You are invited to this fall’s Reading Series!
If you’re an avid reader or if you’re interested in anyone of the authors in this year’s lineup, join us to learn about them and to hear more about their work. You can find more information about each guest and their work in the image below.
The link to each event will be posted here on Forum three days in advance so make sure you check back with us for the link! For any further questions, comment below.
Lit Night is back! Have you been churning out poems and stories and essays that you are desperate to share ? Are you perhaps looking for inspiration and a regular meet up with fellow writers?
Please join the Get Lit crowd TONIGHT! You can come to read or come to listen.
WHAT IS LIT NIGHT ???????
Find the event info on Lit Night Facebook
I KNOW WHAT IT IS, WHERE DO I GO TO REGISTER ????????
Register with Eventbrite
Lit Night is every third Monday! Come join the fun!
You will need
–A preying mantis rescued from a lawnmower
–Five ants rescued from a kitchen where
the balabosta was going to crush them.
–A wrapped piece of grocery cake
Hostess
or my new favorite that comes from Mexico
white cake covered in chocolate with some
spots of red jelly Gansito
–Your favorite pair of colored socks
–Your favorite pair of comfortable worn-out socks
–A book you’re been meaning to read
–Miscellaneous secret government files
–My mother Felice’s fountain pen with something
in her handwriting
–My father Eli’s thimble he used as a tailor
–One of my grandfather Wulf’s Hebrew Prayer Books
–Something my grandmother Rachel has sewn
–A short piece played on the piano by my
sister Ruth
–The smell of the beach of Riis Park on a
hot summer’s day
–A worn pair of my dance shoes
–The tights I started to knit and stopped at the
calf of the second leg and then forgot
how to knit altogether
–Photos of the local people who went to see
the last performance of Beach Blanket Babylon
closing after forty-five years including Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein
and Dick Blum
–Some of the DNA from elephants, lions,
giraffes, feral cats
–Some bit of giant Redwoods and Sequoias
–The wisps of laughter, puzzlements,
revelations
of my now gone family and friends
(Add all of yours)
Whoosh them all together
in a beautiful canyon someplace in
New Mexico
where they will create
a whirling–like a soft tornado
up to the horizon
and out to cover the world
And surely this will save the
human species in 2020.
Helen Dannenberg writes with the Older Writers Lab. She takes various arts-related classes and featured her assemblages in Open Studios 2019. She participates with San Francisco Recreation and Parks Cosmic Elders and has been a dancer and choreographer, and worked as an Activity Director and Social Services Coordinator in skilled nursing facilities.
A San Francisco based artist, Teresa Beatty has spent the last few years honing her skills in printmaking and drawing. Her interests span from scientific illustration to art therapy. In pursuit of bettering her craft she’s traveled across the globe. She uses art as a tool for healing, expression and connection.
Crimson bleeds
on her clean pink jumper,
blooming,
like Poppies in October,
the Plath poem
which has nothing to do with poppies,
the wounded woman’s
heart a watercolor seeping.
Fresh ruby drops
just as we were ready to go home,
declaring a reminder
that everything is not normal, everything
is not as it should be, but the portals are open
the veins are still alert,
dripping,
as the nurse removes the plastic tubing dangling from the crook of her arm,
a thief tapping into a pot of gold
striking it rich before her veins collapse.
I want to slide inside
a pair of Emily‘s flannel pajamas,
slip into my bed and pretend that everything
will be fine,
that she will be here
to create art with me in my retirement
in her little downstairs studio,
with gelli plates
squeezing tubes of fine gold acrylic
rolling, watching it smear and shine
translucent spreading
onto every inch of plain paper.
Snuggling beside her
in the hospital bed feeling her beating
heart, holding
her hand and we are laughing
at Jim Carrey impugning god in Bruce Almighty
when she asks me quietly,
Do you know whether you want to be cremated or what?
Emily who has organized everything
down to the intimate
notes she has kept for 20 years,
then carefully hand bound into a creative atlas
to celebrate a life,
has not prepared her burial plans.
She is leaving
that up to us to spread
her sifted bones.
Diana Feiger grew up in Sandwich, Kent, UK and moved to the Bay Area in 1986. She finds inspiration in nature and from the miraculous and mundane aspects of life. Small moments and phrases can capture the imagination.
Travis Yallup is a contemporary realist who lives and works in San Francisco. He has studied art at various colleges and universities over the past eleven years and has developed a preference for drawing and painting in a variety of mediums. His focus usually comes from life, photos, and collages and he often draws an inspiration from influences such as Andrew Wyeth and Vija Celmins.
I went for taro,
custard, and red bean
buns. Shrieks above
from an argument
broke my somnolence;
a gull defended the cross
it perched on from
a circling raven’s
assault. The vanquished
raven landed and
sulked. Do I call it
augury, score a win
for yang, or remember
Jeffers, who wrote, “it is bitter earnestness
that makes beauty; the mind
knows grown adult”?
Jason Syzdlik studied poetry at City College of San Francisco.
Joshua Yule has actively been producing artwork including print, screen printing, illustrations, and digital illustrations for the likes of many local Bay area bands for almost two decades.
“my new friend”
don’t follow me like that
with your sleazy saunter
and those toned (bone-d) twigs
wobbling wedges
dollbaby dress
hippie handbag
and impossibly long locks
the color of crows (screaming murder!)
the color of cats, those black island cats, following me all over
staring me down with eyes the color of citrine
don’t look at me like that
holding your ground as i back toward my car
posing against the cemeterial scene
thousands of stones
millions of bones
dressed in summer green with floral accents
languidly tossing, up and down, up and down, a white ball
daring me to hold my ground
staring me down through eyes the color of that ball
(eyes with no color at all)
don’t haunt me like that
the other patron in the red water bar
the passenger in the back seat of my car
the visitor at my bedroom door that’s ajar
silent, insistent
that we go back to play at the alae*
*alae – a cemetery outside hilo, a city on hawaii’s big island
Sarah Elliott is a poet, classical pianist, and opera coach, who in her spare time practices law in San Francisco.
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Victor Bhatti started practicing graffiti art on paper at the age of 8, emboldened by the walls around his neighborhood. He works in a number of mediums, including spray paint, airbrush, acrylics, oils, pastels, color pencil, and more. Children Forever Dream is the name of an artist collective he founded to bring together community artists and inspire the next generation.
The absence of
Desire is sometimes
Called peace.
See flowers.
Smell them.
See birds.
Hear them.
Imagine their absence.
Who can deny life’s desire for more life?
The absence of desire is sometimes called peace,
But perhaps only by those too weary
To witness spring.
Jason Szdlik‘s poem This Morning can also be found on the Forum Blog.
Accessible Word Version_ Shy_Kayla_Wilton
Shy by Kayla Wilton
I received my English degree with a Spanish minor from CSU Stanislaus in Spring 2019, and I will complete my creative writing certificate at CCSF in Spring 2020. Writing is my passion, but I also dabble in drawing, painting, photography, and performance. My work has appeared in Penumbra Literary Magazine.
It’s Not A Saltshaker by Travis Yallup
Travis Yallup is a contemporary realist who lives and works in San Francisco. He has studied art at various colleges and universities over the past eleven years and has developed a preference for drawing and painting in a variety of mediums. His focus usually comes from life, photos, and collages and he often draws an inspiration from influences such as Andrew Wyeth and Vija Celmins.
light from overhead fixtures
reflects off of your hallowed surface
like distant low beams
cutting through fog
cold and unyielding
though supple in places,
your smooth skin covers familiar topography
in reds and oranges so fine
hiding the vulnerable flesh within
nightshade sepal
that you wear as a crown
does it remind you of the flower
which commenced your only season?
your scent is strongest
at the point where you jettisoned the connection
to the vine of your birth
leaving behind countless brothers and sisters
to find your destiny before my eyes
thank you.
Written By: Steven Louis Ray
Steven Louis Ray is a multidisciplinary artist working in traditional film and darkroom processes, in addition to writing and recording experimental music and writing poetry. He’s currently slogging his way to a creative writing certificate and studying printmaking at City College of San Francisco. More of his photography can be viewed at stevenlouisray.com
Art Title: The Little People in our Plants
Artist: Bianca Joy Catolos
Bianca Joy Catolos is a graphic designer based in the Bay Area with a passion for drawing and illustration. She illustrates to document memories, stories, and assets of life in a quirky, abstract and colorful way to share and commentate how she sees people and world. Bianca is a digital artist with a traditional background in painting and often mixes the two to create endless worlds and scenes to fuel the imagination.
We were shooting marbles with our older brother
Arnulfo kneeling on a patch of dirt
Front of a mud brown apartment building
Clink as one marble collides into another
He won a ruby glass Cleary
Shiny marbles, shiny joy in our eyes
As he was 27 and playing with us kids
My little brother Herbie and me
Written By: Rocio Ramirez
Rocio Ramirez is a Counselor who works with families. She has a Masters in Counseling Psychology and a Certificate in Expressive arts therapies. She has been a Presenter for IVAT, Center for the Prevention of Abuse and Trauma, in La Jolla. She has recently presented on the use of Sandplay therapy and Collage with Domestic violence survivors. She is currently writing a book on sandplay therapy and art therapy with disenfranchised populations. She is always happiest when she is next to the sea.
Art Title: Canid I
Artist: Teresa Beatty
San Francisco based artist, Teresa Beatty, has spent the last few years honing her skills in printmaking and drawing. Her interests span from scientific illustration to art therapy. In pursuit of bettering her craft she’s traveled across the globe. She uses art as a tool for healing, expression and connection.
