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.

Griffith Observatory Workshop - 2/24/07

Photo by An Xiao, http://thatwaszen.blogspot.com

The Southland Poets of the Fantastic will be holding their first workshop on Saturday, February 24, 2007 at the Griffith Observatory.

We plan to meet at the Zoo Parking Lot Shuttle Stop to catch the 1:00 pm shuttle to the observatory. Please RSVP to Samantha Henderson by Saturday, February 17th if you are planning to attend. Tram tickets are $8.00 ($4.00 for seniors 60 years and older).

If you miss the RSVP deadline, please access the Griffith Observatory Shuttle Reservation page to make your shuttle reservation for the 1:00 pm shuttle on February 24th. The Observatory recommends making your reservation at least 48 hours in advance to ensure a place on the shuttle. If you make your own shuttle reservation, please still let Samantha know that you are coming and that you have purchased your own shuttle reservation.

The workshop is anticipated to take about 3 1/2 hours. The observatory closes at 10:00 pm and poets are encouraged to stay around afterwards to socialize with other speculative poets, dine at the Cafe at the End of the Universe, see the planetarium show, and look through the telescope. Participants can take any tram back to the Zoo parking lot. The last tram runs at 10:00 pm.