On the 8/28/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Poet Gabrielle Meyers joins Dr. Andy to discuss her incremental writing habits along with the release of her new release Break Self: Feed. She shares a poem from the collection titled “Spring Agrodolce” and describes the pastoral origins of her collection. She then shares a poem titled “Everything We’ve Ever Loved Must and End Die and Reverse.” The next guest on the show is Carl Whithaus. He joins Dr. Andy in a discussion of the life and career of late UC Davis Lecturer John Boe. They recall John bringing joy and curiosity to the classroom and everyday life of academia through his comedic nature. Dr. Jane Beal is the last guest of the episode. Dr. Jane recounts an early memory of her first interaction with John Boe in London. She and Dr. Andy also recall John Boe’s work as an editor for Writing on the Edge, and describe John as a forebear of the UC Davis University Writing Program. She concludes by sharing a poem called “Perspective” that reminds her of John Boe.

Gabrielle Meyers is a writer, professor, and chef. Her memoir, Hive-Mind, published in 2015, details her time of love, awakening, and tragic loss on an organic farm in the Sacramento Valley. Her first poetry book, Too Many Seeds, was published in 2021 by Finishing Line Press. Break Self: Feed is her second poetry book. Her third poetry book, Points in the Network, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2025. Her poetry has been published in the many acclaimed journals. Meyers is the Farm-to-Fork columnist for Inside Sacramento magazine. Access links to her many endeavors are through her website: www.gabriellemyers.com

Carl Whithaus is a Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of California, Davis. He has served as principal investigator for the journal Splash! milk science update since 2017 and as editor for the Journal of Writing Assessment since 2015. Carl earned his Ph.D. at the City University of New York (CUNY); he has taught at Stevens Institute of Technology, Old Dominion University, and the University of California, Davis

Dr. Jane Beal is Professor of English Literature and recent past Chair of the English Department at the University of La Verne in southern California. She is also a Lecturer in the University Writing Program at UC Davis. She received her BA, MA, and PhD in English with specializations in medieval and early modern literature. She also received a Certificate in Midwifery from Mercy in Action College of Midwifery. She has taught at Wheaton College, Colorado Christian University, and the University of La Verne, as well as UC Davis, and served as a midwife in the U.S., Uganda, and the Philippines. She regularly publishes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

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:

Mary B. Moore discusses the conceptual framework of her forthcoming poetry book Amanda Chimera. The collection is about a twin who passed in utero and spends her posthumous life haunting her living twin. Moore shares the title poem “Amanda Chimera” from her next publication. She then pays respect to the recently passed Sandra McPherson and recounts some UC Davis memories from her time in grad school. Cody Duncan is the next guest, and he shares some of his experience working in law, opening his own law firm, and moving back to California to work in tech law. He discusses how his background in music production and coding has shaped his hot takes on Gen AI, IP, and sampling. He raises a point that the legislative protection of intellectual property may restrict potential production and further creative innovations. He also describes the dystopian novel he is working on, The Pane Constant. The episode concludes with Davis artist Thea Johnson sharing some details from her upcoming showcase at the John Natsoulas Gallery.

Mary B. Moore’s forthcoming poetry collection Amanda Chimera, the Arthur Smith Poetry Prize winner, will be out in 2025 from Madville Publishing. Her latest poetry book is Dear If, published by Orison Books in 2022. Poems are forthcoming in POETRY, Artemis and Cider Press Review, and appear lately in Catamaran, Birmingham Poetry Review (BPR), NELLE, Nimrod, Poetic Viva, and South Dakota Review. She received BPR’s 2023 Collins Prize; NELLE’s 2019 Three Sisters Award; several Finalist Awards from Terrain, and the Second Place award in Nimrod’s 2017 Pablo Neruda Prize. Moore is a native Californian who moved to West Virginia to teach at Marshall University. She has a Ph.D. from the University of California Davis in Renaissance literature.

A UC Davis Alumni and former KDVS DJ, Cody Duncan studied at Duke Law where he helped launch a nonprofit privacy research organization, the Triangle Privacy Research Hub, in Durham, North Carolina, before going on to spend eight years working in-house at tech companies, including Lyft, and a global health nonprofit. Most recently, he launched his own law practice, C. Duncan Law, and began writing a dystopian detective novel.

Thea Hudson, an oil painter and multimedia artist, voraciously invents new folkloric narratives populated with fantastical figures. In her two-person exhibition with Genevieve Ryan, Friends are Everywhere, they explore themes of connectedness and platonic love, venturing hand in hand through interactive video art, stained glass, and more with whimsical intensity. Thea and Genevieve both graduated from UC Davis, in 2022 and 2021 respectively

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 Threads at https://www.threads.net/@andyojones.

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:

Poet Mercedes Ibáñez shares her fondness for the Davis poetry community. She shares how her early life in Peru spawned her poetic aspirations, and how Poetry Nights In Davis have inspired her new work. Mercedes then shares two poems, “The Wolf” and “Celia and Sam,” both from her new book, Poems from the Roof. Jean Biegun then joins to discuss the publication of her new book Edge Effects. Jean describes what an Edge Effect is, the negative effects a plant or animal suffers when a human encroaches on their space. She then shares poems titled “Showdown” and “Limbo.”

Mercedes Ibáñez is a poet and retired psychologist who was born in Perú and who has lived in Davis, California since 1976. The author of five books of poetry, Ibáñez won the National Award in Literature (Perú) in 1971. Ibáñez’s translation of Ezra Pound’s Hugh Selwyn Mauberley was published in 1973. Her 1977 book Caterpillars/Collective was introduced by Kate Millett. 2024 saw the publication of her new book, Poems from the Roof. The mother of two daughters, and a grandmother of four, Ibáñez is a crowd-favorite at the Poetry Night Reading Series at the Natsoulas Gallery in Davis.

Jean Biegun’s poems have appeared in over 40 different journals, anthologies, and art exhibits, even in a state DNR annual calendar and a gumball machine at a poetry convention. Her chapbook Hitchhikers to Eden was published in 2022 and recently Edge Effects in 2024, both by Kelsay Books. The title poem “Edge Effects” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Gyroscope Review in 2022. Work this year has appeared in Ekstasis, Right Hand Pointing, Third Wednesday, Mad Swirl, Unbroken, Davis arts and culture newspaper The Dirt, and is forthcoming in Amethyst Review’s anthology Thin Places and Sacred Spaces.

The Poetry Night Reading Series is excited to feature an evening with poets Mercedes Ibáñez and Jean Biegun at 7 PM on Thursday, August 15th, 2024, on the first floor of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street in Davis. If the weather is nice, we may meet on the roof.

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 Threads at https://www.threads.net/@andyojones.

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:

Rhony Bhopla joins in to discuss her feelings after winning the 2024 Pacific University Alumni Association’s Emerging Leader Award. She describes the gratitude she holds for her community that has recognized her for her hard work. Rhony then shares her thoughts on the important intersection of poetry and politics, and delineates ways to approach such rhetoric through the arts. Dr. Andy and Rhony then have a conversation about the many roles an instructor takes on and activism on college campuses. Dr. Andy delivers a brief story about spontaneous guest lectures from when he would teach his students outside before Rhony reads a two-part ecopoetic poem title she had previously read at Poetry Night at the Natsoulas Gallery. Rhony then describes balancing her creative interests, outlets, inspirations and profession.

Rhony Bhopla is a British-Indo American poet, book critic, and visual artist. She is a Kwame Dawes Mapmakers Scholar and a recipient of a fellowship in the Anaphora Arts Emerging Critics Program. She will receive the 2024 Pacific University Alumni Association's Emerging Leader Award. Rhony serves as the Pacific University Vice President of the Alumni Association Board of Representatives, as the Board Chair of Women's Wisdom Art, and volunteers for the Sacramento Medical Reserve Corps. She works as a science educator for Sierra Nevada Journeys. She holds a Bachelor in Science in Biological Sciences with a minor in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Davis, and an MFA in Writing from Pacific University in Oregon.

The Poetry Night Reading Series is excited to feature an evening with poets Mercedes Ibáñez and Jean Biegun at 7 PM on Thursday, August 15th, 2024, on the first floor of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street in Davis. If the weather is nice, we may meet on the roof.

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 X at https://twitter.com/andyojones.

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 7/31 of Dr.Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Italian poet Laura Bertolini makes her return to Davis and discusses publishing her book in which she describes the people and experiences from her life in Davis. She then reads a poem titled “Breaths of The Night” in Italian and its English translation. Dave Boles joins to discuss the publication of this year's VOICES anthology. He describes the process of collecting poems for this specific issue to commemorate the late DR Wagner. Tim Kahl dials in to share how he went about deciding to submit a poem to this year's VOICES Anthology. He gives praise for the independent publisher Cold River Press, the Dave Boles press. Vicki Carroll describes how she went about crafting a poem to honor her late friend DR Wagner. She then shares her approaches to her various poetic projects and a poem titled “Nothing Is Perfect.”

Laura Bertolini was born in Cecina, Tuscany, Italy. She lived in Davis from 2009 to 2020. She dedicated a collection to her life in California, published by Mds Editore in 2019. Today, she lives in Italy; she first lived in Tuscany and then moved to Turin. She has won poetry awards both in Italy and abroad. She has published with Italian publishers as well as through self-publishing. Today, she is working on her new poetry book E i sassi e i fiori (And the Stones and the Flowers).

Dave Boles is a Publisher, Writer and Designer. Founder of the magazine Primal Urge, he also created the anthology Voices, which he publishes through his press, Cold River Press. He has published, designed, edited and written numerous books, articles, and periodicals, both nationally and internationally.

Tim Kahl is the author of six books of poems, most recently Omnishambles (Bald Trickster, 2019), California Sijo (Bald Trickster, 2022) and Drips, Spills, Bursts, Tangles, and Washes (Cold River Press, 2024). He is also an editor of Clade Song [http://www.cladesong.com]. He builds flutes, plays them and plays guitars, ukuleles, charangos and cavaquinhos as well. He currently teaches at California State University, Sacramento, where he sings lieder while walking on campus between classes.

Vicki Carroll, a Sacramento native enjoys poetry and the spoken word. She has been involved in workshops at Laguna Creek Valley High Library, and James Lee Jobe’s workshop in Davis, Tuesday night at Ethel Hart Senior Center, Nick La Force Friday afternoon workshop. Vicki has also been featured at Sac Poetry Center and published in Medusa’s Kitchen, Sacramento Voices 2018, and Sacramento Voices 2020-2024. She wrote a chapbook, Half a Chap, Vicki Carroll’s Bakers Dozen, and also joined The Sacramento Storytelling Guild in 2021.

Authors from journal VOICES will be reading on August 1st at the John Natsoulas Gallery to honor and celebrate the life of D.R. Wagner. 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. This event is made possible by Kater-ina Hanks, producer of The Poetry Night Reading Series.

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

Leanne Schwartz describes how she crafts her emotional, complex, and visceral young adult novels while still hitting her assigned deadlines. She shares a sample from her book A Darker Shore.. Stella Beratlis discusses how her career as a librarian informs her poetic verse, detailing how she often reads obscure reference books to inspire poetic ideas. She argues that poets can use their toolkits to write unique historical fictions, and shares a poem about a founding father of California’s central valley visiting current day Modesto, California. Dave Nachmanoff gives the scoop about his upcoming event at Watermelon Music where he will be playing his first album Candy Shower all the way though, and then reads a sequence of short James Joyce poems.

Leanne Schwartz is the author of the young adult fantasies A Prayer for Vengeance and To a Darker Shore and the adult contemporary romcom My Kind of Trouble, writing as L.A. Schwartz. When she’s not teaching English and poetry, she can be found baking pizzelle, directing scenes for the student Shakespeare festival, and singing along to showtunes. She lives in San Diego with her family.

Stella Beratlis is the author of Dust Bowl Venus (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2021). Her first collection, Alkali Sink, was shortlisted for the 2016 Northern California Book Awards. Beratlis served as Modesto’s poet laureate from 2016-2020, co-curates a long-running reading series for the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center, and works as a community college librarian.

Dave Nachmanoff is a guitar virtuoso with a doctorate in philosophy, who performed with Libba Cotten as a child, and went on to tour for years with singer-songwriter Al Stewart. After playing thousands of shows from house concerts to the Royal Albert Hall, Nachmanoff has built a loyal fan base and a unique niche as a performing songwriter. SingOut! has praised his “heartfelt, inspired songwriting … with a delivery both biting and assured.” Just Plain Folks honored him with the 2001 Songwriter of the Year award, and his songs have been recognized by many regional and national songwriting competitions. In 2023, Dave began to work with a couple of wonderful musicians called The Usual Culprits from Davis, CA.

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 is Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis. This event is made possible by Katerina Hanks, producer of The Poetry Night Reading Series.

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 X at https://twitter.com/andyojones.

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 7/17/24 edition of Dr.Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas discusses managing the overlapping releases of her two new books. She describes what inspired the titles of her new releases, and the reasoning behind splitting her new collection A Shared and Sacred Space half into formal verse and half into free verse. She then shares a poem from each collection, “The History of Soup” from A Shared and Sacred Space and “The Day I was a Visiting Second Grade Teacher” from A Handful of Stallions at Twilight. Rina Wakefield talks about her lifelong infatuation with poetry and literature, and the connection she feels with words themselves. She recounts balancing her love for libraries, archiving, writing, and platforming diverse voices. Rina then shares a poem titled “DNA.”

Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas lives in the Sierra Foothills, Ca. She recently received her MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She’s a 13-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a seven-time Best of the Net nominee. In 2021 her book Alice in Ruby Slippers was shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize in Poetry. She has served as the Editor-in-Chief for both the Orchards Poetry and Tule Review.

Rina Wakefield is a Spoken Word Poet, Podcast Producer, Poetry/Storytelling event Producer/Host. She is a collaborating member of Myrtle Tree Arts from Northern California. Rina is a Master’s Degree candidate studying Library Science with a focus on Rare Book Curation and Cultural Archives from San Jose State University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English Literature from Sacramento State University.

The Poetry Night Reading Series is excited to feature an evening with poets Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas and Rina Wakefield at 7 PM on Thursday, July 18th, 2024, on the first floor of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street in 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 and follow him on X at https://twitter.com/andyojones.

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 7/3/24 edition of Dr.Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Susan Kelly-DeWitt discusses her various inspirations for her new book Frangible Operas, citing loss and aging as two thematic pillars for the collection. Susan also gives an insight into her writing process, then reads a poem about her adolescence in Oahu, titled “Poem After The War.” She read two more pieces, “Teaching Poetry in Prison,” and “Confluence,” while also elaborating on the validity of answering questions with poems. Michelle Bitting cites California native Joan Didion and Polish scientist Marie Curie as muses for her new book Dummy Ventriloquist, and describes how she tries to embrace ventriloquizing speech in her poetics. Michelle talks about a multitude of topics ranging from Oingo Boingo to science experiments in her garage, and reads a poem called “For Phil.” She also describes watching LA change over the years, and the importance of discovery drafts.

Susan Kelly-DeWitt is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and the author of Frangible Operas, which came out from Gunpowder Press this summer, 2024. She is also the author of Gravitational Tug, Gatherer’s Alphabet, Spider Season, The Fortunate Islands, and a number of other collections. Her past professional and writing life includes having been a reviewer for Library Journal, the editor-in-chief of the online journal Perihelion, the Program Director of the Sacramento Poetry Center and the Women’s Wisdom Arts Program, a Poet in the Schools and a Poet in the Prisons, a blogger for Coal Hill Review, and a longtime instructor for the UC Davis Division of Continuing Education. She is currently a member of the National Book Critics Circle, the Northern California Book Reviewers Association and a contributing editor for Poetry Flash. Please visit her website at www.susankelly-dewitt.com

Michelle Bitting was short-listed for the 2023 CRAFT Character Sketch Challenge, 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2021 Coniston Prize and 2020 Reed Magazine Edwin Markham Prize. She is the author of five poetry collections, including Nightmares & Miracles, winner of the Wilder Prize and recently named one of Kirkus Reviews 2022 Best of Indie. Her chapbook Dummy Ventriloquist is being published this July from C & R Press. Recent poetry appears on The Slowdown, Thrush, Cleaver, The Poetry Society of New York’s Milk Press, and is featured as Poem of the Week in The Missouri Review. Bitting holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Mythological Studies, emphasis Poetry and Psychology. She is writing a novel that centers around Los Angeles and her great grandmother, stage and screen actor Beryl Mercer, and is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University.

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. This event is made possible by Katerina Hanks, producer of The Poetry Night Reading Series. Our next Poetry is on July 18 featuring Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas and Rina Wakefield!

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.