We are excited to partner with the Santa Barbara Public Library to present the Santa Barbara Poetry Series at the Faulkner Gallery at 7:00 pm, on Sunday, February 19. The Series brings together an out-of-town poet, a local poet, and a student poet for an inspiring evening of powerful language. Our gratitude to Nancy Gifford for her support of the Poetry Series.
We are proud to claim Rick Benjamin as our local poet. He served as the Rhode Island state poet laureate from 2012 – 2016. Now teaching and doing community engagement work at UCSB, he has also taught at Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Haverford College, Goddard College, Haystack, New Urban Arts, and at many schools, community and assisted living centers, youth detention facilities and elsewhere. His books include Passing Love (2010), Floating World (2013) and Endless Distances (2015), and his articles, columns and reviews have appeared in Identity Theory, the Providence Journal, Le Petit Zine, Milk, and American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics (ed. Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell, Wesleyan University Press). He is currently working on both a new book of poetry and a book about the work poetry helps us to do in our lives.
Visiting poet Carolie Parker is a poet and visual artist with a background in foreign languages and world literature. She was recently a MacDowell Fellow (visual art and poetry) and a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. Her work has come out in Trickhouse, The Denver Quarterly, NOW culture, River Styx Magazine and is forthcoming in Poor Claudia. She has exhibited visual work at PØST, The Armory Center for the Arts and Edward Cella Art and Architecture (all Los Angeles). Mirage Industry, a book-length collection of her poetry, is just out from What Books Press, an imprint of the Glass Table Collective in Los Angeles. She teaches Humanities and Art History through the LA Community College District.
Our student reader for Sunday night, in her debut performance, Isabelle Tranner has been writing poetry off and on since the third grade, inspired by her grandfather who was a Robert Frost impersonator. Isabelle is a current fourth year student at University of Santa Barbara. She is pursuing a degree in Sociology with an English minor. Her studies focus on queer theory, pop culture, and environmental media. In her free time, Isabelle enjoys collecting comic books, visiting the ocean and attending free movie events. We can’t wait!
Questions? Email seayost@gmail.com.