SoCal and NorCal poets meld minds in the way that they do best: in the same room! Joining L.A. poetry luminaries labor warrior and uber-mensch Richard Modiano and levitational enchantress K.R. Morrison will be Bay Area writers, activists, and all-around lovers of humanity Dee Allen, Milo Starr Johnson, Paul Corman-Roberts, and E.K. Keith. Hosted with care by Richard Loranger. Do stop by and meld.
BIOS
Richard Modiano is the winner of the 2022 Joe Hill Prize for labor poetry, and is a Push Cart Prize nominee. His collection The Forbidden Lunch Box is published by Punk Hostage Press. Richard is a rank and file member of the Industrial Workers of the World and a member of the National Writers Union.
K.R. Morrison is a poet, educator, tarot & natal chart reader and snake haired drummer who bewitches betwixt the Bay Area and Southern California. She published a small collection of poems called Cauldrons through PaperPress Books, but she’s currently working on some new cauldrons, to be submitted to prospective publishers soon.
Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet based in Oakland, California. Active in creative writing & spoken word since the early 1990s, he is the author of nine books: Boneyard, Unwritten Law, Stormwater, and Skeletal Black (POOR Press), Elohi Unitsi (pronounced: "Ell-oh-ee Oo-nee-chee" (Conviction 2 Change Publishing), Rusty Gallows: Passages Against Hate (Vagabond Books), Plans (originally Nomadic Press, now reissued from Black Lawrence Press), Crimson Stain (EYEPUBLISHEWE), and his newest, Discovery (Southern Arizona Press). He has seventy-three anthology appearances under his figurative belt so far.
Milo Starr Johnson is a multidisciplinary artist, a seeker by nature, committed to changing inner and outer realms with love and mischief. A California native, she’s a critically acclaimed theater artist and singer/songwriter with an album of retro-pop tunes called The Perambulator. Her poetic, political, and surreal audio drama Miss Experience. White won a 2022 Gold Signal Award for Best Fiction podcast, and the book version will be published later this year. More at https://www.milostarrjohnson.com.
Paul Corman-Roberts is the author of the Firecracker nominated poetry collection Bone Moon Palace (Black Lawrence Press, 2021) and the graphic chapbook The Sincere (Libran Apocalypse, 2022) He is a co-founder and co-director of Oakland';s longest continuing literary festival, The Beast Crawl, and he is currently very tired.
E.K. Keith writes poems in San Francisco where she lives, as well as other interesting places she finds herself. She organizes poetry events in San Francisco, includingPoems Under the Dome at SF City Hall and workshop/open mic series Pollen: Poems for Planet Earth at SFPL. You can find publications and performances of E.K’s work online, and her book, Ordinary Villains, is available from Black Lawrence Press.
Richard Loranger is a multi-genre writer, performer, musician, visual artist, and all-around squeaky wheel who has been working around the United States for over forty years. They have ten chapbooks and six books of poetry and flash prose, the latest of which, Mammal, was released by Roof Books in October 2023. They offer editing, proofreading, manuscript consultations, and other literary services for individuals and groups. For information on that please go to www.PowerUnit17.com.