Join City Lights for an afternoon of poetry readings in Kerouac Alley from local poets showcasing new work.
With George Albon, James Cagney, Garrett Caples, hector son of hector, Evan Kennedy, Barbara Jane Reyes, and Preeti Vangani.
Hosted by Peter Maravelis
About the readers
George Albon is the author of the poetry collections Empire Life, Brief Capital of Disturbances, Step, and Momentary Songs. His prose chapbook, Aspiration, was published in 2013. His work has appeared in Hambone, New American Writing, O Anthology 4, Avec Sampler 1, and the anthologies The Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative American Poetry, Bay Poetics, and Blood and Tears: Poems for Matthew Shepard. He lives and works in San Francisco.
James Cagney is the author of Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory (Nomadic Press, 2018), winner of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award. His second book of poems Martian (Nomadic Press, 2022) was selected by Mark Bibbins, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Ladan Osman to receive the 2021 James Laughlin Award. A Cave Canem fellow, Cagney lives in Oakland, California.
Garrett Caples is the author ofProses: Incomparable Parables! Fabulous Fables! Cruel Tales! (2023), Lovers of Today (2021), Power Ballads (2016), Retrievals (2014), Quintessence of the Minor: Symbolist Poetry in English (2010), Complications (2007), and The Garrett Caples Reader (1999). He is an editor at City Lights Books, where he curates the Spotlight poetry series. Caples was also a contributing writer to the San Francisco Bay Guardian and has coedited the Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia (2013), Particulars of Place (2015) by Richard O. Moore, and Incidents of Travel in Poetry: New and Selected Poems (2016) by Frank Lima. He lives in San Francisco.
hector son of hector is from Long Beach, CA and currently lives in Oakland. He is the child of Mexican immigrants, works in a hospital, dreams of short stories and writes poetry in secret.
Evan Kennedy is a poet and bicyclist. He is the author of Metamorphoses, I Am, Am I, to Trust the Joy That Joy Is No More or Less There Now Than Before (Roof Books), Jerusalem Notebook (O’clock Press), The Sissies (Futurepoem), Terra Firmament (Krupskaya), Shoo-Ins to Ruin (Gold Wake Press), and Us Them Poems (Book*hug). He runs the occasional press, Dirty Swan Projects, and was born in Beacon, New York, in 1983. He lives in San Francisco, California.
Barbara Jane Reyes was born in Manila, Philippines, raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is also the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago Books, 2003), Poeta en San Francisco (TinFish Press, 2005), Diwata (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2010), To Love as Aswang (Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc., 2015), Invocation to Daughters (City Lights Publishing, 2017), Letters to a Young Brown Girl (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2020). She is also the author of three chapbooks, For the City That Nearly Broke Me (Aztlan Libre Press, 2012), Cherry (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2007), and Easter Sunday (Ypolita Press, 2007). Her seventh book, Wanna Peek Into My Notebook?: Notes on Pinay Liminality was published by Paloma Press
Preeti Vangani is an Indian poet, writer and educator. Born and raised in Mumbai, she is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (RLFPA Editions). Her poetry has been published in Gulf Coast, Hobart, Threepenny Review, among other journals. Her essays have been published in Buzzfeed India, The Ladies Finger, Huffington Post among other places.
Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.