Author Archives: Katherine Hastings

Ray Bradbury —The Poet Recently, I posted a note on social media about Ray Bradbury, famous mostly for his science-and realistic fiction, and how he wrote some pretty darned good poetry.  He started writing poems when he was 16, joined the Poetry Club of his Los Angeles High School, “where I was one of threeContinue reading “RAY BRADBURY”

by Carrie Allen McCray, edited and with an introduction by Kevin Simmonds It is quite possible that, given the many omissions in our history books, you have never heard of Ota Benga.  Thanks to the late Carrie Allen McCray and the poet, filmmaker and musician Kevin Simmonds, the history of this man is stamped intoContinue reading “OTA BENGA UNDER MY MOTHER’S ROOF”

Gatherer’s Alphabet I admire many small presses and another one has come to my attention with the publication of Susan Kelly-DeWitt’s Gatherer’s Alphabet, the inaugural winner of their California Poets Series Prize. Co-edited by two poets laureate of Santa Barbara, California, Gunpowder Press takes its name from the city’s namesake, Saint Barbara, the patron saintContinue reading “Susan Kelly-DeWitt”

In the early 2000s, I attended a benefit reading for Sixteen Rivers Press held at a private home in Sausalito, California. The two readers that evening were Philip Levine, who would later become poet laureate of the United States, and Gerald Fleming. Fleming’s first collection, Swimmer Climbing Onto Shore, was forthcoming from Sixteen Rivers. ThisContinue reading “GERALD FLEMING”

The Poetry of Synesthesia Recently, I led an abbreviated workshop on synesthesia at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY. Since then, I’ve been asked by a number of people for any notes from that day for reference. One of the poetic devices I’ve always loved in the written word, whether in prose orContinue reading “Poetry Notes”

June 28, 2020 Chang’s latest collection, Obit (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), has received a number of very positive reviews. You can find one such review by going to Carol Muske-Dukes’ article in the Los Angeles Review of Books, available on-line. Or you can just read what I have to say in just three words: BuyContinue reading “Victoria Chang”

June 10, 2020 “In Halebsky’s third poetry collection Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged), published in2020 by University of Arkansas Press, the Tang Dynasty poets Li Bai and Du Fu encounter everydaylife in Oakland, California. In his introduction to this collection, Billy Collins writes, ‘Halebsky’sstylistic range is on full display when she switches from pureContinue reading “Judy Halebsky”

May 26, 2020 . In Eliot Schain’s latest collection, The Distant Sound (Sixteen Rivers Press 2020), we enter a type of concert where the poet conducts his many memories. From a truck stop men’s room to the Chez Paree, from Gallery 41 of the Uffizi Museum to a Mexican town, each memory brings a newContinue reading “Eliot Schain”

May 14, 2020 “I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too?” This quote by Emily Dickinson topped the short bio Maureen O’Connor provided me for this posting. Why is she “nobody?” Well, she just isn’t. There are so many good poets in the world whose work rarely or never sees the light of day.Continue reading “Maureen O’Connor”

April 30, 2020 I’ve always enjoyed the poetry of Kathleen Winter, author of three collections. You can get a taste of her tremendous wit and daring just by looking at the book titles: Nostalgia for the Criminal Past (Elixir Press, 2012); I will not kick my friends (Elixir Press, 2018) and, most recently Transformer (TheContinue reading “Kathleen Winter”