BIO FOR ARCATA POET DARYL NGEE CHINN

On Thursday, April 21st at 7:30pm, The CITART/Poets & Writers Third Thursday Poetry Reading Series at CITYART will feature Humboldt County poet Daryl Ngee Chinn. Daryl Ngee Chinn is a poet and poet-teacher for the California Poets in the Schools. He is also an active visiting poet-teacher for Artists in Residence programs in Nevada, South Dakota, and Alaska. The University of Florida Press published SOFT PARTS OF THE BACK in 1989. His poems have appeared in many journals including The Florida Review, Pendulum, Center Stage and the Greenfield Review. In recent years he has published limited editions of chapbooks about food, family, and the edge of the senses, as well as artist books. Recently he has been president of the North Redwood Book Arts Guild and Director of the Redwood Coast Writers Center.

He has a Master’s Degree from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. In addition to his teaching career, he has been a television cameraman, camera salesman, admissions counselor and Chinese cooking teacher. He speaks the old dialect of Chinese learned from his Grandmother, which he passed on to his children.

This event is supported by Point Arena CITYART and by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation. TOP

BIO FOR SF POET JOHN OLIVER SIMON

John Oliver Simon is a fifth–generation Californian, born April 21, 1942. Author of numerous books and translations (in both English and Spanish), he has been teaching poetry through the California Poets In the Schools program since 1971 and also served as CPITS Statewide Coordinator. He also serves as the Associate Director of Poetry Inside Out, a project of the Center for Art in Translation, and is a Contributing Editor to Poetry Flash and Temple.

His volumes of poetry include: Roads to Dawn Lake (Oyez, 1968); Rattlesnake Grass (Hanging Loose, 1976); Neither Of Us Can Break the Other’s Hold: Poems for my father (Shameless Hussy Press, 1981); Lord of the House of Dawn (Bombshelter Press, 1991), Son Caminos (poems in Spanish, Hotel Ambosmundos, Mexico City, 1997), Caminante: A Narrow Road Into the Far South, 131 Octaves (Creative Arts Book Company, 2002; ISBN 0-88739-399-3). Translations of Light (bilingual, with Mexican poet Elsa Cross, Entrelíneas Editores, San Antonio, Texas, 2004). He has also published twelve chapbooks of poetry.

Gary Snyder writes of John Oliver Simon’s book Caminante: “this is a major poem, gritty and elegant, hard-earned, oriented by stars and late night conversations on the long road. John O., like an old time Chinese poet, weaves through history, politics, poverty, geography, poetry, spirit, friendship, love, learning, style and deep mind; while travelling a continent. Terse drifting lyric poems of eight lines each, and each one in a compelling contra dance with its own ‘comentario.’ The commentaries also are poems of sly lyric turns—the realism of magic—the illusions of information. I was held almost breathless by this sequence from start to end. ‘Playing ball in the underworld, circling the fire according to the rhythms of the stars.’”

He has had over 250 poems published in journals and anthologies including: Abraxas, Aldebaran Review, Americas Review, Anemone, Arsenic Lobster, Avalanche, APR, Artful Dodge, Bastard Review, Cafe Review, Caliban, City Lights Review, Crab Orchard Review, Crazy River, Elysian Fields Quarterly, Exit 13, Five Fingers Review, Great River Review, Hand to Mouth, Hanging Loose, Imaginari, Jack, Luna, Lyric, MIPOesias, Monserrat Review, NewNowNowNew, OntheBus, Poetry Flash, Poetry Motel, Poets On, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, Rain City Review, Red Dirt, Rohwedder, Runes, Sculpture Gardens Review, Temple, Tight, Two Ages, Two Lines, Windhorse Review and Zyzzyva.

In addition, he has translated numerous Spanish speaking poets, including: Velocities of the Possible, twelve poems by Gonzalo Rojas with English translation in bilingual, letterpress, hand sewn edition, Red Dragonfly Press, Northfield, Minnesota. From the Lightning, selected poems of Gonzalo Rojas, to be published shortly by Green Integer, and over 300 translations published in many North American journals and anthologies of work by contemporary poets from Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panamá, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. He has also participated in international poetry festivals in Medellín, Colombia, 1996; and Rosario, Argentina, 1997. In 2001, he won a NEA Literature Fellowship in Translation, for his work with Gonzalo Rojas. TOP

BIO FOR MARIN POET TERRI GLASS

Terri Glass is a poet deeply committed to the ability of language to transform oneself and one's culture. A professional poet, teacher and writer since 1987, her mission has been to make poetry accessible to as many people as possible. She is a River of Words facilitator, a project founded by the former U.S. Poet-Laureate, Robert Hass where she teaches teachers nationwide how to incorporate environmental awareness with poetic writing. She is also a community based artist, coordinating the Poets in the Schools program for Marin County, CA working in over 20 public and private schools teaching children K-12, the art of poetry writing. She has been awarded grants to facilitate poetry workshops in alternative settings in the Bay area from Senior Access Centers to the Kentfield Rehabilitation Hospital and the Center for Attitudinal Healing. She also currently conducts a spiritual poetry writing class for adults called Journey to the Center of Your Soul.

Terri was born in 1954 in Washington state and began writing in her early teens. She was amazed how poetry could uncover truths about herself that her logical brain had no knowledge of. She became entranced by infinite play with words and the feeling of timelessness when deeply engaged in the poetic process. Her early poetry is filled with the lush nature imagery of the Pacific Northwest and she still writes about a sense of place today. Her early influences were the poets, William Stafford, the former Poet Laureate of Oregon and the national best selling author, Robert Bly who both acted as mentors and encouraged her to forge deeper into her writing. She published her first poem at age 26 and a chapbook, Mermaid's Secret at age 30. She moved to California shortly after and began her teaching of poetry at various institutions such as The Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and Sonoma State University.

Terri published her first book of poems at age 37 called Unveiling the Mystical Light which is a blend of inner and outer worlds of nature and spirit. She has been published in a variety of journals, anthologies and magazines such as Science of Mind, Calendar magazine of San Francisco, Beside the Sleeping Maiden - Poets of Marin. She has read her poetry in several Bay area bookstores (ie. Cody's, Borders, Clean Well Lighted Place for Books) and in many settings along the West Coast from colleges, to conferences, art galleries and open spaces. Terri has collaborated with a variety of artists and experimented with a music and poetry project in 1996 at San Pedro School in San Rafael, CA with jazz musician, Marcia Miget. Here she began to see how the combination of these two art forms added a heightened dimension to one another. She later met the musician, John Walsh and was inspired to collaborate on a music and poetry CD entitled The Body of the Living Future, poems that weave the sensual, emotional and spiritual realms of the human experience leading to an alchemical process of transformation. Peter Russell, the author of The Global Brain calls The Body of the Living Future, " Exciting, rich and sensual."

Terri's poetry embodies a deep conviction of the power of words to evoke a feeling of wholeness, a connection to what is greater, what is possible - the body of the living future. TOP

BIO FOR VENTURA POET LUCIA LEMIEUX

Lucia Lemieux has received three Artist-In-Residence grant awards for poetry from the California Arts Council (2001-2004). Her work is featured in Rhythm & Words (The Best Press, 2004); Moon Won’t Leave Me Alone, Heart Flip; Nest of Freedom (California Poets in the Schools Press, 2001, 02 and 2003); Moving Pictures: Nine Los Angeles Poets (The Best Press, 1997); Dancing Across County Lines (with Jack Grapes) (Bombshelter Press, 2001), ONTHEBUS, and several other publications. She is the creator of the innovative workshop, “Writing from the Collective Unconscious”, which has been presented at Focus on the Masters, the AAUW Creative Options for Women event at California Lutheran University, at WriteFest 2001, and at other conferences across California. Lucia has read her poetry throughout the Western U.S. but is best known for her outlandish spoken word production, “DADA-YAYA: The Hobbyhourse Has Left the Building, ” which featured poetic works inspired of art by collagist Jon Sebastian and photo-abstrationist, Ray Lemieux. Lucia also created the “Free the Verse” poetry competition for young people, a contest for all Ventura County K-12 students. A member of PEN and an award-winning documentary writer, Lucia received her M.F.A. from the American Film Institute. Lucia lives with her husband and daughter in Ventura County, where she coordinates the California Poets in the Schools program. She is currently working on a new novel about Hollywood. TOP

BIO FOR MENDOCINO POET JAY FRANKSTON

Jay Frankston was raised in Paris, France, and came to the U.S. in 1942.He became a lawyer and practiced on his own in New York for nearly twenty years, reaching the top of his profession, sculpting and writing at the same time. In 1972 he gave up law and New York and moved himself and his family to Northern California where he became a college instructor and continued to sculpt and write. He is the author of several books and of a true tale entitled "A Christmas Story", which was published in New York, condensed in Reader's Digest, and translated into 15 languages. He has read in Paris, Madrid, and Prague, as well as San Francisco. A new book entitled "Tales of Mendocino, the Way we Were " is nearing completion and will be out within the next few months. TOP

BIO FOR SF POET HAL ROBINS

Harry S. Robins was born on November 28, 1950 in Lebanon, Indiana, the son of Harry Franklin Robins and Mary Louise Scifres Robins. In 1972 Robins graduated from the University of Arizona, where he majored in English and chose History as his minor. Robins has worked as a truck driver and construction worker, filmmaker, film and stage actor, playwright, film inspector, voice-over talent for films and the electronic game industry, radio broadcaster and national television show announcer. His voice is associated with the popular game, Half-Life, which won the title of Game of the Year in 1999. In the field of the graphic arts, he is a well-known comic book artist, muralist and illustrator whose cartoons and drawings have been published in England and on the Continent. In the late 1980's, Robins became involved in the founding of the then Dallas-based Church of the SubGenius. Since then, he has regularly appeared at SubGenius "Devivals," or gatherings, as a lecturer and performer. For the past five years he has put on an annual one-man show in San Francisco, and each year is a featured talent as part of the Burning Man Arts Festival at Black Rock City, Nevada.

Robins has taken his show to Oakland, Portland, Seattle, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Tucson, Arizona among other cities. Based in San Francisco, he performs a weekly night club act and, for the last twenty years, a weekly radio broadcast on Berkeley's radio KPFA . Last year Lessley Anderson did a 6-page article about me for the SF Weekly, with pictures, which was also posted on-line. If it is still there, an Internet search engine might bring you to it. If not, I have copies and could bring one to the Odeon to give you if you are able to come to my next show...TOP

BIO FOR BERKELEY POET KIRK LUMPKIN

Kirk Lumpkin is a poet, musician, & singer/songwriter. Kirk Lumpkin. He is the author of two books of poetry, In Deep and Co-Hearing. Kirk has performed his poetry and music in festivals, clubs, bookstores, and cafes all around the San Francisco Bay Area and much of Northern California. He has also done poetry readings in England and Scotland under the auspices of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). He is the lead vocalist in The Word-Music Continuum (spoken word/music band) and in the Wild Buds (West Coast Mardi Gras Band). This year (2004) he was a finalist in the Unisong International Song Contest and scored an honorable mention in The John Lennon Songwriting contest.

Last year (2003) he went on indefinite hiatus from hosting the Cafe International Series (San Francisco Bay Guardian "Best Spoken Word Open Mic"), which he'd been with since 1994. He hosted the spoken word open mic at Burning Man (1997, '98, & '99). He coordinated the Ecology Center Literary Series 1997-99. As part of his work as the Special Events & Promotions Coordinator for the Berkeley Farmers¹ Market (a program of the Ecology Center) he's developed a collaboration with Poetry Flash and Ecocity Builders in presenting the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, hosted annually by former U.S. Poet Laureate, Robert Hass. TOP

For more information on Kirk go to his web site: www.KirkLumpkin.com.