August 22, 2008 - Speculative Poetry Party

(l to r): Drew Morse, Denise Dumars, Samantha Henderson, Kendall Evans, Gwynne Garfinkle
(bottom): Greg Stewart
(not pictured): Debbie Kolodji

On Friday night, August 22, 2008, Greg Stewart hosted a speculative poetry get-together at his home in West Los Angeles in honor of Drew Morse, the Science Fiction Poetry Association Rhysling Chair, who was visiting from Cleveland.

After poetry gossip and Chinese food, the group wrote two exquisite corpses and did a poetry read-around.

Note: An exquisite corpse is a collaboration where each participant adds to the work in sequence, resulting in a collaborative poem or drawing. Two methods were used Friday night. For the first poem, each person wrote a line and folded the page down so the next participant could not see any of what had been previously written. For the second, each poet wrote two lines, folding the paper so only the last line was visible. The results were interesting. Perhaps they will be published someday.

Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Night - April 14th

Kendall Evans and Denise Dumars

April 14th - Monday Night Poetry, Pasadena, CA

On Monday, April 14 at 8:00 p.m. Monday Night Poetry will feature a special science fiction and fantasty poetry night featuring Denise Dumars and Kendall Evans. Deborah P Kolodji and Don Kingfisher Campbell are the co-hosts.

The reading will be at the Santa Catalina Branch of the Pasadena Public Library on 999 E. Washington Blvd. in Pasadena. Enter to the rear of the library.

Attendees will receive copies of Sci Fi Fan 2 a special anthology containing a mix of sf poetry pros with local poets. The line-up is: Linda D. Addison, Ruth Berman, Anthony G. Bernstein, CaLokie, Don Kingfisher Campbell, Alan Cook, James S. Dorr, Denise Dumars, Peg Duthie, Engleman, Kendall Evans, Dan Garcia-Black, Jo Gerrard, Samantha Henderson, Patricia Kelly, Justin Kibbe, Deborah P Kolodji, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, Dan Lambert, Geoffrey A. Landis, Sandra Lindow, Janis Lukstein, Radomir Luza, Mira Mataric, Nate Mohatt, Don Newton, Ruth Nolan, Terrie Leigh Relf, Ann K. Schwader, Marge Simon, G. Murray Thomas, Maja Trochimczyk, Mary Turzillo, Frida Westford, and Stephen M. Wilson.

Additional copies will be available at the reading for $10 each or can be ordered electronically through a paypal payment to sensitive@earthlink.net and including $2 for shipping ($12 total).

Museum of Jurassic Technology Workshop

Yoon Ha Lee, Deborah P Kolodji, Denise Dumars, W. Gregory Stewart,
Nancy Ellis Taylor, Sharon Hawley, Lois P. Jones, Kath Abela Wilson,
Kendall Evans

On Saturday, March 29, 2008, the Southland Poets of the Fantastic held their Spring quarterly workshop at the Museum of Jurassic Technology. A total of nine poets participated in this wonderfully surreal and beautifully strange day of poetry.

Seven of us started the day at Govinda's, which some say is one of the best vegetarian restaurants in Los Angeles, a place of very inexpensive but utterly fabulous food located in a Hari Krishna temple. No one sang Hari Krishna or tried to convert us, but the atmosphere was otherworldly and fitting for a group of speculative poets. After feasting on black bean soup and vegetable curry and all sorts of other delicious things, we walked a few blocks to the museum.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology almost defies the ability to adequately describe it other than it is, by its nature, a sort of speculative poem. It might be best explored cold, with no idea that most of the exhibits are surreal poetic jokes delivered with a serious, straight face. It is much darker than most museums which adds to the incredible otherworldly atmosphere. Upstairs is a tea room, where the group met for prompt sharing, our writing session, and poetry reading (of our just written poems).

It was a wonderful day of speculative poetry.

La Brea Tar Pits Workshop

(left to right) Lois P. Jones, Denise Dumars, W. Gregory Stewart
Deborah P Kolodji, Megan Sugarman, Samantha Henderson
(in front) Kendall Evans
La Brea Tar Pits, September 1, 2007

The Southland Poets of the Fantastic held their third quarterly workshop on Saturday, September 1, 2007 at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. After a brief workshop session in the adjacent courtyard at LACMA, participants viewed the Pit 91 Excavation and toured the Page Museum. After exchanging poetry prompts in the museum, each poet had about an hour of writing time before regrouping for food and sharing.

Although Los Angeles temperatures were in the triple digits that day, poets managed to keep relatively cool as their poetry muses heated up, resulting in a sizzling yield of poems.

La Brea Tar Pits - September 1st Workshop

The Speculative Poets of the Fantastic will be having their third quarterly speculative poetry workshop on Saturday, September 1st at the La Brea Tar Pits, 5801 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036.

The Page Museum/Tar Pits is located in Hancock Park with LACMA. Parking is $6 off of Corson Ave behind the Page Museum. Admission to the Page Museum is $7.

We will meet in the Central Court of LACMA at 12:30. Bring a poem to share and extra copies to workshop. Please contact Debbie Kolodji at dkolodji@aol.com to let us know you will be attending. We hope you will join us for a fun afternoon of Pleistocene Era speculative poetry.

Getty Center Workshop - May 27, 2007

Speculative Workshop at the Getty
May 26, 2007 starting at 1 pm.

1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90049

Confirmed participants include Samantha Henderson, Deborah P Kolodji, W. Gregory Stewart, Denise Dumars, Lois P. Jones, Chrisopher Vera, and Stephania Ebony.

We will meet at Greg’s house at 12:30 to carpool and return there for a potluck dinner afterwards. If you’d like to join us, e-mail Debbie at dkolodji@aol.com for directions to Greg’s house.

If you'd prefer to meet us at the Getty, be at the tram by 1:00 p.m.

Griffith Observatory Workshop

(back) Deborah P Kolodji, W. Gregory Stewart, Lois P. Jones
(front) Samantha Henderson, Kendall Evans

On Saturday, the Southland Poets of the Fantastic held its first poetry workshop at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

We met in the parking lot of the Los Angeles Zoo to take the shuttle up to the newly reopened Griffith Observatory. After our arrival, we refueled on coffee and passed out index cards. Each person was given 45 minutes to explore the observatory exhibits with the assignment to write down three poem prompts.

We regrouped in a circle on the Observatory lawn, shared poetry we had brought from home, and exchanged index cards. Everyone then had an hour to write a poem based upon the poem prompts they were given. After the writing time was over, we met on the outdoor patio of the Café at the End of the Universe and read the new poems we had written as the sun began to set spectacularly over Los Angeles.

Afterwards, some of us stayed and had dinner (where we were joined by Karen Romanko and her husband Bob). Samantha and Debbie stayed even longer and star-gazed through the observatory's 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope and various telescopes set up on the lawn by a local astronomy group.