Julie Murphy, Addie Mahmassani, and Dion O'Reilly read poems from En•Trance Journal , a journal dedicated to altered states and the lyric moment. We read and discuss poems by Ellen Bass, Dorianne Laux, Julie Murphy, Deborah Gorlin, Emily Ransdell, Jessica Cuello, and Jim Moore.

There are fifteen fabulous poets in the the first issue of Entrancejournel.net. We wish we could have discussed them all at length, but we had less than an hour to plumb the depths of pure being!!!

To read the rest of them go here.

The first issue of En*Trance Journal also features art by Frank Galuszka and a podcast component, where poets read and discuss their poems.

Nin and Dion read from her new book Son of a Bird, now available from Etruscan Press. They also read and discuss "Unrest," by Emily Fragos.

Nin Andrews is the author of the six chapbooks and ten full-

length poetry collections including The Last Orgasm (2020),

Miss August (2017), and Why God is a Woman (2015). She is

the recipient of two Ohio individual artists grants, the Pearl

Chapbook prize, The Wick Chapbook Prize, and the Gerald

Cable Award. Her collection, Why God is a Woman won the

Ohiona Prize for Poetry in 2016. Her work has been featured

in numerous journals and anthologies including

Ploughshares, Agni, The Paris Review, four editions of Best

American Poetry, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the

Present, and The Best American Erotic Poems. Her poetry has

been translated into Turkish, performed in Prague and

anthologized in England, Australia, and Mongolia.

Dion and Denise chat about her new book, Pink Lady. We read and discuss "His Terror" by Sharon Olds and also reference Olds's poem "Satan Says."

Denise Duhamel has published numerous collections of poetry, including Second Story (2021), Scald (2017), Blowout (2013), which was a finalist for a National Books Critics Circle Award, Ka-Ching! (2009), Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (2001), all of which were published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, and Kinky, published by Orchises Press in 1997. Citing Dylan Thomas and Kathleen Spivack as early influences, Duhamel writes both free verse and fixed-form poems that fearlessly combine the political, sexual, and ephemeral.

She co-edited, with Nick Carbó, Sweet Jesus: Poems about the Ultimate Icon (The Anthology Press, 2002), and, with Maureen Seaton and David Trinidad, Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry (Soft Skull Press, 2007). Duhamel has also collaborated with Seaton on several poetry collections, including Caprice (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015), Little Novels (Penguin, 2002), Oyl (Pearl Editions, 2000), and Exquisite Politics (Northwestern University Press, 1997).

Duhamel’s honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Her work has been included in several volumes of Best American Poetry, where she was a guest editor in 2013, and has also been featured on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Bill Moyers’s PBS poetry special Fooling with Words.

A distinguished university professor at Florida International University, she lives in Hollywood, Florida.

Kirk Glaser's book, The House That Fire Built, has been 25 years in the making following a suspicious house fire and the characters both prior to and following the incident. Join us as we talk of ghosts, poet James Murray, and the many ways fire exists as metaphor. You can find the House That Fire Built at Mad Hat Press.

Adela Najarro's fifth poetry collection, Variations in Blue, was selected by the Letras Latinas/ Red Hen Collaborative for publication in March, 2025. The California Arts Council recognized her as an established artist for the Central California Region, appointing her as an Individual Artist Fellow. Her extended family left Nicaragua and arrived in San Francisco during the 1940s; after the fall of the Somoza regime, the last of the family settled in the Los Angeles area.

Adela is the Board President for Círculo de poetas and Writers and works with the Latinx community nationwide, promoting the intersection of creative writing and social justice. Adelanajarro.com

Join the Hive Live! Tuesday, May 13, at Bookshop Santa Cruz, to hear Francisco Aragón and Adela Najarro.

More about Letras Latinas here. 

Rubén and Dion kick off the show by reading "Eating Together," by Li-Young Lee.

Then they read from Rubén Quesada's new book, Brutal Campanion.

Ruben Quesada, Ph.D is an award-winning poet and editor. He edited the groundbreaking anthology Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry, winner of the Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. His poetry and criticism appear in The New York Times Magazine, Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, Harvard Review, and American Poetry Review. He has served as poetry editor for AGNI, Poet Lore, Pleiades, Tab Journal, and as a poetry blogger for The Kenyon Review and Ploughshares. He currently teaches as Affiliate Faculty in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.

Brutal Companion is a haunting and visceral collection of poems that explores themes of identity, sexuality, loss, and personal transformation. Drawing from his own experiences as a gay man, the poet delves unflinchingly into memories of desire, trauma, and self-discovery against the backdrop of an often unforgiving world. From intimate encounters and dreamlike visions to searing societal critiques, the poems paint a complex portrait of navigating life at the margins. Deeply sensory and evocative, Brutal Companion is a fierce meditation on survival and a testament to poetry's ability to wrest meaning and resilience from even the darkest places.

We mention The Blessing by James Wright.

Join Julie Murphy and Chicago poet, Christy Prahl, as they read and discuss Kwame Dawes' poem Sea and Rain from his book Nebraska. Then they dive into Christy's We Are Reckless (Cornerstone Press), a gorgeous collection of midwest poems that take a daring look into relationships, identity, pleasure, loss, and more. Sprinkled though the conversation is bits of craft, stories and laughter. The show concludes with an imaginative poem from Christy's new manuscript.

Christy Prahl is an Illinois Arts Council grant recipient and the author of the poetry collections We Are Reckless (Cornerstone Press, 2023), With Her Hair on Fire (Roadside Press, forthcoming fall 2025), and Catalog of Labors (Unsolicited Press, forthcoming fall 2026). A Best of the Net and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been featured in Poetry Daily as well as many national and international journals, including the Asheville Poetry Review, CALYX, Louisville Review, Penn Review, Sugar House Review, Salt Hill Journal, Tar River Poetry, and others. She splits her time between a small workers’ cottage in Chicago and refurbished Quonset hut in rural southwest Michigan.  

Roxi Power chats with Dion O'Reilly about a new anthology, Winter in America (Again: Poets Respond to 2024 Election that Power co-edited. With their usual mix of irreverence and in-depth close readings, they showcase the wide range styles in this collection of 100+ poets published by Carbonation Press. This urgent book was assembled by 8 editors between election and inauguration day and captures feelings about this critical election in compassionate, courageous poems.

Poets discussed on the show include Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Bill Lavender, Aby Kaupang, Mark Nowak, Stacey Jones, Cherie Brown, and Veronica Eldredge--several of whom are featured in upcoming readings including April 26 and 27, 2pm PST (5pm EST) on Lit Balm: An Interactive Livestream Reading Series here: ⁠us04web.zoom.us/j/461603228. ⁠ 

⁠More information about readers here. ⁠

⁠Find out more about the book project here⁠: , and ⁠here.⁠

⁠Order Winter in America (Again here. ⁠

Cassandra, Hildegard of Bingen, Virginia Woolf, Ann Sexton...the link between visionary minds and what classifies as 'mental illness' is key to opening doors of perception. Join Karen Marker as she talks with Julia Chiapella about her new book, Under the Blue Umbrella, and a family history of schizophrenia as both stigma and chimera. Beneath the Blue Umbrella can be found here.

Please join Julie Murphy as she chats with Santa Cruz County's new Poet Laureate, Nancy Miller Gomez, about poetry in the jails and her plans to bring poetry to our community. Nancy reads Ruth Stone's poem, Another Feeling, and talks about the importance of paying attention and how daily observations, memories and current events can ease the challenge of facing a blank page. Listen to Nancy read poems from her stunning debut collection Inconsolable Objects.

Nancy Miller Gomez is the author of Inconsolable Objects (YesYes Books) and Punishment (Rattle Chapbook Series). Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, The Adroit Journal, LitHub, Rattle, New Ohio Review, Massachusetts Review, River Styx, Verse Daily, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere. She received a special mention in the 2023 Pushcart Prize Anthology and is the recipient of a fellowship from the Jentel Foundation. Gomez co-founded Poetry in the Jails, an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Salinas Valley State Prison, the Santa Cruz County Jails, the Juvenile Hall and as part of Cornell University’s Prison Education Program. She earned a B.A. from The University of California, San Diego, a J.D. from the University of San Diego and a Master in Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University. Originally from Kansas she now lives with her family in Northern California and is thrilled to have recently been appointed Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County. She is currently working on a second collection of poems and a collection of personal essays.

Don't miss the Poet Laureate Celebration at Bookshop Santa Cruz featuring Nancy Miller Gomez and Farnaz Fatemi. April 14, 7-9 PM.