Join us for an evening of live readings, photography, and music in celebration of Linda Ravenswood's newest poetry collection, The Stan Poems: Indictments & Amendments (Pedestrian Press, 2022).

Featuring the photography of Javier Gonzalez, dancers Lauren Bright, Brittany Delany, and Lauren Slivosky, and writers: L.I. Henley, Loria Mendoza, Rachael Ann Polokoff, Linda Ravenswood, Susan Rukeyser and Marlys West, alongside a musical score by David Williams.

With musical guest: Bart Davenport

Tickets $15 in advance (no fees) and $20 at the door!

__________________________________________________

BART DAVENPORT might be a multitude of things, depending on whom you ask. He’s been a mod, a blues singer, and a softrock troubadour. He’s an eclectic singer songwriter with the timeless voice of a real crooner. He lives and creates music in Los Angeles. Smooth and yet curiously pointed, his work transports us to an imagined past or present filled with romantic odes and enigmatic characters. Davenport’s stories are often a reflection of now, taking place in a fantasy world but conveying personal and universal truths. Returning to acoustic guitars and 60s baroque pop tones, Davenport recently tracked twelve new songs in his home studio. The resulting ‘Episodes’ marks his eighth proper album and is scheduled for release in March 2022 on Tapete Records.

JAVIER GONZALES was born in Mexico and raised in the states. Javi spent his adolescence in Chicago before moving to Austin, Texas. His interest in the arts, Mexican culture, and photography led him to pursue his BFA from Texas State University. He is the founder of the Instagram photography community in Austin, @igaustintexas, and co-founder and artistic director of the creative studio POV @povstudio.atx. His passion for photography has shaped his creative practice to focus on social media content creation, influencing, and managing. When Javier is not on assignment, you can catch him collaborating with other queer BIPOC creatives and sharing visual stories with the community. If you like what you see and are in need of imagery, feel free to reach out @javi_glz.

L.I. HENLEY was born and raised in the Mojave Desert towns of Joshua Tree and Landers. A mixed-media artist and writer, she is the author of seven books including Starshine Road, which won the 2017 Perugia Press Prize, and the novella-in-verse, Whole Night Through. Her art, poetry, and prose have appeared in many journals, most recently Adroit, Brevity, The Indianapolis Review, Waxwing, Diode, Thrush, Ninth Letter, and Arts & Letters. Her essay, “Drive!” was chosen as the winner of the Arts & Letters/Susan Atefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction in 2020. She is married to poet and musician Jonathan Maule. Visit her at www.lihenley.com and follow her on Instagram @lihenleyart.

LORIA MENDOZA (she/they) is a queer Chicanx writer, curator, musician, and performance artist. They hail from Austin, Texas, where they learned to keep it weird. Seeking the constancy of the bizarre, they attended Swarthmore College and San Francisco State University where they earned their MFA in Creative Writing. Their first book, Life’s Too Short, won the Michael Rubin Book Award, and they are currently finishing a novel, a book of poetry, and a horror novelette. They live in Austin again- where they are the curator and host of Red Light Lit Austin and co-founder of POV @povstudio.atx- they are still weird.

RACHAEL ANN POLOKOFF is a poet and musician working in Los Angeles, C.A. Her work has previously been published in Weird Women Collective (LA), Cholla Needles Literary Press (Joshua Tree), and she has read publicly for Red Light Lit (SF). Her poetry involves love, death and all the "little things" in between.

LINDA RAVENSWOOD has her​ BFA, MA(Perf. Studies), MA(Psy)​​, PhD, Abd. She is the author of The Stan Poems: Indictments & Amendments (Pedestrian Press, 2022) and rock waves/sloe drags (Eye Wear London Press, 2022). Her newest poetry collection,The Stan Poems: Indictments & Amendments,(Pedestrian Press, 2022) is "part eulogy, part elegy, and part ode," says poet Bernadette McComish. A masterful and pioneering double volume of poetic thunder that explores ways in which we're bound to each other in life and beyond time and space. Former L.A. Poet Laureate Luis J. Rodríguez praised Linda's poetry as she "paints with words that move minds, hearts, and mountains. She's a true poet in a true poet's constellation."

SUSAN RUKEYSER hosts the Desert Split Open Mic, Joshua Tree’s feminist, queer, and otherwise radical spoken word open mic. She created World Split Open Press to publish select titles including Feckless Cunt: A Feminist Anthology. Her debut novel, Not On Fire, Only Dying, was published by Twisted Road Publications. Her short fiction is collected in Whatever Feels Like Home (above/ground press) and Swap/Meet (Space Cowboy Books). She is currently shopping a new novel called The Worst Kind of Girl. www.susanrukeyser.com

LAUREN SILVOSKY began her earliest dance training while growing up in western Pennsylvania and went on to study dance performance and choreography at Ohio University. She lived in Brooklyn, New York for 6 years and danced for independent choreographers throughout the city and worked as a performer for visual artist Katja Loher. Alongside her identity as a dancer, Lauren has spent the last decade studying the healing arts. She moved to Joshua Tree in 2020 where she teaches yoga in the local community and offers Thai Massage and Energywork. Lauren will forever dance as it is the deepest medicine for her spirit.

MARLYS WEST is an award-winning writer and nurse in Los Angeles. Her poetry and fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Best American Poetry Review, American Literary Review, Ploughshares, and Zyzzyva. A Hodder Fellow at Princeton University and an NEA grant recipient in poetry, The University of Akron Press published her first book of poems, Notes for a Late Blooming Martyr. A new collection of poems, The Vital Function of Constant Narrative, is forthcoming in 2022. www.marlyswest.org

DAVID WILLIAMS is an American musician, songwriter, film composer, singer, and teacher, born in Miami FL., and currently living in Landers, CA. David has contributed to more than 20 albums and recorded 6 of his own. “Intro” is a feature film starring David Williams which showcases his stripped bare songs and unusual lifestyle. Listen to the album: https://davidwilliamsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/intro-music-from-the-film-intro