POETRY SERIES |
27th Reading(SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTOGRAPHS)
4th SUNDAY 06-24-12
Featured Poet
|
Brendan Constantine |
Brendan Constantine was born in 1967, the second child of two working actors,
and named after Irish playwright Brendan Behan. An ardent supporter of
Southern California’s poetry communities and one of its most recognized
poets, he has served as a teacher of poetry in local schools and colleges
for the last eighteen years. In addition to this, he regularly brings
poetry workshops to foster children and eldercare centers. In 2002, Mr. Constantine
was nominated for Poet Laureate of the state of California.
His first collection, Letters To Guns, was released in February 2009
from Red Hen Press and continues to receive acclaim. His work has appeared
in numerous journals, most notably Ploughshares, FIELD, Ninth Letter,
The Pinch, ArtLife, and LA Times Bestseller The Underground Guide to
Los Angeles. His collection, Birthday Girl With Possum
(2011 Write Bloody Press), was a nominee for the National Book Award.
Mr. Constantine is currently poet in residence at the Windward School in
West Los Angeles. He is also working with The Alzheimer’s Poetry
Project, bringing poetry workshops to Alzheimer's patients throughout the
southland. He holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives
in Hollywood at actor
Bela Lugosi’s last address.
A new collection of poems, Calamity Joe, was released by Red Hen Press
in March, 2012.
brendanconstantine.com |
Words are a lens to focus one's mind. Ayn Rand |
What is needed is, in the end, simply this: solitude, great inner solitude. Going into yourself and meeting no one for hours on end, that is what you must be able to attain. Rainer Maria Rilke |
There are two kinds of writers: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder. Brian Aldiss |
Language cares. Howard Nemerov |
I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done. Stephen Wright |
D.B. Pacini Introducing Brendan Constantine |
Brendan Constantine |
Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little. Tom Stoppard |
Pay attention to the sound of words. Dave Wolverton |
Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. E.L. Doctorow |
There is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented writer can't get a good story out of it. Lawrence Watt-Evans |
The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. Mary Heaton Vorse |
A story isn't about a moment in time; a story is about the moment in time. W. D. Wetherell |
There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write. Terry Pratchett |
Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work. We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to a human mind. Lewis Thomas |
A teacher is a person who never says anything once. Howard Nemerov |
I am a part of all I have read. John Kieran |
We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way. Lewis Thomas |
I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world. Charles Dickens |
Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences. Anne McCaffrey |
A book, a true book, is the writer's confessional. For, whether he would have it so or not, he is betrayed, directly or indirectly, by his characters, into presenting publicly his innermost feelings. Nelson Algren |
I shall weave a suit of leaves. At once. With acorns for buttons. Shirley Jackson |
All the information you need can be given in dialogue. Elmore Leonard |
A writer never has a vacation. For a writer's life consists of either writing or thinking about writing. Eugene Ionesco |
Some of the secret joys of living are not found by rushing from point A to point B, but by inventing some imaginary letters along the way. Douglas Pagels |
A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails. Donna Roberts |
If you cannot see God in all, you cannot see God at all. Author Unknown |
Ride your horse along the edge of a sword; hide yourself in the middle of flames. Author Unknown |
Toula Portokalos: Why? Why do you love me? Ian Miller: Because I came alive when I met you. (From My Big Fat Greek Wedding Movie) |
We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. Marie Curie |
The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. Anonymous |
Always be fearless. Walk like the lion, talk like pigeons, live like elephants, and love like an infant child. Santosh Kalwar |
"Gentlemen," returned Mr. Micawber, "do with me as you will! I am a straw upon the surface of the deep, and am tossed in all directions by the elephants. I beg your pardon; I should have said the elements." Charles Dickens (David Copperfield) |
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought. Basho |
When you get to the top of the mountain, keep climbing. Author Unknown |
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. Tom Clancy |
The Bible has been translated into Klingon. |
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. Frederick Douglass |
A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a man's mind can get both provocation and privacy. Edward P. Morgan |
Lack of information cannot be used as an excuse for not furthering your knowledge. Every city has a public library full of appropriate books, no matter what your area of interest. Catherine Pulsifer |
Don’t let your victories go to your head, or your failures go to your heart. Author Unknown |
If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you. Billy Wilder |
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. Howard Aiken, IBM engineer |
I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult the calendar. Robert Brault |
Most people do not believe in anything very much and our greatest poetry is given to us by those who do. Cyril Connolly |
Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder. Raymond Chandler |
The most original authors are not so because they advance what is new, but because they put what they have to say as if it had never been said before. Goethe |
D.B. Pacini Announcing refreshment/social break. |
The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt that it didn’t matter. Edward Albee |
Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men. Confucius |
It's a delicious thing to write. To be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Gustave Flaubert |
The only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you. Somerset Maugham |
You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you've got something to say. F. Scott Fitzgerald |
All Uranus' satelites are named after William Shakespeare's and Alexander Pope's characters. |
True understanding is found through compassion. Author Unknown |
Tim Christensen |
"BAREFOOT JOHNNY" Lyrics by Jim Turner Music by Tim Christensen |
Jim Turner |
Don't waste a minute not being happy. If one window closes, run to the next window, or break down a door. Anonymous |
The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems. Goethe |
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills, one man gathers what another man spills. Robert Hunter, Lyricist for Grateful Dead |
Dr. Andy Jones POETRY IN DAVIS |
Let what you love, be what you do. Rumi |
What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. T. S. Eliot |
I see the role of the writer as creating a room with big windows and leaving the reader to imagine. It’s a meeting on the page. Kevin Crossley-Holland |
Taylor Graham Taylor Graham's Poetry |
I think what I love most about writing is that feeling that you really nailed something. I rarely feel it with a whole piece, but sometimes with a line you feel that it really captured what it is that you had inside you and you got it out for a stranger to read, someone who may never love you or meet you, but he or she is going to get that experience from that line. Andre Dubus III |
The King died and then the Queen died. That is a story. The King died and then the Queen died of grief. That is a plot. E.M. Forster |
Jim Turner |
I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly. Edgar Rice Burroughs |
I liked the kid who wrote me that he had to do a term paper on a modern poet and he was doing me because, though they say you have to read poems twice, he found he could handle mine in one try. Howard Nemerov |
Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage. Charles Dickens |
Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly. Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, circa 65 A.D. |
Lessie Bond |
I often think of a poem as a door that opens into a room where I want to go. Minnie Bruce Pratt |
I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten, happy, absorbed, and quietly putting one bead on after another. Brenda Ueland |
Poet/Musician Bernie Brooks |
Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up. Jane Yolen |
Pour yourself out like a fountain. Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins. Rainer Maria Rilke |
To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life. Robert Louis Stevenson |
Stan McFadden |
In order to rise from its own ashes a phoenix first must burn. Octavia E. Butler |
Why do writers write? Because it isn't there. Thomas Berger |
Hatch Graham |
First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him! Ray Bradbury |
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. George Moore |
Michael Borboa |
The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak. Frederich Nietzsche |
Life, a beauty chased by tragic laughter. John Masefield |
Tienne Forman |
Becoming a writer means being creative enough to find the time and the place in your life for writing. Heather Sellers |
Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak. Natalie Goldberg |
Lance Houck |
The time to make up your mind about people, is never. Philip Barry |
Reading and weeping opens the door to one's heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one's soul. M.K. Simmons |
Jared Coffey |
Think you're escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. James Joyce |
To be the kind of writer you want to be, you must first be the kind of thinker you want to be. Ayn Rand |
Stephen Wilson Content Editor/ARTIFACT A San Joaquin Delta College Publication |
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. Leo Tolstoy |
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. Charles Dickens |
D.B. Pacini |
At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night. H. P. Lovecraft |
Usually, when people get to the end of a chapter, they close the book and go to sleep. I deliberately write my books so when the reader gets to the end of a chapter, he or she must turn one more page. When people tell me I've kept them up all night, I feel like I've succeeded. Sidney Sheldon |
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any. Orson Scott Card |
Bernie Brooks |
And in the end, the love you take, Is equal to the love you make. The Beatles |
Things we do, we do for ourselves. But that which we love we have no choice but to give away. Edmond Medina |
D.B. Pacini thanking everyone for coming. |
To have great poets there must be great audiences too. Walt Whitman |
POETRY SERIES |