Shelter in Sunset Reading Series

In but a moment's time, our lives have become hyperlocalized. Sheltering in place, we become intensely aware of where we are, and with whom. Bringing together poets in the neighborhood is one way to reimagine place, belonging, and how we make these. The map of poetry often allows us to lose restrictions of time and space. In another way, place seeps through all that we do—all that we are.

Here, then. Presenting the Shelter in Sunset Reading Series, edition one, all the way from the Sunset District in Yelamu (San Francisco).

FEATURING:

Art Beck
Monica Mody
Pireeni Sundaralingam
Russell Reza-Khaliq Gonzaga
Sarah Heady

Organized and hosted by Monica Mody
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Date And Time:
​Sat, May 16, 2020, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM PDT

RSVP here: 
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shelter-in-sunset-reading-series-registration-7135164469

You will be sent the details of the video conference 90 minutes before the reading.

(This event will not be recorded.)

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ART BECK

My poems, essays and translations have appeared in a number of lit-journals, anthologies, small press volumes and chapbooks. From 2009 through 2012, I was a twice yearly contributor to, the Los Angeles poetry magazine, Rattle‘s, since discontinued, e-issues with a series of essays on translating poetry under the byline The Impertinent Duet.

MONICA MODY

Monica Mody is the author of Kala Pani (1913 Press) and two cross-genre chapbooks. Her poetry also appears in Poetry International, Boston Review, Indian Quarterly, Eleven Eleven, and Immanence Journal, among other places. She holds a PhD in East West Psychology and an MFA in Creative Writing. Her awards include the Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Women and Mythology for her multi-genre dissertation, the Nicholas Sparks Postgraduate Writer-in-Residence Prize from the University of Notre Dame, Naropa's Zora Neale Hurston Award, and the Toto Funds the Arts Award for Creative Writing. Monica was born in Ranchi, India and lives by the ocean without a cat. More at drmonicamody.com.

PIREENI SUNDARALINGAM

Pireeni Sundaralingam’s poems have appeared in journals such as American Poetry Review and Ploughshares, and been translated into five languages. She has held national fellowships in poetry, including the PEN USA Rosenthal Fellowship, and co-edited “Indivisible” the first anthology of South Asian American poetry, winner of the Northern California Book Award and the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Book Award.

RUSSELL REZA-KHALIQ GONZAGA

Russell Reza-Khaliq Gonzaga has hosted and organized events and workshops including the Sierra Poetry Festival, the Center Camp Spoken Word Stage at Burning Man, and the weekly ELYSEUM Writers Workshops at Harbin Hot Springs. Russell is Poet Laureate Emeritus of Lake County and has represented San Francisco for 3 years at the National Poetry Slam and served as Reno's first Poetry Slam Master to bring a team to Nationals. As an Arts Educator he has worked with several organizations including YouthSpeaks and WritersCorps. He is also recipient of the Certificate of Honor from San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors and a declaration of Russell Gonzaga Day. Russell has recently returned to San Francisco after a firestorm destroyed his home, business, and property at Harbin Hot Springs. He is the current Poetry Editor for The Fabulist literary website and has been working at the Sunset Andronico's market during the Covid-19 lockdown.

SARAH HEADY

Sarah Heady is a poet and essayist interested in place, history, and the built environment. She is the author of Corduroy Road (dancing girl press, forthcoming 2020), Niagara Transnational (Fourteen Hills), winner of the 2013 Michael Rubin Book Award, and Tatted Insertion, a limited edition letterpress chapbook with artist Leah Virsik. Sarah is a co-editor of Drop Leaf Press, a small women-run poetry collective. She is also the librettist of Halcyon, a new opera about the death and life of a women’s college, currently in development with composer Joshua Groffman and producer Vital Opera. Her manuscript “Comfort” was a finalist for the 2019 Ahsahta Press Sawtooth Poetry Prize and the 2017 National Poetry Series. More at sarahheady.com.