ALOUD @ Los Angeles Public Library

California poetry has looked to the future, as well as to its complex past and the present, as a way of understanding our place at the edge of the continent. California is about the magic of the land and the promise of possibility— yet the question remains, for whom? Seven contemporary California poets celebrate the diverse poetry of seven distinguished California writers, hoping to provide a lens through which to experience these visions of a life lived in the harsh clarity of a Western light. Featuring Douglas Kearney reading Charles Bukowski; Victoria Chang reading Diane Di Prima; Brendan Constantine reading Wanda Coleman; Brynn Saito reading  Adrienne Rich; Kim Dower reading Gertrude Stein; Amy Gerstler reading Czeslaw Milosz; and Blas Falconer reading Juan Felipe Herrera.

David Francis’ latest novel Wedding Bush Road follows the visceral journey of a young L.A. lawyer called back to his family’s horse farm in rural Australia when his mother falls ill. Offering a uniquely intimate take on the timeless struggle between the past and present, town and country, Francis’ writing is fueled by a deep understanding of characters and landscapes that are worlds apart—he also works as a lawyer based in Los Angeles and spends part of each year on his family farm in Australia. Discussing this psychological portrait of a divided family and their complicated roots, Francis is joined by master storyteller and fellow horse aficionado Jane Smiley, who has known Francis for years and calls Wedding Bush Road, “his best work yet.”

2017 marks the 25th anniversary of one of contemporary poetry’s most prestigious awards—Claremont Graduate University’s Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, given for poetry volumes published in the preceding year and created to both honor the poet and provide the resources that allow artists to continue working towards the pinnacle of their craft. In a celebration moderated by the Poetry Society of America’s Executive Director Alice Quinn, join us for an evening looking back at 25 years of this special prize along with readings by this year’s winners Vievee Francis and Phillip B. Williams.

The Colorado River is a crucial resource for a large part of the United States, and every gallon that flows down it is owned or claimed by someone. New Yorker staff writer David Owen, and author of more than a dozen books, delivers his latest work, Where the Water Goes: Life and Death Along the Colorado River, and takes readers on an eye-opening adventure downriver, along a labyrinth of waterways, power plants, farms, fracking sites, ghost towns, and RV parks, to the spot near the U.S.–Mexico border where the river runs dry. Exploring the complexities of this vast man-made ecosystem with environmental reporter Judith Lewis Mernit, Owen illuminates the high-stakes of the water wars of the West.

War used to be a temporary state of affairs, but in today’s post 9/11-world America’s wars are everywhere and forever. Law professor and Foreign Policy columnist Rosa Brooks’ book, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon, traces what happens when the ancient boundary between war and peace is erased. Part reportage and part memoir, this thought-provoking book is directly informed by Brooks’ unconventional perspective—she is a former top Pentagon official who is the daughter of two anti-war protesters. Examining the political, military, and cultural shifts in times of persistent wars, Brooks joins Los Angeles Times Editor Nick Goldberg to consider the risks facing America’s founding values, laws, and institutions.

Born in a public library in Morocco where his father was a janitor, Abdellah Taïa is an acclaimed novelist and filmmaker who lives in Paris, but sets his latest novel in his home country. With deep lyricism and erotic energy, Infidels follows the life of Jallal, a young gay Muslim who is the son of a prostitute witch doctor. The mother and son struggle as outsiders inside their Islamic world until Jallal moves to Belgium and becomes a jihadist. Taia discusses this powerful story about love and belonging with Steven Reigns, the first City Poet of West Hollywood.

You know Cheech as half of the comedy duo Cheech & Chong, and you know him for his memorable roles in Up in Smoke, Born in East L.A., Desperado, The Lion King, and Jane the Virgin, to name a few. But did you know that Cheech—which is not his real name—is also the owner of the most renowned collection of Chicano art in the world? Did you know that before he became a face of the recreational drug movement, he grew up the son of a cop? Did you know that he crushed Anderson Cooper on Celebrity Jeopardy!? In his long-awaited memoir, this counterculture legend writes candidly about coming-of-age as the wisecracking kid in 1960s Los Angeles, resisting the draft as a young man, and many other surprising journeys along the way of creating one of the most successful comedy acts of all time. Join us for a spirited evening as Cheech reflects on his incredible career spanning over 45 years, in conversation with L.A.’s own Marisol Hernandez, lead singer of the GRAMMY award-winning La Santa Cecilia.

Elif Batuman, a New Yorker staff writer and author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, offers up a delightfully refreshing coming-of-age story about not just discovering but inventing oneself. Batuman’s debut novel The Idiot begins in 1995 when email is new and Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard where she navigates the strange new worlds of academics, friendships, and falling in love via email. Batuman discusses this off-kilter journey into adulthood and her recent reporting for The New Yorker from Turkey, with comedic author, television writer, and co-host of The Great Debates podcast Steve Hely.

Writer, sailor, and surfer Jonathan White journeys deep into the world’s oceans in his new book Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean. From investigating the growth of tidal power generation in Chile and Scotland to delving into the threat of rising sea levels in Panama and Venice, join us for this exploration of the current state of our oceans’ infinitely complex and ever-changing ecosystems and the forces that keep our planet’s waters in constant motion.

Award-winning poet Ocean Vuong’s debut full-length collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, has been hailed by critics for its powerful emotional undertow, sincerity and candor, and “sense of the evanescence of all earthly things” as Michiko Kakutani writes in The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, and now a resident of New York City, Vuong’s poems navigate the overarching worlds of history, sexuality, and humanity with startling precision. Reflecting on how geographical and linguistic energies intersect and what it means to write as a Vietnamese refugee in the contemporary space, Vuong reads from and discusses his poetry with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose writing also often explores the Vietnamese American experience.