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Our literary arts program has been created to provide enthusiasts of the written word a listing of City sponsored literary events throughout the Tri-Valley.
Cynthia L. Bryant, newly appointed Poet Laureate for the City of Pleasanton will serve a two-year term as the city's seventh Poet Laureate. Cynthia, with the distinction of having also served as the city's fourth Poet Laureate from 2005-2007, brings to the post a wealth of knowledge and experience. As a Pleasanton resident, Bryant has read her poetry throughout California in many diverse venues including coffee shops, fairs, art galleries, schools, women’s shelters, and a federal prison. Bryant was first published in 1997 after winning 3rd place in a national poetry contest and has since been published in more than 30 anthologies, numerous websites, an e-book, and she has recorded her poems for e-radio as well as on community television. She has self-published eight chapbooks of poetry which are available at the Pleasanton Public Library and local bookstores. Bryant’s poetry books, Sojourn, Pebbles in the Shoe, and No Time to Shoot the Poets were accepted in the new Ina Coolbrith Circle library section of the California State Library’s Special Collections Reading Room in Sacramento.
To contact Cynthia about the City of Pleasanton Poet Laureate programs or to join the email distribution list send her a note at pleasantonpoetry@ci.pleasanton.ca.us, join facebook.com/PleasantonPoetry or visit her website at www.PoetsLane.com.
Cynthia invites you to a selection of workshops and readings she has planned throughout the Bay Area, as well as those held here in town that continue as part of the Poet Laureate program.
EVERYTHING POETRY
(in two parts)
Second Saturday Soup-workshops
2nd Saturday of every month
10am-12noon
Firehouse Arts Center, 4444 Railroad Avenue, Pleasanton
Third Tuesday Trope-critiques
3rd Tuesday of every month
7pm-9pm
Towne Center Books, 555 Main Street, Pleasanton
Everything Poetry will be a full taste of Poetry Biz and all the aspects of being a poet through the vision of visiting poets/teachers brought in to the workshop.
Our first Critique group will be October 18th-7pm-9pm at Towne Center Books.
Our first Workshop will be October 8th, 10am-noon at the Firehouse in which Cynthia Bryant will introduce herself, her plans and her overall list of what to do and not to do in navigating through the land of being a poet.
For more information contact Cynthia Bryant at
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The Firehouse Arts Center will host Black History Through Poetry with renowned writer and poet Ishmael Reed on Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. Tennessee Reed, his daughter and also a writer, will appear with him.
A novelist, journalist, and playwright, Reed, has been cited by critics as among the greatest contemporary African American literary figures of his generation. He is the author of twenty-seven books and editor of thirteen anthologies and numerous magazines. He is also a publisher, blogger for the San Francisco Chronicle, radio and television commentator and a teacher and lecturer.
According to Lee Hubbard in American Visions, Ishmael Reed is "an unorthodox writer who has taken on the media, the writing establishment, feminists, politicians, blacks, whites and [the] American institution of higher learning." His controversial writing has been translated into a dozen languages and his poems, articles and book reviews have appeared in numerous publications. Two of Reed’s books have been nominated for National Book Awards, and a book of poetry, Conjure, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Ishmael Reed has been grouped with Toni Morrison and Samuel Delany as among the most important forces in the distinct African American culture that developed during the 20th century.
The first of Tennessee Reed’s four collections of poetry, Circus in the Sky, was published when she was 11 years old. Her poetry has appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, Quilt magazine, the California State Library Foundation Bulletin, Poetry USA, The Raven Chronicles and Konch Magazine. California Poet Laureate Emeritus Al Young wrote about her, “Reed writes with clarity, wit and wonder—and with an open-hearted passion that disarms, refreshes and delights.”
Authors will gather afterward in the lobby to share, sell and sign books.
Admission: $10.00 for adults and $5.00 for students with ID.
Tickets are available through the box office, Weds-Fri 12-6pm, by phone, 925-931-4848, and by visiting our website www.firehousearts.org.
For more information, contact Pleasanton Poet Laureate Cynthia Bryant at
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or 925-399-5520.
Hand to Mouth/Words Spoken Out
Saturday, January 28, 2012, 4-6pm
Rebound Books
1611 4th Street, San Rafael
(415) 482-0550
Barkin' Dog Grill
Tuesday, June 12, 2012, 6pm
940 11th Street, Modesto
(209) 572-2341
