2007 Regional Poets Reading

Poets: Hope Frazier, Enid Osborn, Mary Kay Rummel, Florence Weinberger, Paul Willis and Kimberly Young

Host: Phil Taggart

Kimberly Young is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Bennington College and a recipient of Bennington's Jane Kenyon Scholarship in poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Askew, 5am, POOL, The Bedside Guide To No Tell Motel, and Pebble Lake Review. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was a runner-up in the 2006 dA Center for the Arts poetry contest.

Paul Willis has taught at Westmont since 1988. He has published numerous poems in journals such as Poetry, Ascent, Askew, Wilderness, and Christian Century. His most recent chapbooks are Poison Oak (Mille Grazie Press, 1999), The Deep and Secret Color of Ice (Small Poetry Press, 2003), and How To Get There (Finishing Line Press, 2004). With David Starkey, he has edited In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare (University of Iowa Press, 2005). Paul has also published two eco-fantasy novels, No Clock in the Forest and The Stolen River, with Avon Books (1993). Much of Paul's writing has to do with the outdoors.

Florence Weinberger says, "At the top of the list of traumas that challenge our sense of who we are and how we function are the loss of a spouse and a change of residence. In 1998, my husband of 43 years died, in 2001 I sold my home of 32 years and moved to an new community, and still stood on shaky ground on September 11, four and a half years later. Poetry sustains me, animates me, keeps me in a constant dialogue, as a Jew who argues with God, and as a poet who fights with white space, entropy, injustice and a frequent desire to sleep, read a good book or go to a movie. So I keep on writing. I write because I am hopeful. I write because I have to." Florence is the author of three published collections of poetry, The Invisible Telling Its Shape (Fithian Press, 1997), Breathing Like a Jew (Chicory Blue Press, 1997) and Carnal Fragrance (Red Hen Press).

Mary Kay Rummel's new book of poetry, The Illuminations, is from Cherry Grove Collections. Her other poetry books are Green Journey Red Bird (Loonfeather Press), The Long Journey Into North (Juniper Press) and This Body She's Entered, a Minnesota Voices Award winner at New Rivers Press. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies most recently ART/LIFE, Askew, Northeast, Bloomsbury Review, Nimrod, Water-Stone Review, Comstock Review and Runes. A professor emerita from the University of Minnesota, she divides her time between Minneapolis and Ventura, CA where she teaches at California State University at Channel Islands.

Enid Osborn has performed her work throughout California and has read in the Ventura, Santa Barbara & San Luis Obispo Poetry Festivals. She's read at the Rose Cafe in Santa Monica & just about every venue possible on the mid-coast. Her work has been published in The Blue Mesa Review, Rivertalk, ART/LIFE and Askew. She's also a Denny Poetry Award winner.

Hope Frazier's art honors the dignity of the Earth and living things everywhere. She works with words and images at her studio here in Ojai, where she is a member of the city's Arts Commission and creator of the Voices of Ojai quotation stones public art installation in Rotary Park. Her Grandmother Oak's Last Pink Moment monoprint, from a photograph made here in Libbey Park, is the signature image of this Poetry Festival. Born and reared in the Appalachian Mountains, where her ancestors settled 250 years ago, Hope has created a multimedia exhibition of poetry, photography, solar etching and film poems examining the impact of mountaintop-removal coal mining on her own people and the endangered central Appalachians. The work -- "Brushy, Between the Halves of My Heart" -- is currently on exhibition at the Reece Museum, East Tennessee State University.

Phil Taggart is co-editor, with Marsha de la O, of the poetry Journal Askew and was editor of ART/LIFE limited editions from 1996 - 2005. He ran several poetry readings in Ventura and Santa Barbara, including: The Insomniac, Cafe Voltaire ,The Daily Grind, Art City 2, The Green Dragon, the Artists' Union Gallery, the Bell Arts Factory, co-directed The Ventura Poetry Festival with Jackson Wheeler and the Santa Barbara Poetry Series with David Oliveira at the Contemporary Arts Forum. Phil's publishing credits include: SOLO, Brick, Rivertalk, Sirens Silence, ZamBomba, Voce Piena, So Luminous the Wildflowers, Solo Café and on a t-shirt for Café Voltaire. Phil has several poems coming in two anthologies to be published this year. His book of poetry, Opium Wars, was published by Mille Grazie Press. Phil is on the Board of the San Buenaventura Artists' Union, the Bell Arts Factory and the Ventura County Arts Council.