Last night, I went to this month’s After the Carnival reading in Long Beach. It was the book launch for Michael Buckley’s new short story collection, Miniature Men, from World Parade Books. Tonight, I’ll be…

Last night, I drove to Beyond Baroque, a literary mecca in Venice, to see Ara Shirinyan speak. Ara teaches with me at Mt. SAC, and he writes poetry. Lately, he has been writing found poems almost exclusively.

Found poets are people who find their poetry in other people’s writing. They find a phrase or even paragraph and turn it into poetic form as a way to observe the world. It sounds like a short cut to writing – possibly even…

            This is going to sound quaint or trite or maudlin or something, but sometimes it shocks me how much talent there is in my little part of the world. I suppose that talent exists many places, but I see it all the time in my students and my friends. Someone writes a poem and I see the world in a new and shocking way, and I see new stylistic writing choices as well. It all changes my writing for the better more so than any other kind of reading.

            I’m a zealot when…