On the 5/1/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Mario Ellis Hill shares his love of advocacy work and how this guides his writing as a poet. Dr. Andy and Hill share their love of jazz and how the protean and improvisational music genre can inspire, inform, and shape poetry. Hill reads a poem about becoming a poet and comments upon the balance between memorization and improvisation that he utilizes in live performances. Michael French joins the episode and shares his preference for the cinema industry over interactive gaming. French then informs listeners about the many upcoming events coordinated by the Arts Department, like an art talk with Maria Maea, exhibits, noon concerts, and a cultural exhibit about contemporary design in China. Dr. Andy then reads a poem to commemorate Karim Abou Najm's life.

Mario Ellis Hill began writing & performing poetry in the early 1990’s, and has since made an impact as a featured poet/spoken word artist throughout the Sacramento region, California & beyond. He is the founder & leader of the Poetry Machine - a performance group of rotating artists that fuses spoken word, live music, movement & song. Mario served as a co-host of Joe Montoya’s Poetry Unplugged! Open Mic Series in Sacramento, CA, and host of Open Stage Open Mic Series in Davis, CA. Besides featuring at poetry venues & open mics, Mario also delved into the world of slam poetry. He was crowned the 1994 San Francisco ‘Aloud’ Anthology Poetry Slam Champion, and 1998 KALX FM Poetry Slam Champion. He also served as a slam team member representing San Francisco (1995) & Chico/North Valley (1997) in the National Poetry Slam. Events & venues that Mario has performed at include the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (NYC), The Knitting Factory (NYC), University of the Philippines - Diliman, California State Fair, Yoshi’s (Oakland), San Francisco Jazz Festival, Sacramento Music Festival, Floricanto Poetry Festival, UC Davis Whole Earth Festival, Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, and California State Summer School for the Arts. Published works can be found in Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems, Jive’s In The Jug, Poetry Now, Paleoanthology, Sex In Public, The Flatlander, New Poets Revolution, and Nevada County Poetry Series: Year 2001 Anthology.

Michael G. French is an arts and theatre events marketing specialist for the UC Davis College of Letters and Science. He promotes performances and events for the departments of Art and Art History, Cinema and Digital Media, Design, Music, and Theatre and Dance. French previously held similar positions at Southern Utah University’s College of Performing and Visual Arts, American Musical Theatre of San Jose, Pacific Conservatory Theatre and the Walnut Street Theatre. He earned his bachelor’s degree at New Jersey City University.

The Poetry Night Reading Series is excited to feature Sacramento poets Mario Ellis Hill and Bill Carr at 7 PM on Thursday, May 2nd, 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 Twitter at https://twitter.com/andyojones.

On the 4/17/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Jeri Howitt begins the podcast episode by sharing her love of reading, which inspired her to found the reading series Stories on Stage Davis. This recurring event showcases the stories of emerging and established authors to make the art of storytelling more accessible through visual means. The storytelling frequently intersects with the art in the Pence Gallery, where this event takes place. Nooneh Gyurjyan is the next guest and she discusses her role as Editor in Chief for the creative writing and art journal Open Ceilings. She explains their strategy of compiling two publications a year, each given a thoughtful theme selected by members of the team to aid in the curation process. Robi Castaneda, a second-year music and political science major, closes out the podcast by sharing information about his upcoming piano recital at the Ann E. Pitzer Center on May 3rd at 5 pm.

Many Davis, California parents and their children will fondly remember the author, Jeri Howitt, as the Founder/Director of Partners in Learning for over twenty years. Others know her for her work as the founding director of Stories on Stage Davis, the successful event that presents established and emerging authors, with selections of their work performed by professional actors at the Pence Gallery.

Nooneh Gyurjyan is a third-year student studying English and Professional Writing at UC Davis. She is an editor by trade, a writer by passion, and a baker by necessity. She is currently working as the Editor in Chief of Content for Open Ceilings, a local literary magazine run by UC Davis undergraduates. Nooneh also works on campus at the ASUCD Coffee House bakery.

The Poetry Night Reading Series occurs on the first and third Thursdays of the month at the John Natsoulas Gallery (521 First Street), beginning at 8pm. An open mic follows the featured performer. Come early to find a seat or a spot on the open mic signup sheet. The Poetry Night Reading Series is hosted by Dr. Andy Jones, The Poet Laureate Emeritus of 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 Twitter at https://twitter.com/andyojones.

On the 4/3/24 edition of Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Dr. Andy is joined by the Poet Laureate of Davis, Julia B. Levine, and shares the intersectionality between the natural environment and the difficulties of her grandson’s experience with leukemia that she has recently been exploring through her writing. She then reads a poem that captured her time at a lavender farm, and another poem, inspired by her husband, about the relationships between wasps and figs. Rebecca Foust is the next guest, and she shares her deep love for reading to live audiences. She shares a poem about marriage and slow erosion. She raises points about awareness and intuition, and their incredible value in the world of writing. Foust refers to this collection of details as fodder for future poems as “gestation.”

Julia B. Levine’s poetry has won many awards, including a 2021 Nautilus Award for her fifth poetry collection, Ordinary Psalms, (LSU press, 2021), as well as the 2015 Northern California Book Award in Poetry for her fourth collection, Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight, (LSU, 2014). Recently she has won the 2024 Hippocrates International Prize for Poetry and Medicine, the 2023 Oran Perry Burke Award from The Southern Review, the 2022 Steve Kowit Poetry Prize, the 2020 Bellevue Literary Review Poetry Award, as well as a 2022 American Academy of Poetry Poet Laureate Fellowship for her work in building resilience in teenagers related to climate change through poetry, science and technology. She received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MFA in poetry from Pacific University. Currently, she serves as Poet Laureate of Davis.

Rebecca Foust's fourth book, Only (Four Way Books 2022), earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was recently reviewed by Mark Jarmon in The Hudson Review. Her poems appear in journals including Narrative, POETRY, Ploughshares, and Southern Review, and in 2023 won the New Ohio Review prize and were runner-up for the Missouri Review Editors’ Prize. Past recognitions include the James Hearst, Pablo Neruda, and Poetry International prizes, fellowships at Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and a Marin County Poet Laureateship where Rebecca’s program, “Poetry as Sanctuary,” featured readings by local immigrant poets.

The Poetry Night Reading Series is excited to feature Davis Poet Laureate Julia B. Levine and Rebecca Foust at 7 PM on Thursday, April 4th, 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 Twitter at https://twitter.com/andyojones.