Name: Long Beach’s grassroots poetry and literary scene is underground no more
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Long Beach’s grassroots poetry and literary scene is underground no more

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By Mary Anne PerezContributing writerThe Friday night crowd clapped, hooted and snapped their fingers for each poet who stood up to read their work at Fox Coffee House. The poets read from their phones, mostly, expressing loss, frustration with societal expectations and anger at injustice.One fantasized about dealing with a mechanical friend.“Time does not stop simply because your friend is a robot,” one man read.It was just another night of literary love in Long Beach that has grown into an effort to establish the Long Beach Literary Arts Center. Writers, poets and teachers are behind the work aimed at providing a hub to grow the literary scene and support writers of all stripes in the city.Friends Nancy Lynée Woo, Rachael Rifkin and Desiree Kannel conceived of the idea a couple of years ago when they realized they were all thinking about how to bring together the growing literary activity that they were witnessing in the city.“We’re not really expanding the scene, the scene is already there,” said Woo, a writing teacher who co-hosts Poetry on the Rocks quarterly at DiPiazza.The group will hold its free Summer Literary Mixer Saturday, Aug. 4, at the Burnett Neighborhood Library in Long Beach.The quarterly mixers are held to bring writers together to learn about workshops, public readings and other events in which writers can become involved.The Literary Arts Center also holds a fiction-writing workshop, poetry workshops, public readings and silent reading parties. Another meeting encourages women to submit their work to established journals.Sign up for The Localist, our daily email newsletter with handpicked stories relevant to where you live. Subscribe here.The group is establishing its team and developing an internal structure to acquire non-profit status. Next, it will work on securing a physical space.“We all agree we want this to be a lasting contribution to our city,” she said.Read-ins, poetry slams, self-published booklets called chapbooks and locally produced websites, books and journals have blossomed out of a growing creative community in the city, said Sarah Thursday, who founded Sadie Girl Press four years ago.Thursday is a Long Beach elementary school teache&nbsp;who created her own chapbooks to publish her poetry, and then developed some for friends. The press grew to include art booklets, poetry collections and anthologies that are sold online and at MADE by Millworks on Pine Avenue. Notably, she built the Cadence Collective to highlight and publish Long Beach poets online and in softbound books.Spoken poetry is important, she said, because it forces the poet and the audience to confront uncomfortable truths, and to grow.“One of the things that I love about poetry is that it’s very personal. But it also makes you very vulnerable,” she said. “Poets are my tribe. There’s a willingness to be tender.”Another locally produced press is Silver Star Laboratory, founded by poets Ra Avis and Bill Friday. Established just last year, the press has five titles with plans for five more this year. Avis, who blogs at Rarasaur, notes that the artistic community here encourages a wider swath of voices.“Long Beach does it particularly well,” she said. “The poetry community is very embracing and always looking for ways to support each other.”Poet Felicia Cade, who teaches at the Homeland Cultural Center of the Long Beach Parks, Recreation and Marine department, agrees.“Long Beach has an inclusiveness to it,” she said, crediting the Arts Council for Long Beach for its monetary grants and programming that nurture the creative spirit. “We have to be intentional about it because it is changing, growing.”The gatherings the last Friday of the month of The Definitive Soapbox, held at Fox Coffee House on Willow, attract some 30 to 40 mostly regulars who take over the coffee shop after hours. Host Antonio Appling, poet and restaurateur, believes in the vibrant local scene and wants to help it grow.“A lot of us are concerned with pushing poetry in Long Beach forward,” he said. “We’re out there telling people, ‘Long Beach is dope.’”Initially encouraged by his pastor, Appling holds an annual poetry slam to raise money to fund The Definitive Soapbox’s monthly events making it possible to pay the poets. Next year will mark the poetry slam’s 10th anniversary and he hopes to hold it at the Art Theater to showcase poetry and poets and increase participation.Other regular poetry readings around the city:

By Mary Anne PerezContributing writerThe Friday night crowd clapped, hooted and snapped their fingers for each poet who stood up to read their work at Fox Coffee House. The poets read from their phones, mostly, expressing loss, frustration with societal expectations and anger at injustice.One fantasized about dealing with a mechanical friend.“Time does not stop simply because your friend is a robot,” one man read.It was just another night of literary love in Long Beach that has grown into an effort to establish the Long Beach Literary Arts Center. Writers, poets and teachers are behind the...

Long Beach’s grassroots poetry and literary scene is underground no more

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