Tag archives: Poetry
In a new book of poetry, Paul J. Willis takes his readers on a path through California’s coastal redwoods and giant sequoias in the Sierra, weaving in adolescent practical jokes and sharing unexpected epiphanies. Slant Books published the latest book by the Westmont professor of English and former Santa Barbara poet laureate. Willis’ seventh volume […]
Our library continues to thrive these days as we move from the intensity of the pandemic and open further. While the Montecito Library has been offering curbside pickup since last July and indoor visits since December, June 15 has ushered in a true feeling of normalcy. While we continue to wear masks indoors, library staff […]
Rod Rolle is both an esteemed professional news and public relations photographer and local jazz drummer with Tom Murray of 30 years in their duo, The Stiff Pickle Orchestra. His motto “Images with A Global View” is most accurate, currently an affiliate with SIPA USA, he has worked as a stringer for Getty Images, Associated […]
OPEN, the newest book of poetry by Susan Read Cronin, explores issues of love, life, death, and family. Sometimes written as seen through the eyes of a child, Cronin’s poems remind the reader of what it is like to try to make sense of the world around us. Weaving steadily between dark and light, her […]
“Nay, why reproach each other, be unkind,For there’s no plane on which we two may meet?” The words might be a little too poetic and eloquent for modern times, but the sentiment is surely something that might have been spoken aloud on the floor of the U.S. Senate this week, say, perhaps by a centrist […]
Top lyricist Toni Stern is waxing poetic again with her third and latest work, Loops. Unlike her two previous collections, Wet in 2015, and As Close as I Can three years ago, Toni, who enjoyed a highly productive collaboration with singer-songwriter Carole King, describes the new work as “freewheeling within the medium of prose, poetry, […]
One of the most famous lines of all poetry (originally written in Persian a millennium ago, but first translated into English in 1859) comes from a book called the Rubaiyat, and is about a “moving finger,” which “writes, and, having writ, moves on” – and nothing we can do can bring that finger back, to […]
If COVID-19 hadn’t caused everything to come to a close, and everyone to halt, suddenly in the middle of March, George Yatchisin would be hosting the sixth annual “Spirits in the Air: Potent Potable Poetry” reading at The Good Lion lounge this Friday, April 24, when the “Drinkable Landscape” columnist for Edible Santa Barbara and […]
The elderly residents of Casa Dorinda, currently under lockdown because of the coronavirus, are waxing poetic! Longtime resident Linda Beuret says residents are watching movies and participating in exercise classes on Casa TV, while food is delivered to the doors of cottages and rooms. “Keeping six feet from anyone you pass is absolutely mandatory,” says […]
Montecito’s Rumi Educational Center’s mission is to spread understanding of the poetry of the famed Sufi mystic Jala Al Din Rumi in order to promote his wisdom teachings of Universal Love. The goal is to enable learners of all backgrounds to experience the messages of pluralism, tolerance, humanism and non-violence that are rooted in Rumi’s […]
Kick off the brand-new year with a workshop that’s all about anticipating the end. White Lotus Foundation’s Santa Barbara Retreat Center begins the 2020 series of monthly retreats with “Preparing for the Final Asana: End of Life Law, Medicine, Policy and What Yoga Offers,” co-led by landmark attorney Kathryn Tucker, who is the Executive Director […]
Saying hello, bumping into someone in line, knowing the cashier’s name, seeing people and being seen – these are all components of social infrastructure, studied by sociologist Eric Klinenberg and fleshed out in his book Palaces for the People. These everyday affinities are part of what makes public library life so vital, keeping us civil […]
Paul Willis, Westmont professor of English, will read selections from his award-winning collection, To Build a Trail: Essays on Curiosity, Love and Wonder, Tuesday, October 15, at 5:30 pm in the University Club, 1332 Santa Barbara Street. The Westmont Downtown Lecture, “Not about the Numbers: What Really Matters in How We Learn,” is free and […]
If anybody asked you (for some diabolical reason) to use the word “unpremeditated” in a poem, you might think it a considerable, almost an unfair, challenge. The word isn’t very poetic-sounding, is it? But prepare to be flabbergasted: That word happens to appear in the first stanza of one of the most famous poems in […]
Santa Barbara poet Daniel Thomas celebrates the recent publication of his first collection of poems, Deep Pockets, with a second reading of works from the book at 7 pm next Thursday, August 23, at Chaucer’s. The book traverses Thomas’s path from snowy Minnesota to lush Southern California, where he moved in 2015 to work at […]
It was early last spring, just over a year ago, that Mark Ruskin published his second book of poetry, On Love’s Path ~ New Versions of Rumi, Kabir & Hafiz, in which he intuitively interprets the words of the great mystic poets through his own heart as a Chinese medicine healer. As with his first […]
Some people you meet in life by pure coincidence and others are put in your path. I do believe Perie Longo was not only put in my path for a reason but changed the course of my life forever. I was a painter when I met Perie, and now I am a writer; more about that […]
Nearly all the spiritual traditional and psychological systems suggest that suffering comes from how we interpret our experiences. Life is always going to have painful moments – but it’s what we make them mean that determines our level of inner happiness on anguish. There are many paths that aim to help humans alleviate the symptoms […]
Heal the Ocean (HTO) has received numerous (some irate) phone calls regarding the mud being deposited on Goleta and Carpinteria beaches. Television media has also called for a response from us. We told them, and everyone else, we were investigating and would let everyone know when we knew the answer. We at HTO don’t believe […]
Paul Willis, professor of English at Westmont and former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, hosts the 12th annual community poetry reading to honor the life and work of William Stafford (1914-1993) on Saturday, January 27, at 2 pm at the First Crossing Day Use Area in Los Padres National Forest, across from the Los Prietos […]
