A Directory of Monterey Bay Poets
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N
O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z
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Adams, Marcia
Marcia Adams' poems have appeared in The Montserrat Review, Porter Gulch Review, Caesura, Bristlecone and several chapbook anthologies. A third generation Californian, with roots in the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada, she is happily transplanted in Santa Cruz. She is a member of the Poetry Santa Cruz Steering Committee and an Advisory Board member of Poetry Center San Jose.
Adler, Frances Payne
Frances Payne Adler is the Director of the Creative Writing and Social Action Program at California State University, Monterey Bay. Adler is the author of five books: Raising The Tents, a collection of poems (Calyx Books), and three collaborative books with photographer Kira Carrillo Corser, When The Bough Breaks: Pregnancy and The Legacy of Addiction (New Sage Press), Struggle To Be Borne (San Diego State University Press), and Home Street Home, (Red Cross). Her new book of poems, The Making of a Matriot, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press.
Adler's poems have appeared in Poetry International, Fiction International, Prism International, The Progressive, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Women's Review of Books, Ms. Magazine, Exquisite Corpse, Bridges, Centennial Review, Women and Politics, and Blood To Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, among others.
Adler's awards include a California State Senate Award for Artistic and Social Collaboration, a Margaret Sanger Award, a Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Award. She was also a Western States Book Award finalist for Raising The Tents.
Alter, Julia
Julia Alter Julia Alter wrote her first poem at age eight and has been writing ever since. Born in Walnut Creek, California, she has been a long-time resident of Santa Cruz, California. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Literature/Writing from the University of California at San Diego and studied literature abroad through New York University in Salamanca, Spain. For several years, Julia has been an attendee and assistant at Patricia Dove Miller’s Joyous Expression writing and meditation retreat at Zen Mountain Center. Her work is featured on Natalie Goldberg’s CD, “Old Friend from Far Away” and her poetry appears in Blue Moon Review, DMQ Review, La Gazette, Porter Gulch Review, Santa Cruz Sentinel and Calyx. Alter received the Muse Award and a Pushcart Prize nomination in 2001 from DMQ Review. She was honored with the Mary Lonnberg Smith Award three times from Porter Gulch Review and Cabrillo College. She has worked as a bilingual kindergarten teacher and leader of poetry workshops for both children and adults. Her current love is singing and she is presently at work on a CD project with songwriter Ron Upton. She is one of the co-founders of Poetry Santa Cruz.
Anderson, Len
Len Anderson was born and raised on the San Francisco Peninsula and received his BA and PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. As a physicist he worked in experimental elementary particle physics at Berkeley and in Europe; in private industry he developed sensors for the automation of paper manufacturing. His poetry has appeared in Bellowing Ark, The Dallas Review, DMQ Review, The Montserrat Review, Quarry West, The Sand Hill Review and Sarasota Review of Poetry. He is a winner of the Dragonfly Press Poetry Competition and the Mary Lonnberg Smith Poetry Award. He and his wife live in Santa Cruz County, California. He is a co-founder of Poetry Santa Cruz.
Atkinson, Charles
Charles Atkinson was born and raised in New England, graduated cum laude from Amherst College, and served with the Peace Corps in Manila, Republic of the Philippines. He completed a Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he currently teaches writing of various sorts. His first collection, The Only Cure I Know (San Diego Poets Press), received the American Book Series award for poetry in 1991; a chapbook, The Best of Us on Fire, won the Wayland Press competition for 1992. He has been awarded several national prizes for individual poems and groups, including the Stanford Prize, the Whiskey Island Prize (Cleveland State University), the Comstock Review Prize, the Paumanok Award (SUNY Farmingdale) and most recently, the Emily Dickinson Award. His work has appeared in half a dozen anthologies and more than thirty literary magazines, including Poetry, The Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, Virginia Quarterly Review, Nimrod and The Amicus Journal. He was awarded a teaching Fellowship to the White River Writers' Workshop during the summer of 1995, a residency at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in 1996, and another at the Vermont Studio Center in 2000.
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Bass, Ellen
Ellen Bass’ most recent book of poetry Mules of Love was published by BOA Editions. With Florence Howe, she co-edited the groundbreaking book, No More Masks!: An Anthology of Poems by Women and has published four previous volumes of poetry. Among her awards for poetry are the Elliston Book Award from the University of Cincinnati, The Pablo Neruda Prize from Nimrod/Hardman, the Larry Levis Prize from Missouri Review, The New Letters Poetry Prize, The Greensboro Poetry Prize, and a Fellowship from the California Arts Council.
Ellen Bass is coauthor of The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse which has been translated into ten languages. She is also coeditor of I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, and coauthor of Beginning to Heal: A First Book for Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse and Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth--And Their Allies. She lives in Santa Cruz, CA where she has taught creative writing since 1974. For more information, visit www.ellenbass.com.
Bloom, Barbara
Barbara Bloom teaches English and Creative Writing at Cabrillo College. She lives in Corralitos with husband and a small, pampered group of animals. Her work has been published in various small magazines. "September 12, 2001" first appeared in The Sow's Ear.
Busman, Debra
Debra Busman is a poet, fiction writer and activist from the Salinas/Monterey area. Having worked as a ranch hand, editor, press operator, gardener, newspaper carrier, typesetter, prisoner advocate, and owner of a local print shop, she returned to college at age 38 and received her AA degree from Monterey Peninsula College, her BA from UC Santa Cruz, and her MFA from Mills College, Oakland. Currently teaching in the Creative Writing and Social Action Program at California State University, Monterey Bay, she also teaches literature and composition and is the Coordinator of Service Learning for the Institute of Human Communication.
Recently the winner of the Astraea Foundation 2002 $1,500 Fiction Award, her poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction have appeared in 580 Split; Chinquapin; Social Justice, Vol. 29:4: New Pedagogies for Social Change; and Women’s Studies Quarterly 26: Working Class Lives and Cultures.
Cartier, Francis
Francis Cartier holds a Ph.D. (1951) from the University of Southern California and has taught speech arts and speech science courses there and at several other universities. A third-generation Californian, he has lived in Pacific Grove since 1971. He has published four textbooks, some science fiction short stories, and several poems and verses in a variety of publications ranging from Analog: Science Fact and Fiction to Modern Maturity. His website, not quite finished, is www.TASCommunicating.com.
Cervine, Dane
Dane Cervine lives in Santa Cruz, California along the Monterey Bay coast with his wife and two children, where he serves as Chief of Children's Mental Health for the county. A member of the Emerald Street Writers group, Dane's work has appeared in a wide variety of journals & magazines, including The Hudson Review, The Sun and The Atlanta Review. Adrienne Rich chose Dane's poem "The Jeweled Net of Indra" as the winning entry in the 2005 National Writers Union (Local 7) competition, and his poem "Holography" for honorable mention. Dane's poem "Accordions & Shotguns" was chosen by Tony Hoagland as a finalist for the Wabash Prize for Poetry, and appears in Purdue University's Sycamore Review (Winter/Spring 2005). Dane's new book What A Father Dreams can be purchased at www.xlibris.com or from the author at danecervine@cruzio.com, along with recent chapbooks News From A Burning Man, Moving The Dark God's Hand, and Speaking In Tongues.
Clifford, Bryant L.
Bryant L. Clifford was born in Crested Butte, CO. He was raised up in Provincetown, MA. He is a lover of both the mountains and the sea. From an early age, he took refuge in nature, preferring its peacable kingdom over the cacophony of city life. Bryant is anti-idolatry, pro- the everyman. He believes in love, and is a self-made amorist. He studied creative writing at Bennington College in VT, but finds he is strongest outside the classroom. He is a grateful recipient of funding from The Maxine Shore Foundation, and has received residency from The VCCA in Sweet Briar, VA. for his work. Bryant was the recurring guest poet on The Poets Corner, 2006, broadcast from WOMR, Provincetown, MA; was asked by the late poet Stanley Kunitz to read at his home on the week of his 100th birthday, has walked the paths of Henry David Thoreau on Cape Cod, MA, has camped and explored The Lost Valley in Big Sur, and traveled the world. Bryant has found no other place so beautiful as here, and calls Carmel "home". Bryant has appeared in films and television (but far prefers the 3-D experience), loves his friends/family...loves his loving most of all.... You can find everything you need to know about Bryant in his book The Monarch Of Evening Time, currently available at The Henry Miller Library, Big Sur, and Pilgrim's Way in Carmel, to name a few. He can be seen fleetingly from time to time, reading at poetry venues from Big Sur to San Francisco, has been published recently in The Monterey Poetry Review. He is the founder of Johnny Rook Publishers. Bryant lives in Carmel, CA, and in Melbourne, Australia with his boyfriend JT. Feel free to contact him at JohnnyRook@sbcglobal.net and check out his poetry at www.themonarchofeveningtime.com.
Cody, Judith
Judith Cody has lived most of her adult life in several counties of central California. The people, the ecology and nature's singular traits in California have been a critical theme in much of her poetry. Wet Drive is her latest poetry manuscript; it deals with the theme of the ocean's meaning in our lives, and was inspired by living in the Monterey and Santa Cruz areas where she learned to love the special sea surrounding that unique coast. Cody's poetry has won awards from Atlantic Monthly and Amelia magazines, was short-listed for the Lyric Recovery Award, 2004, and received honorable mention from The Emily Dickinson Poetry Award 2002. A poem group was inducted into the Smithsonian Institution's permanent American History Collection. Poems have appeared in journals such as: The New York Quarterly, Nimrod, Phoebe, The South Carolina Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Cumberland Poetry Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Soundings East, Bathyspheric Review, Central California Poetry Journal, and Phoebe. Cody, is a classic guitarist and also composes award-winning chamber music, wrote the composer biography, Vivian Fine: A Bio-Bibliography, Greenwood Press, 2002; also, Eight Frames Eight, poems, 2002. "Everything becomes poetry." www.judithcodybooks.com.
Conklyn, Jessie
Jessie Conklyn recently moved to the lush greenery of the Monterey Peninsula from the high-desert of southern California. Her migration took place in the year of 2000, in prospect of a new teaching career, after receiving her bachelor's degree and teaching credential from the University of California, Riverside. She has written and studied poetry independently, in tandem with academic studies, from the age of sixteen, for ten years. Her distinct technique is achieved through form usage of margin manipulation; used, in tandem with a grammatical and linguistic play of the subtleties available in the English language. In the act of writing poetry, she hopes to convey her perspective and understanding of universal beauty and relationships between nature, humans, and the spiritual and physical heavens.
Crux, Lauren
Lauren Crux's poetry, prose, and photography have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. For the last five years she has taken her writing on the road in a form of performance that blurs the boundaries between monologue, storytelling, poetry, and performance art. She's almost a Buddhist, but not quite.
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Davis, Garrick
Garrick Davis founded the Contemporary Poetry Review in Monterey, and served as its editor from 1998-2005. His poetry and criticism have appeared in the Pacific Review, McSweeney's, Verse, and Slope. Child of the Ocmulgee: the Selected Poems of Freda Quenneville, for which he served as editor, was published by Michigan State University Press in 2002. He is currently the poetry and translation specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC.
Diehl, Sarah
Sarah J. Diehl is the Website Coordinator and Publications Adviser at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Her poems have recently been published in Quarry West, Red Wheelbarrow, Dancing on the Brink of the World: Selected Poems of Point Lobos, Porter Gulch Review, and The Peralta Press, and she is the co-author of Nuclear Weapons and Nonproliferation (ABC-CLIO, 2002). She received a B.A. in creative writing and a J.D. from Stanford University.
D'Orge, Jeanne
Jeanne D'Orge (1877-1964) was an accomplished writer when the poems in Lobos were first published. For the 1913 New York Armory Exhibit- so important in pointing directions for twentieth century art- she joined noted poets William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and Wallace Stevens in "saying [her] little piece." In 1923 she was asked to write a series of poems to accompany Cornelius Botke drawings of Point Lobos for Scribner's Magazine. Turning to painting in the thirties, she still continued to write poetry, publishing Voice in the Circle in 1955. Williams selected Lobos as the best book of poems for the Saturday Review of Literature's annual poll. D'Orge founded the Carl Cherry Foundation in 1948. The Carl Cherry Center in Carmel, CA, is best known today for its collection of D'Orge paintings, visiting art exhibits, challenging lectures, intimate concerts, and wide array of theatrical productions.
Drake, Susan Samuels
Susan Samuels Drake's recent publishing credits include her poetic memoir Fields of Courage: Remembering Cesar Chavez & the People Whose Labor Feeds Us as well as essays, nostalgia, features, poetry and interviews for seniorwomen.com, The Progressive, El Andar, and Porter Gulch Review. Her 11 years with what became United Farm Workers, AFL-CIO included nearly 3 years as César Chávez' secretary. Having traveled around the world, this third-generation native Californian settled in Soquel. She is mother of two sons and grandmother of two.
Duncan, Aja Couchois
Born of the California valley, Aja Couchois Duncan has lived up and down the California coast with her partner and their two redheaded dogs. New work is forthcoming from nocturnes (review of the literary arts) and North American Review. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.
Evans, Kate
Kate Evans' poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared, or are forthcoming, in North American Review, Seattle Review, Santa Monica Review, The National Poetry Review, Rhino, Divide, and others. Her book, Negotiating the Self, was published by Routledge in 2002. A recipient of a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Washington, she has almost completed her M.F.A. in poetry and fiction at San Jose State University. She teaches at U.C. Santa Cruz and lives in Santa Cruz with artist and poet Annie Tobin.
Farquhar, Dion
Dion Farquhar is a poet, prose fiction writer, and cultural critic who loves language. An inveterate Manhattanite, twelve years ago, she fell in love with a Santa Cruzan and began the slow and complex process of relocating. Together, they are raising world-gobbling 11-year-old twin boys, so there is never a dull moment. Dion works part-time at the Homeless Garden Project in SC with a great group of people. In her "spare" time, she writes, reads, and sends her work out. Her work is published in Sulfur, boundary 2, Juxta, Cream City Review, alea, Painted Bride Review, Fiction International, etc., and she has a book on reproductive technologies (The Other Machine, Routledge, 1996), AND a poetry manuscript (Jam Today) that she is circulating. She is grateful for email, and loves the Web.
Flowers, Kathleen
Kathleen Flowers is an educator who is passionate about bilingual education. She has lived in Santa Cruz for more than 20 years. Her poems have been published in The Porter Gulch Review and other local periodicals. She was the co-recipient of Cabrillo College's Mary Lonnberg Smith Award for Poetry in 2003.
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Gandzjuk, Gabriel
Born in 1981 in the Tortilla Flats area of Monterey California, USA, Gabriel Gandzjuk feels he writes like a man on his death bed still holding out hope. His work has a wounded tone to it. He's appeared in Homestead Review and The Anthology of Monterey Bay Poets.
Garcia, Diana
Born in a migrant labor camp in the heart of California’s San Joaquin Valley, poet Diana García is the author of When Living Was a Labor Camp, which won a 2001 American Book Award. García is an associate professor at California State University, Monterey Bay, where she teaches in the Creative Writing and Social Action Program and coordinates the Reading, Writing, and Critical Thinking Program at the Institute for Human Communications. She has been an assistant professor of creative writing at Central Connecticut State University and an exchange professor at the University of Freiburg in Freiburg, Germany. She has also been a single mother on welfare, a secretary, a retail store-owner, a personnel manager, and a sentencing consultant to criminal defense attorneys. Her poetry has appeared in many anthologies including El Coro, Paper Dance: 55 Latino Poets, and Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today’s Latino Renaissance. García earned her BA and MFA at San Diego State University.
Gartshore, Bonnie
Bonnie Gartshore was a union activist, a poet, and a writer and editor for The Monterey County Herald for more than 50 years. In addition to two books of poetry, Trying to Put it Together and Taking My Cue from the Walrus, which recall her childhood near the teeming sardine factories of the Depression-era Monterey, The Monterey History and Art Association published a collection of her "Looking Back" columns as a book titled Footprints from the Past. June 9th is Bonnie Gartshore Day in Pacific Grove and Monterey.
Gitin, David
David Gitin's books include: Guitar against the Wall (Panjandrum, San Francisco, 1972); City Air (Ithaca House, Ithaca, 1974); Ideal Space Relations (Morgan Press, Milwaukee, 1976); Legwork (Oyez Press, Berkeley, 1977); This Once: New & Selected Poems 1965-1978 (Blue Wind Press, Berkeley, 1979); Vacuum Tapestries: Poems from Haight-Ashbury Journals (BB Books, England, 1981); The Call (Coffee House, Minneapolis, 1984); Fire Dance (Blue Wind, Berkeley, 1989); Passing Through (Two Spirits Dancing, Pacific Grove, 1994) and two private editions, Woke Up One Morning (1996) and Journey (1997). In addition to co-founding Poets Theatre in San Francisco, he has produced radio programs on KPFA in Berkeley. He teaches Creative Writing at Monterey Peninsula College.
Glick, Bert
Bert Glick, poet, playwright and actor, author of Cookie Aura and I Used To Be Me, has been featured in many venues across California and the country, including The Green Mill in Chicago, The Marsh in San Francisco, The Berkeley Art Museum, The Pacifica Poetry Festival, etc., etc., as well as radio readings on KPFA, Pacifica Radio in Mendicino, UCSF Radio, KKUP, Sunnyvale and KPIG in Santa Cruz.
His comedy, A Night In The Shakespeare Ward, opened March 15 in Sydney, Australia. Bert has also produced and co-written a video The Holy Weed, which was video of the month on www.pot.tv. He also wrote and performed theatrical skits about censorship and the environment at The Spreckels Performance Center, Rohnert Park, CA.
Grube, Patricia
Patricia Grube is a playwright and poet from Santa Cruz. Born in the desert of Arizona, her family moved to California when she was eleven. She grew up in San Francisco and on the coast south of there. Her education at the University of California at Berkeley was interrupted during World War II when she left to marry a pilot. Later when her youngest child was in school she returned to college and received her degrees from UCSC. Although she has been writing all her life she only recently began to read her works publicly and in 2002 published a book of poetry, The Green Door. This book was designed by her daughter, Alice, and illustrated by her son, Dohn. Her work seeks to find meaning in the everyday actions of ordinary people, to understand and find drama and transcendence in their lives. Her plays, Grandpa’s Breakfast, Falling Apples, Found Wanting and Relative Shades have been produced and many others have had staged readings. She is most proud of her talented family, including eight grandchildren.
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Henry, Victor
Victor Henry is a Vietnam veteran, having served with the 9th Infantry Division, 2nd of the 47th Mechanized Infantry, Camp Bearcat, III Corp, 1967-68. He is past president of Veterans for Peace, John Steinbeck IV, Chapter 46, Monterey, California. He has an earned master's degree in English from California State University, Stanislaus in Turlock and an earned master's degree in Library Science from San Jose State University. He is a member of the National Writers Union, Local 7, Santa Cruz/Monterey and is a reference librarian at Monterey Public Library in Monterey, California. He has also published under the name of Victor H. Bausch. His work has appeared in numerous small press magazines, anthologies, and E-zines.
Hull, Akasha Gloria
Poet, writer, historian and critic Akasha Gloria Hull is the author of Soul Talk: The New Spirituality of African American Women and Healing Heart (1989), a volume of original poetry. Other works include Color, Sex and Poetry: Three Women of the Harlem Renaissance (1987), Give Us Each Day: The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1986), and the ground-breaking curriculum guide, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave (1982), a vigorous assertion of the black female voice in response to its marginalization by the feminist and civil rights movements. The book received both the Outstanding Women of Color Award and the Women Educator's Curriculum Material Award.
Akasha Gloria Hull has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the American Association of University Women.
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- Jeffers, Robinson
Robinson Jeffers brought enormous learning in literature, religion, philosophy, languages, myth, and sciences to his poetry. One of his favorite themes was the intense, rugged beauty of the landscape in opposition to the degraded and introverted condition of modern man. Strongly influenced by Nietzsche's concepts of individualism, Jeffers believed that human beings had developed an insanely self-centered view of the world, and felt passionately that we must learn to have greater respect for the rest of creation. Many of Jeffers's narrative poems use incidents of rape, incest, or adultery to express moral despair. The Woman at Point Sur (1927) deals with a minister driven mad by his conflicting desires. The title poem of Cawdor and Other Poems (1928) is based on the myth of Phaedra. In Thurso's Landing (1932), Jeffers reveals, perhaps more than in any of his poems, his abhorrence of modern civilization. His many other volumes include Solstice and Other Poems (1935), containing early use of the Medea story, to which he later returned.
Jel’enedra, J. Esmé
Jonell Esmé Jel’enedra has been a field hand, soda jerk, book reviewer, waitress, ditch digger, school teacher, sales clerk, and used clothing pricer. Currently she is a mother of four, occasional poet, and library employee. She holds a degree in Aesthetic Studies from UC Santa Cruz, which qualifies her to make sweeping judgments about the nature of beauty in the world. She has been published in Ally, Quarry West, Writing for our Lives, Porter Gulch Review, and several anthologies. She is a winner of the Mary Lonnberg Smith Poetry Award and the Quarry West Poetry Award First Prize. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.
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Lober, George
George Lober was born in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1948 and educated in the public schools of San Jose, California. He attended San Jose City College and San Jose State University, earning a degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. He subsequently earned a Master's degree in English with a Creative Writing option from Fresno State University. He currently teaches English at both Monterey Peninsula College and The Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
He is a winner of the Ruth Cable memorial Prize for Poetry (1996) sponsored by Eclectic Literary Forum and his poems have appeared in Spectrum, Sage, The MPC Journal, Eclectic Literary Forum, Quarry West, and The Homestead Review.
Shift of Light (Hummingbird Press, Santa Cruz, CA, 2002) is his first book of poetry.
Look, Angel
Angel Look is a poet, a dream worker, and a maternity nurse who lives close to the sea in Monterey, California.
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Marcus, Morton
Morton Marcus was the l999 Santa Cruz County Artist of The Year. He has published nine volumes of poetry and one novel, including The Santa Cruz Mountain Poems, Pages From A Scrapbook of Immigrants, and When People Could Fly.
Morton has had more than 400 poems in literary journals, and his work has been selected to appear in over 75 anthologies in the United States, Europe and Australia. He taught English and Film at Cabrillo College for thirty years, until his retirement in l998. He has been a longtime co-host of KUSP radio's The Poetry Show.
Masten, Ric
Ric Masten has fourteen books to his credit and his work has been included in scores of interpersonal communication, psychology and public speaking textbooks. However, a Ric Masten piece is primarily composed to be spoken rather than printed - performed rather than perused. He wants his material to be completely accessible to the ear of the casual listener and, in fact, says his favorite audience is made up of people who would normally regard thirty minutes with a poet as cruel and unusual punishment.
Masters, Ryan
Ryan Masters' poetry has been published in a wide range of literary journals including The Iowa Review, Pedestal Magazine, The Absinthe Literary Review and Poetry Motel. His work has been included in So Luminous the Wildflowers: An Anthology of California Poetry (Tebot Bach, 2003) and a chapbook, below the low-water mark, is available from Pudding House Publications (2003). As the 2002/2004 Whitney Latham Lechich poet-in-residence, he founded The Bathyspheric Review and produced two Monterey Bay Poetry Festivals. In 2004, he edited the Anthology of Monterey Bay Poets (Chatoyant Press) which NEA President Dana Gioia called, "terrific...Individual poems demand appreciation- yet the collective success exceeds any one poem's strength." A former staff writer at The Monterey County Weekly and creative writing lecturer at Cal State University Monterey Bay, his prose has appeared in numerous national publications including Surfer Magazine, The Surfer's Journal and Scuba Diving Magazine.
McNeilly, Joseph Keller
Joseph Keller McNeilly was born in 1949 in LaGrange, Indiana. In both tone and subject, much of his writing reflects the rural poverty of his childhood and his work-life connections to the Amish communities of Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan. Following undergraduate studies in soil science and philosophy, Joseph received an MFA in Creative Writing in 1976 from the University of British Columbia. From 1979-1984 he did doctoral study in The History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Initially a playwright (five of his plays have been produced), in 1997 Joseph switched the focus of his writing to poetry prompted by a desire to establish a more intimate, personal connection to the audience. His second book, In Here: Poetry and Short Prose, 2000-2002 (384 pages; illustrated by his son, Ian), was released in March by Hummingbird Press. His first book, Out Here: Poems, 1989-2000, was published in 2001 by Chatoyant Press. In August 2002, Joseph released a CD of his poetry, Exalting the Risk: Poems of Love, Lust and Their Cousins, which is a mix of poems from both collections. He has taught creative writing and literature to college students for twenty-five years. Joseph has lived primarily in Santa Cruz County, California since 1978.
Miller, Henry
A man who lived his life divinely, writer Henry Valentine Miller (1891-1980) was born and raised in New York. In 1929, Miller ran a speakeasy in Greenwich Village, then moved to Paris for nine years where he published the semi-autobiographical novels Tropic of Cancer (1934) and Tropic of Capricorn (1938). Both unforgettable novels of self-confession were deemed pornographic and banned from publication in the United States until 1961. A major literary force of the 1950s and a mentor and lover to Anais Nin, he celebrated the self and senses with poetic and graphic realism. In breaking the barriers of sexual explicitness, he became a folk hero. "There can be no broadening on one's vision without a corresponding leap of love," he said. Critic Edmund Wilson called Miller's narrative of the lost generation "the epitaph for the whole generation of American writers and artists that migrated to Paris after the war." Miller settled in Big Sur, where a remarkable library bears his name today.
Minor, William
William Minor was originally trained as a visual artist (Pratt Institute and U.C.-Berkeley). Attracted by the "multimedia" work of William Blake, e.e. cummings, Kenneth Patchen and Shiko Munakata, (and the voice of Dylan Thomas), he began to write poetry thirty-seven years ago (as a graduate student in Language Arts at San Francisco State), producing his first book containing poems and prints, Pacific Grove, in 1974. Bill has, since that time, published five more books of poetry: For Women Missing or Dead, Goat Pan, Natural Counterpoint (with Paul Oehler; nominated for Pushcart Prize XI ), Poet Santa Cruz: Number 4, and Some Grand Dust (Chatoyant Press). His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies--Poems from Hawaii (The Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts), New Poetry Out of Wisconsin (Stanton & Lee), Quarry West: Poets and Writers of the Monterey Bay--along with short fiction in Best Little Magazine Fiction (NYU Press) and The Colorado Quarterly Centennial Edition. A one-act play, Contacts, was performed at Monterey Peninsula College and then published in The Bellingham Review. A memoir, "On the Nature of Literary Friendship: Paul Oehler," appears on Web Del Sol.
Morrisey, Brian
True human emotions inspire Brian Morrisey to devote words that leave a lasting impression. The founding editor of POESY Magazine, a journal dedicated to linking the east and west coast poetry cultures, Morrisey also received the Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in Communications Studies from Colby-Sawyer College, and is Qualified to be a Member of the Council for Literary Magazines and Presses. Poesy is archived at the University at Buffalo Library, Buffalo, NY and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Moseman, Lori Anderson
Raised in Salinas, Lori Anderson Moseman has worked as a brush-cutter, a timber cruiser, a fish skinner, a hog reporter, a fry cook, a canoe guide, a maid, a landscaper, a bookseller, an editor and an educator. Persona is Lori Anderson Moseman’s second collection of poetry. Her first book, Cultivating Excess, won the Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize back in 1991, and her chapbook, Walking the Dead, won the 1990 Heaven Bone International Chapbook contest. She has a M.F.A. in Poetry from the Iowa Writers Workshop and an M.F.A. in Electronic Arts from iEAR Studios. Her doctorate is in Writing, Teaching and Criticism was from the University at Albany. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches in Queens at Queensborough Community College. Her videopoems have screened at the Vancouver Videopoem Festival and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. Her performance persona, Canoehead, is part of a one-woman show, How I Became Canoehead.
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Parker, Frank
Author of the book Heart Shaped Blossoms, Frank Parker maintains a web site, Frank's Home, which contains the poetry of Michael Rothenberg, David Gitin, George Mattingly, Jim Wilson, Allison Inaba, Joan Cofrancesco, Erminia Passannanti and translations of Jacques Prévert by Anne Berkeley among others. His poem "Wild with Spring" won a prize in “Quarry West 35/36: Poets and Writers of the Monterey Bay”, edited by Ken Weisner, judged by Francisco X. Alarcón, in the Spring of 2000. Frank Parker is a Coordinator with Poetry on the Peaks, a project of Ram Devineni, Rattapallax Press, and the United Nation’s International Year of Mountains. Poetry on the Peaks seeks “to increase international awareness of the global importance of mountain ecosystems. Poetry on the Peaks plans to celebrate the relationship between humanity to nature through poetry by setting-up poetry readings on as many of the mountains in the world and corresponding cities. The program hopes to increase awareness of pressing environmental and social issues and promote cultural heritage of mountain societies around the world.”
Petruccelli, Kathryn
Kathryn Petruccelli holds a Master of Arts degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MATESOL) from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She currently teaches academic writing at California State University - Monterey Bay and conducts poetry workshops with California Poets in the Schools and other organizations. She is a member of the Central California Writing Project. She reads her poetry at slams and open mic venues around the Bay areas and has featured at Poetry Santa Cruz's POET/SPEAK and on KUSP's "The Poetry Show." Kathryn is co-founder and co-host of the twice-monthly Rubber Chicken Poetry Slam! & Open Mic in Monterey. Some of her work is collected in a chapbook called Fits n Starts. Kathryn was born in Amityville, New York in 1969, and her east coast heart is currently searching for the meaning of life in Monterey, California.
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Rich, Adrienne
Adrienne Rich was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1929. She is the author of nearly twenty volumes of poetry, including Fox: Poems 1998-2000 (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001), Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998 (1999); Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995 (1995); Collected Early Poems: 1950-1970 (1993); An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 (1991); Time's Power: Poems 1985-1988 (1989); The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New 1950-1984 (1984); The Dream of a Common Language (1978); and Diving into the Wreck (1973). She is also the author of several books of nonfiction prose, including Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations (W. W. Norton, 2001), What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (1993) and Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1986). Rich has received the Bollingen Prize, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the National Book Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship; she is also a former Academy Chancellor. In 1997 Adrienne Rich was awarded the Academy's Wallace Stevens Award for outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.
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Schulman, Dayn
Dayn Schulman (1971-2006) was a peaceful warrior, a startling and gifted spirit, an iconoclast, a lover, a tremendous surfer and waterman, a wildman, an insightful and patient human, a musician, a holy goof, and in the end, something of a mystery to even his best friends. To learn more about this amazing poet visit the Dayn Schulman Poetry Archive.
Shaw, Tilly Washburn
By birthright a New Englander, Tilly Washburn Shaw came west to Santa Cruz, California, in mid-life, to join in building a new campus of the University of California in the late 60's, often returned later to Massachusetts in the summer. She did her bachelor's degree at Swarthmore, her doctorate at Yale in Comparative Literature; taught at Haverford College, Douglas College of Rutgers, and Yale University before joining the Literature faculty at UC/Santa Cruz. When younger, she published a book on three modern poets and later began writing poetry herself. After 37 years of teaching, she retired to the enjoyments of age, lives in Santa Cruz with her fruit trees, friends, writing groups and books, does lay counseling with seniors, travels, swims in any ocean she is able to.
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh's New Town in 1850. He died forty-four years later on a small Samoan island in the Pacific. During his short life he travelled the world, defied convention, and made himself one of the most famous writers of the 19th century. Click here for a complete collection of his poems.
Swanger, David
David Swanger has written several books of poetry, and, in one instance, about poetry. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry and the Foley Award, he is Professor of Education and Creative Writing at UC Santa Cruz. His publications include Style (Chapbook, Pudding House Publications, 2002), This Waking Unafraid (University of Missouri Press, 1995) Family (with Atkinson, Shaw and Sward] Small Poetry Press, 1994), Inside the Horse (Ithaca House, 1981), The Shape of Waters (Ithaca House, 1978), Lemming Song (Chapbook, Jazz Press, 1976), and The Poem as Process (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974).
Sward, Robert
Guggenheim award-winner Robert Sward teaches at UC Extension in Santa Cruz. Chosen by Lucille Clifton to receive a Villa Montalvo Literary Arts Award, he is the author of 16 books including Four Incarnations, New & Selected Poems (Coffee House Press). Contributing Editor to the eZine Blue Moon Review, he has just completed a new book, Heavenly Sex (Black Moss Press, Canada).
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Tabor, Maria Garcia
Maria Garcia Tabor teaches at Hartnell College in Salinas. She is the author of a book of poetry, Surrender Dorothy, and is editor of The Homestead Review. Her work has appeared in the The Maryland Poetry Review, The Cafe Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Cold Mountain Review, Cipactli, Dream International Quarterly, Pennsylvania English, and LUNA. She is also the Co-founder and director of Poetic Voices/Voces Poeticas, a Tri-county Poetry Competition (Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito) held the first week in April. Her interviews with Ray Gonzalez and Julia Alvarez have appeared in Poets & Writers and Prairie Schooner.
Thompson, Garland
Garland Thompson Jr. is the 2007/2009 Pacific Grove Poet-in-Residence. APoet, an Actor, Playwright and Producer, Garland's career spans the left and right coasts, and the last 20 plus years. As a Poet and Spoken Word Artist Garland has been blessed to tour the U.S and Europe. His spoken word credentials include three national tours with Dallas Poet Clebo Rainey, and in 1998 he was asked to join "The Latino Poets Tour" by Miguel Algarin, founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café. The tour performed in England and Scotland with the U.K. band Sidestepper. He has featured at, hosted and produced Poetry readings and Slams across the nation, and locally is known as the creator and producer of the West Coast Championship Poetry Slam, an annual event that has been happening in Big Sur, CA at the Henry Miller Memorial Library since 1998. He is also the co-founder of The Rubber Chicken Poetry Slam. He is the author of a chapbook, "Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Suit!" (1993).
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Vecchione, Patrice
Patrice Vecchione is a widely published poet and book editor whose poems have appeared in such magazines and anthologies as Quarry West, Puerto Del Sol, Women of the 14th Moon (anthology- Crossing Press), and Lovers (anthology- Crossing Press). Her book Territory of the Wind is available from Many Names Press. Following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake she edited Fault Lines: Children's Earthquake Poetry. Patrice has co-edited several books for Penguin Putnam including: Catholic Girls and Storming Heaven's Gate: Spiritual Writings By Women. She edits the poetry section for the newspaper, La Gazette: A Feminist Forum for the Central Coast.Through her program The Heart of the Word: Poetry and the Imagination, Patrice has taught poetry to children and adults along the central coast for nearly 25 years. She consults and lectures nationally, and has lead workshops for community groups such at The Central California Writing Project, The Homeless Garden Project, and The Pajaro Valley Shelter Services, as well as for the Monterey and the Santa Cruz county libraries. She has been a radio host for Santa Cruz's KUSP: the National Public Radio Affiliate for the Central Coast, broadcasting a children's program and a poetry show and currently guest hosts on KAZU radio in Pacific Grove.
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Weisner, Ken
Ken Weisner is a poet, teacher, and editor, living in Santa Cruz, California. He has published his work widely in national journals including The Antioch Review, Seneca Review, The Brooklyn Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, and others. His first full length collection, The Sacred Geometry of Pedestrians, was published in 2002 by Hummingbird Press. Weisner won numerous awards for his fifteen years as editor of Quarry West magazine, a national literary journal published out of Porter College at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is now a contributing editor at Red Wheelbarrow, De Anza College's literary journal. Born and raised in Oakland, Weisner has a B.A. from Oberlin College, an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and a Ph.D in American Literature from U.C. Santa Cruz, where he also taught writing for many years. For over a decade, he was active as a Poet-in-the-Schools throughout the Central California Coast through the poetry/consulting organization "Heart of the Word." Weisner now devotes his full teaching energies to the English Department at De Anza College in Cupertino. He is also a French horn player, a baseball lover, and the father of two teenage sons.
Whitman, Neal
Neal Whitman is a retired professor from the University of Utah School of Medicine where he taught medical staff how to use the Literary, Visual, and Performing Arts to learn more of what we think and feel about "Life, Death, and Everything In Between." Neal is a volunteer book shelver at the Pacific Grove Library and a volunteer docent at the Robinson Jeffers Tor House where he is a Life Member of the Tor House Foundation. He also is a member of the PGPGPG (the Pacific Grove Pretty Good Poetry Group). His poems have appeared in the Monterey Poetry Review and The MacGuffin and is author of a chapbook, Chapter & Verse. Local residents are encouraged to wave (but not honk) when they see his red Saab with the personalized auto plate: PG POET. He and his wife, Elaine, combine voices and music in local poetry readings.
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Young, Gary
Husband, father of two boys, master letterpress printer, longtime teacher, much-collected visual artist, and award-winning poet, Gary Young has been the editor and publisher of the Greenhouse Review Press since 1975. Among his honors are the James D. Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation and fellowships from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The author of five books including Hands and The Dream of a Moral Life, his trilogy of recent works--Days, Braver Deeds, and If He Had--has been published in a collection called No Other Life by Creative Arts Books.
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