5:15-6:15pm Docents available to discuss the site
6:30-8pm Reading

Four poets that play with rhythm and voice, building on the traditions and themes of the past to create works that are both contemporary and timeless. Claudia Rankine writes of Lillian-Yvonne Bertram’s But A Storm Is Blowing From Paradise, “It’s exhilarating to read poetry that pushes reading into the realm of experience.” These poets transform the process of reading into a full-body/mind workout!

Brendan Constantine was born in 1967, the second child of two working actors. He is an ardent supporter of Southern California’s poetry communities and one of its most recognized poets. His work has appeared in numerous journals, most notably Ploughshares, The Cortland Review, RUNES, and The Underground Guide to Los Angeles. He released his first collection, Letters to Guns, in 2009 (Red Hen Press). He is currently poet-in-residence at the Windward School in West Los Angeles and Loyola Marymount University Extension. He is also currently working with The Alzheimer’s Poetry Project, bringing poetry workshops to Alzheimer’s patients.He holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Hollywood at Bela Lugosi’s last address. Red Hen Press released his third collection, Calamity Joe, in March 2012.

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram has been a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference work-study scholar, a writer-in-residence at the Montana Artists Refuge, and is a Cave Canem alumna. Her poetry has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Harvard Review, Subtropics, and other journals. She won the 2011 Summer Literary Seminars poetry contest and the Gulf Coast Magazine Donald Barthelme Prize for Short Prose, and received second place in Narrative Magazine’s poetry contest. She is a graduate of the writing programs at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was a Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow at Williams College, where she taught creative writing and literature. Her first book, But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen Press, 2012), won the 2010 Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, judged by Claudia Rankine.

Lynnell Edwards is the author of three collections of poetry, Covet (2011), The Highwayman’s Wife (2007), and The Farmer’s Daughter (2003), all from Red Hen Press. Her book reviews and short fiction have been published nationally in such journals as Pleiades, The Hollins Critic, Connecticut Review, American Book Review, and New Madrid. She is Associate Professor of English at Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky.  She also writes a books column for Louisville Magazine and is a Board member of InKY, inc., sponsor of the monthly literary reading series InKY, which she co-produces.

Originally from Utah, Nicelle Davis now resides in Lancaster, California, with her son J.J. She has taught poetry at Youth for Positive Change, an organization that promotes success for youth in secondary schools, and with Volunteers of America in their Homeless Youth Center. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Beloit Poetry Journal, The New York Quarterly, SLAB Magazine, and others. Her first collection of poems, Circe, was released by Lowbrow Press in 2011. She has two forthcoming collections of poetry, In the Circus of You (Rose Metal Press, 2014) and Becoming Judas (Red Hen Press, 2013). You can read her e-chapbooks at Gold Wake Press and Whale Sound. She is an assistant poetry editor for Connotation Press and runs a free online poetry workshop at The Bees’ Knees Blog.

Moderator Eric Morago is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet who holds an MFA from California State University, Long Beach. He is an associate reviewer for Poetix.net, poet-in-residence with California Workforce Association, and teaches workshops for Red Hen’s Writing in the Schools program. In addition to releasing his first full-length collection, What We Ache For (Moon Tide Press, 2010), he has also teamed with Melody Maker Productions to release I Don’t Like Straws, a spoken word album with music by David Gielan. He is the poetry curator for Half Off Books in Whittier, CA, and runs a quarterly reading series at Vinatero Wine Shop.

About Red Hen Press
Now a national presence in independent publishing, Red Hen Press was founded in 1994 by Mark E. Cull and Kate Gale. As a nonprofit literary press that publishes twenty works of poetry, literary fiction, and autobiography each year, they are dedicated to supporting quality writing that is being ignored or overlooked by large or commercial publishers. The Press also donates books to schools, libraries and other institutions, and presents seven reading series in New York and Los Angeles showcasing current and backlist authors. The Red Hen Press is a place for writers’ work to be published and celebrated; a literary family for a diversity of voices that articulate the variety of human experience.

For more information regarding this event, please email publicity@redhen.org and visit Red Hen Press.

Stop by early for information on the Beach House by docents from the Santa Monica Conservancy before every Beach=Culture evening, from 5:15-6:15pm.

Tickets are free but space is limited and reservations are required. If you would like to attend, please reserve online. Please plan to arrive by 6:15pm to retain your reservation. Late seating, even for reservation-holders, is not guaranteed. To adjust or cancel your reservation for this event, email beachhouse@smgov.net. We appreciate your keeping in touch!

Directions: The Beach House is located at 415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402 on the west side of Pacific Coast Highway, a half mile north of the California Incline and a half mile south of Chautauqua Blvd. Plenty of public parking is available - enter off PCH at the Beach House Way traffic light. The facility is easily accessible by foot or bike from the beach bike path, although the Beach closes at sunset. There is ample bike parking at racks throughout the site - remember to bring your own lock.

Parking: For weekday Beach=Culture events May-September, there is a daily $8 parking charge at the park and pay machines available in three areas of the ACBH parking lot. For hourly and weekend fees, please check the website for details.

Other events: To view & make reservations for future free Beach=Culture events, check http://annenbergbeachhouse.com/beachculture.

General Info: For hours, events and more, visit http://www.annenbergbeachhouse.com, or call 310-458-4904. Back on the Beach Café hours are subject to change depending on weather - call ahead.