art reflecting all of California's diverse cultures; to support the state's broad economic, educational, and social goals through the arts; to provide leadership for all levels of the arts community; and to present effective programs that add a further dimension to our cities, our schools, our jobs, and our creative spirit.
The California Center for the Book
The California Center for the Book is a reading promotion agency that celebrates California's rich literary heritage and promotes reading, libraries, literacy, and authorship through book discussions and reading and writing contests.
Independent Writers of Southern California
IWOSC is the region's leading service and support organization for professional, self-employed writers. IWOSC focuses on the business of writing, with regular educational meetings, a newsletter, special events, help with mediating grievances, and a job referral service.
Intersection for the Arts
Intersection for the Arts is San Francisco's oldest alternative art space and has a long history of presenting new and experimental work in the fields of literature, theater, music and the visual arts and also in nurturing and supporting the Bay Area's cultural community through service, technical support and mentorship programs. Intersection provides a place where provocative ideas, diverse art forms, artists and audiences can intersect one another. At Intersection, experimentation and risk are possible, debate and critical inquiry are embraced, community is essential, resources and experience are democratized, and today's issues are thrashed about in the heat and immediacy of live art. The Marin Poetry Center
The Center, founded in 1981 by a small group of local Northern California poets, sponsors readings, workshops, poetry contests and related events. The Center serves as a place for poets in Marin County to gather and meet other poets and hear their work. The center sponsors an annual high school poetry contest for Marin County students, and the center's member poets teach workshops in many of the local high schools for free.
The Kingsley Tufts and Kate Tufts Discovery Awards
Presented in association with Claremont Graduate University, these annual awards, established in the early 1990's, support work by an emerging poet and a poet's first book, respectively. Each year, the winners of the awards are presented and give a free reading in the Los Angeles area.
PEN Center USA West
PEN Center USA strives to protect the rights of writers around the world, to stimulate interest in the written word, and to foster a vital literary community among the diverse writers living in the western United States. The organization, therefore, has two distinct yet complementary aims: one fundamentally literary and the other having a freedom of expression mandate. Among PEN's various activities are public literary events, a mentorship project, literary awards, and international human rights campaigns on behalf of writers who are censored or imprisoned.
The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives
The Poetry Center, founded in 1954 on the basis of a gift by W. H. Auden, is one of the most long-lived, prestigious, and nationally renowned literary arts institutions in the United States. For 45 years, since Ruth Witt-Diamant with esteemed poets Robert Duncan and Josephine Miles initiated the Poetry Center's pioneering reading series, the Center has presented readings by poets, novelists, and other writers, in accord with the highest standards of literary excellence. With its companion project, The American Poetry Archives, the Center has collected and compiled well over 2,000 original recordings of poets and writers reading from their works.
Poetry Santa Cruz
Poetry Santa Cruz is a nonprofit organization of volunteers working to nurture the poetry community and to bring poetry to the larger community in Santa Cruz County. They present readings, craft workshops for poets, and provide information on poetry events and selected other events which may be of interest to the community.
The Ruskin Art Club
Founded by Mary Boyce in 1888, The Ruskin Art Club is among the oldest and most influential of cultural and art associations in the Southwest. As the first women’s cultural organization in Los Angeles, the club also played a major role in advancing the cause of women in the early decades of the new century. Membership in the Ruskin Art Club is now open to men. Today, the RAC provides scholarships and prizes to local artist, writers and musicians, and a variety of readings and programs.
Tebot Bach
A non-profit organization based in Orange County that promotes literacy and works to broaden the audience for poetry through its poetry reading series, writing workshops, and by publishing collections of poetry. Events are held in Huntington Beach and readings feature local, national, and international poets. The organization also sponsors readings and writing workshops for children and marginalized venues, such as homeless shelters, battered women's shelters, nursing homes, and hospitals.
The Writing Project at 826 Valencia
A non-profit tutoring center in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco. 826 Valencia is designed to help students, ages 8-18, develop writing skills of all kinds, including creative writing, journalism, and composition through free drop-in tutoring, workshops, and storytelling. Tutors also help students create their own story collections, 'zines, and other publications.
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Writing Programs & Colonies |
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California College of Arts and Crafts
In CCAC's Creative Writing program, students can explore many forms of the written word, including poetry, fiction, or scriptwriting through writing workshops, literature seminars, and a series of mentored study courses.
Djerassi Resident Artists Program
The Djerassi Resident Artists Program is located in a spectacular rural setting in the Santa Cruz Mountains, one hour south of San Francisco. The Program offers four-week to five-week residencies from mid-March through mid-November, at no cost, to artists in the disciplines of visual arts, media arts/new genres, literature, choreography, and music composition. Application forms and guidelines are available on the website.
New College of California Poetics Program
The New College Poetics Program is unique in that it makes the history, theory, and creation of poetry its central focus. Rejecting the usual separation between literature and writing programs, the Poetics Program blends interpretation and production, critical and
creative attention. Reading-centered courses in specific authors or periods may require students to do imitative exercises as well as write expository essays. Writing-centered courses typically involve substantial amounts of "outside" reading and analysis. The program requires aspiring poets to study deeply in the history of their art and their language; and it offers aspiring scholars the chance to focus closely on poetry and
technically-oriented poetry criticism in a way increasingly unusual in English departments.
St. Mary's College of California M. F. A. Program
The M. F. A. Program at Saint Mary's College is a two-year course of study in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. The program's central task is the education and formal training of serious writers. It is distinguished by its fine permanent faculty, its range of outstanding writers in residence, and its commitment to small classes and extensive faculty-student contact. The M. F. A. Program produces Mary, an online journal, and sponsors a reading series.
Squaw Valley Community of Writers: Poetry Program
The Poetry Program is founded on the belief that when poets gather in a community to write new poems, each poet may break through old habits and write something stronger and truer than before. Each participant has an opportunity to work with each staff poet in workshop. In the mornings participants meet to read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours, and in the late afternoons they gather for a conversation about some aspect of craft. Tuition for the Poetry Program is $675, which includes photocopying and evening meals. A number of half-tuition scholarships are available.
University of Southern California, Los Angeles
USC offers a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing. The Ph.D. program provides dual emphasis in literature and creative writing, culminating in the dissertation, which combines critical analysis with creative originality.
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California Poetfans |
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Sharyn Moore and her students
ELS Language Centers
Santa Monica, California
Finding poetry and a poet for college-bound international students is a pedagogical puzzle. For an elective course entitled "Here's Hollywood," idiom, metaphor and new vocabulary lead to discussion, as well as the realization, "I can understand poetry, in English!"
View the complete entry >
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Poetic History |
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Robinson Jeffers's Tor House: Carmel, CA
In 1919, Jeffers began building a stone cottage overlooking Carmel Bay which he called Tor House, after the craggy knoll, or "tor" on which it was built.
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City Lights Bookstore: San Francisco, CA
Nestled among the trattorias, strip clubs, and skyscrapers of San Francisco’s North Beach is City Lights Bookstore—not only a landmark to poetry, but also a battleground for the freedom of speech.
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Berkeley Poetry Walk: Berkeley, CA
The walk is made up of 128 cast-iron poetry panels, each weighing fifty-five pounds and containing a poem.
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National Poetry Month Proclamation
In 2005, the mayor of Los Angeles signed a proclamation declaring April the 10th annual National Poetry Month.
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Visitors from California Enjoy ... |
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Most Popular Poems
1. Do not go gentle into that good night
by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night...
2. One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master...
3. The Negro Speaks of Rivers
by Langston Hughes
I've known rivers...
4. We Real Cool
by Gwendolyn Brooks
We real cool. We...
5. Sick
by Shel Silverstein
"I cannot go to school today"...
6. How Do I Love Thee?
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
7. I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America...
8. The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...
9. What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why...
10. This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten / the plums...
(Popularity based on Poets.org traffic data.) |
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Poems about California |
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California Plush
by Frank Bidart
The only thing I miss about Los Angeles...
A Supermarket In California
by Allen Ginsberg
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman...
In California During the Gulf War
by Denise Levertov
Among the blight-killed eucalypts, among...
Gospel
by Philip Levine
The new grass rising in the hills...
The Changing Light
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The changing light / at San Francisco...
How Everything Was Resolved in California
by Charles Foster
it / wasn't / san / andreas / fault...
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Readings Series, Conferences, & Literary Festivals |
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About.com Calendar
An online resource that lists current poetry events in the Southern California Region.
Casa Romantica Reading Series
The Casa Romantica Reading Series in San Clemente, California was organized by poets to present poets and prose writers from around the world once a month in Orange County. The Series has generated two poetry cds featuring readings by Ralph Angel, Donald Revell, Marvin Bell, B.H. Fairchild, and many more.
St. Mary's College Creative Writing Reading Series
The Creative Writing Reading Series was established in the early 1980s to grant Saint Mary's students access to the nation's most prominent and exciting contemporary writers. In addition to serving the Saint Mary's community, the Creative Writing Reading Series is a central literary resource to the surrounding communities. All readings are at 7:30 p.m. unless otherwise indicated.
Southern California Writer's Conference
Annual writer's conferences held in San Diego and Los Angeles that feature poetry, fiction, and non-fiction workshops. The conferences have a rotating slate of morning, mid-morning and afternoon sessions on Saturdays and Sundays, each containing at least one workshop fully devoted to reading & critiquing.
Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival
Since 1998, this unique gathering of poets, nature writers and environmental activists has challenged people to pay attention to Strawberry Creek, which is tunneled beneath most of Berkeley. The Watershed project is the inspiration of former U. S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, who along with Poetry Flash
magazine started this annual celebration.
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Literary Journals & Small Presses |
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Avec Books
Avec Books publishes innovative contemporary poetry that deals with the Central California region. The journal also accepts articles and editorials relating to Central California poetry.
Bear Star Press
Founded in 1996, Bear Star Bear Star Press is located in the foothills of rural northern California and publishes poetry (& occasional literary fiction) by writers living west of the central time zone. Each year they award the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize ($1,000 and publication) to a writer from the region.
City Lights Publishers
Since 1955, City Lights has been an independent publisher of cutting-edge literature and books on compelling social and political issues. The publishers formed City Lights Foundation, a nonprofit educational and cultural organization, with the goal of advancing literacy and the literary arts. Book lovers can make a pilgrimage to the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco to check out the best that's published in a wide range of subject areas.
Fourteen Hills
Since its inception in 1996, Fourteen Hills has held an impressive reputation within international literary magazines for publishing the highest-quality innovative poetry, fiction, short plays, and literary non-fiction. A publication of San Francisco State University's Creative Writing Program, the biannual journal is committed to presenting a great diversity of experimental and progressive work by emerging and cross-genre writers, as well as by award-winning and established authors.
Kelsey St. Press
Kelsey St. Press has been publishing innovative writing by women since 1974. The Press administers the Frances Jaffer Book Award for a first book of poetry. In the mid-1980's Kelsey St. initiated a unique series of collaborations between visual artists and poets. Kelsey St. coordinates the collaborations and then documents the results.
Mary
Saint Mary's College's online literary journal of contemporary poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction by established and emerging writers.
New American Writing
Founded in 1986, New American Writing is a literary magazine that emphasizes contemporary American poetry. The magazine appears once a year in early June and is distinctive for publishing a range of innovative contemporary writing.
Oyster Boy Review
A quarterly of fiction and poetry with full text available online.
Poetry Flash
Poetry Flash is a poetry review and literary calendar for the West. Poetry Flash started the annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival with Robert Hass. Heyday Books and Poetry Flash have collaborated to produce a series of poetry books intended to showcase, document, and celebrate poetry in California and will release four volumes annually.
Poetry International
San Diego State University's annual literary journal surveys a wide range of contemporary poetry in America. Each issue also includes a translation section which features poetry from many countries of the world translated into English. San Diego State University Press publishes the journal.
Red Hen Press
Founded in 1994, Red Hen Press is a nonprofit literary press which publishes 16-20 high quality innovative titles a year in poetry, literary fiction, creative non-fiction, counter culture and education, including The Los Angeles Review.
Rattle
Publishing out of Studio City since 1994, Rattle is an independent, national poetry journal. Each issue features interviews with two contemporary poets, and a tribute section with poetry written by a specific ethnic, vocational, or stylistic group. The journal also features the annual Rattle Poetry Prize, which offers $5,000 for a single poem.
Small Press Distribution
Founded in 1969 in Berkeley, SPD is the only wholesaler in the country dedicated exclusively to independently published literature. SPD gives the public access to the broad spectrum of literature published today by distributing books to bookstores, libraries, and readers.
The Threepenny Review
The Threepenny Review is a quarterly review of the arts and society. Each issue contains new poetry, short fiction, personal memoirs, and essays on books, film, theater, dance, music, architecture, visual arts, television, and politics.
Tripwire: A Journal of Poetics
Tripwire invites submissions of essays, translations, interviews, art & book reviews, bulletins, letters responding to previous issues, & visual art.
University of California Press
As the nonprofit publishing arm of the University of California, the Press publishes a full spectrum of distinguished works, including poetry. The University of California Press also offers electronic versions of almost all of its journal titles and over 500 books online, many of
them out of print.
ZYZZYVA
Started in 1985, this long-running and well-respected journal publishes only West Coast writers and artists, featuring poetry, fiction, art, photos. Published triannually.
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