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Here Is a Pen: An Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets

Neil Aitken, Tamiko Beyer, Ching-In Chen, Marilyn Chin, Oliver de la Paz, Vanessa Huang, Janine Joseph, Joseph O. Legaspi, Ngoc Luu, Sally Wen Mao, Noel Pabillo Mariano, Soham Patel, Jai Arun Ravine, Margaret Rhee, Melissa Roxas, Brynn Saito, Sharon Suzuki-Martinez, Yael Villafranca, Andre Yang, and Debbie Yee. Maybe the best seven dollars you'll spend all year --- Here Is a Pen: An Anthology of West Coast Kundiman Poets, available now from Achiote Press.

I will be reading on The Blood-Jet Writing Hour on blogtalkradio with Host Rachelle Cruz on Friday, November 20, 2009 @ 10:00 a.m. I hope you can tune in. This fall's guests include Jayne Cortez, Kim Addonizio, Dorianne Laux, and others.

You in the Valley --- I will be reading and signing copies of my book at Reedley College on October 7 @ 1:00 p.m. Hope to see you. Maybe the premier issue of The Packinghouse Review will be there.

Kundiman - Achiote Press - PAWA Readings, Sept. 17 & Sept. 19

This week there are two incredible readings in Berkeley and San Francisco on Sept. 17 & Sept. 19 --- poets include Joseph Legaspi, Oliver De La Paz, Ching-In Chen, Debbie Yee, Margaret Rhee, Neil Aitken, and Mari L'Esperance. This is what it's about. Go and enjoy.

NPR calls Yours Truly, The Commuter "one the year's best albums," and you can hear some of it here: Jason Lytle performing live at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City on July 11, 2009. I've seen Grandaddy twice---once at Slim's in San Francisco and once in Modesto in a tiny bar. Here they are in NYC, one night after playing in Brooklyn. Great new album, Jason.

Michael Luis Medrano's Born in the Cavity of Sunsets Forthcoming from Bilingual Review Press

Can't wait for this---available for pre-order now, due September 30, 2009 from Bilingual Review Press: Michael Luis Medrano's first collection of poems, Born in the Cavity of Sunsets. This press is the one that brought you Andres Montoya's the ice worker sings and other poems. I've respected Mike's poems for years and have looked forward to this book for a while now. Exciting to see it happening. Mike's got an MFA from the University of Minnesota, and he is the creator and co-host of the poetry radio program, Pakatelas, here in Fresno. His poems bristle with new images collaged with a rare visionary grit. I hope you'll check out the book.

"This collection is amazing. It soars, leaps, and also bows down to the earth and its dark bones. What I love about Medrano's work is his sincerity and his touching reach, his tender voices. . . . Medrano is ahead of his cadre. His reach is expansive." --- Juan Felipe Herrera, University of California, Riverside