The Santa Barbara Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest

02/06/2015

The Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest took a hiatus for what turned out to be a tumultuous 2014 due to the director's (me) marrying his partner of 25 years, Gary R. White, and returning to the work force after 20 years.

We hope to hold a W-S reading in 2015, probably not in April as in previous years but in the fall or winter in Santa Barbara. Thank you, all of you, for your continued support.

Ron Aden Alexander, Director
Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest

11/27/2013

The Second Annual Whitman-Stein Poetry Festival, a celebration of LGBTQ poets and poetry, was held in Santa Barbara on April 15, 2012. On invitation, poets from…

11/26/2013

The Whitman-Stein Northern California Reunion poets gave powerful readings on Sunday. The audience was engaged and enthusiastic and more than one audience member approached me afterwards to tell me that it was the best or one of the best reading they had been to. The ambience was reminiscent of the first Whitman-Stein reading at the wallspace gallery in Santa Barbara in 2011. The connection between poets and audience was palpable. Fathers were a recurring theme as was the work of Gertrude Stein, and her impact on writers, to both the chagrin and amusement of listeners. Kudos to poets: Kit Kennedy, Glenn Ingersoll, Jan Steckel, Tobey Kaplan, Giovanna Capone, Marc Elihu Hofstadter, and Nixson Borah for jobs well done...and many thanks.

11/14/2013

www.whitman-stein.org

06/12/2013

Northern California, here we come. A Northern California Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest reunion is in the works for this Fall. All of the contributing poets from the past three years of Whitman-Stein readings are expected to attend a Sunday Whitman-Stein Reunion reading in San Francisco. Stay tuned for details.

04/22/2013

Thanks to Phil Taggart for posting his photos of the 2013 Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest.

04/13/2013

For the next few days, leading up to Saturday night's Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest, we will post here, work by poets who will be reading that night. (7pm, at the Student Resource Building, Multipurpose Room, at UCSB next to Parking Structure 22 on Ocean Rd.)

Here's a poem by Kit Kennedy

MUSSELS

I eat things I can’t talk about.
Words short and direct
scare me. Draw me close to fire.
Mussels, their weird worlds need no tinkering.

Pan seared. Smoke is taste,
defiant as sweet, sour. Heat shatters some shells.
Juice and broth taken into the lining of flesh.
Slits can’t close from their own abundance.

Firm ground gives way. I taste salt from things
parents couldn’t say. Fleshiness. Garlic slivers
and parsley bound together.
Something brought out of ash. I swear I hear voices
of single women.

Kit Kennedy

published in The Harvard Gay & Le***an Review,
Winter 1998, Volume V, No. 1

Others: Anita Brookner, A.S. Byatt, Anne Carson, Chiyo-ni, Diane diPrima, e.e. cummings, Penelope Fitzgerald, Susan Gangel, Linda Gregg, Susan Griffin, Brenda Hillman, Carol Maso, Heather McHugh, Anne Michaels, Adrienne Rich, Rebecca Solnit, Jeanette Winterson, C.D. Wright, psalms of David (plaincha...

03/05/2013

The Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest has just been awarded a grant from the Instruments of Peace Foundation. This is much appreciated and allows us to pay the poets who will be coming from up and down the state.

Paul Fericano, Executive Director of IOP read in the first Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest. A video of that reading can be found at...


Paul read the work of Edward Field then, and some of his own poems, including, "Still Life with Mormons in My Living Room."

Thank you Paul Fericano and the board of IOP.

Also, two more poets have committed to reading on April 20th: Tim Donnelly of Berkeley, and Nixson Borah of Atascadero.

Tim Donnelly grew up in Redondo Beach, California. He began writing poetry at 15, eventually joining the raucous LA spoken word scene in the 1980's. Tim co-facilitated the Beyond Baroque workshop, took a turn curating the readings at Angel's Gate Cultural Center, published frequently in Shattersheet and The Moment, performed at the Lhasa Club and Anti Club.

Since 1991 Tim has lived in Berkeley. Here he works with adults and children severely affected by autism. He is a staunch Union activist. He still publishes and performs his poetry in the San Fransisco and Los Angeles areas. Recently he has published “The Year it Rained All Year” and “A Rocken Little Pop Song” in Full of Crow’s Quarterly Poetry, Tim celebrates his 50th birthday in July 2013. He can be reached at [email protected].

Nixson Borah retired as a professor of art from Fullerton College in 2003 and moved back to the Central Coast where he was raised and attended high school. Since his return, he continues to exhibit his photography, painting, printmaking and sculpture, including recent shows at the Steynberg Gallery, GALA and SLOMA.

Nixson is a member of San Luis Obispo’s Poets on the Edge, has been a featured reader at Corners of the Mouth, Second Sunday, Poet's Night Out and the Los Osos Library. He has been a selected and featured reader during three SLO Poetry Festivals and recent publications include: "Mandolin Muse," San Luis Obispo Tribune, April 1, 2007; "Compound," "Heritage Green" and "Four by Four," San Luis Obispo New Times, March 19, 2009; and "Jobless,” San Luis Obispo Tribune, April 26, 2009.

02/10/2013

The 2013 Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest will be held on the UCSB campus (venue to be announced) on Saturday, April 20th at 7:00 pm. To date, two tremendous poets have committed to attend:

Kit Kennedy (San Francisco) writes short poems and cooks by color. She hosted the monthly Gallery Cafe Reading Series from 2006 - 2010, and currently serves as Bay Times Poet In Residence. Kit is a member of the AWE Gallery Collective. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals. Recent poems appeared in Motif 2: Chance and Glass:A Journal of Poetry. INCONVENIENCE is a limited, fine press book of poems co-authored with Susan Gangel.

Sharon Venezio (Los Angeles) is co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets and the recipient of the Mark Linenthal Award for her poem “Meanwhile.” Her forthcoming collection, The Silence of Doorways, will be released by Moon Tide Press in March 2013. Her poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, Transfer, and numerous other journals.

Other poets will be announced here as they join the ensemble.

05/02/2012

Convened Saturday night, April 21st at SBCC at the Fe Bland Auditorium. Poets included, in order here, from the 2012 Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest: Fernando D.Castro, Giovanna Capone, Tim Tipton, Terry Van Vliet, Ron Alexander, Tobey Kaplan, Alison Reed and Kristie Soares.