Day One Reading, January 2009, Fresno

I’d like to post some pictures from different poetry readings I’ve been part of over the last few years. About eight months ago, January of this year, this shot was taken by a photographer documenting events on the night of Barack Obama’s historic election.  I was invited to read at a poetry event called Day One.  The incomparable Devoya Mayo, co-author of the play Semblance, organized and hosted the event.  Here I am shooting the breeze with Erik, my good friend from around the way. 

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Fall Reading Will Go Like This

This fall, I plan to carve out time to read more — Khaled Mattawa’s Amorisco, Tomaz Salamun’s new book, Don DeLillo’s Libra, even the old copies of Batman comics that I picked up at a book sale at a local outdoor market.  I also have Mike Medrano’s Born in the Cavity of Sunsets and the uncorrected advance copy of Maceo Montoya’s forthcoming novel The Soundrel and the Optimist.  It should be a good season of reading.

Reedley College, Wednesday, October 7 @ 1:00 pm

First Wednesdays at One Reading Series, Reedley College, October 7 @ 1:00, I will be signing copies of my book, This Many Miles from Desire.  For more information, e-mail David Dominguez at david.dominguez [at] reedleycollege.edu.

Thank you, Hartnell College

I had a great time reading to students, faculty, staff, and community members at Hartnell College last week.  My deepest thanks to Heidi Ramirez, who organized the event, which was very well-attended with bright, curious students.  Also in attendance was the poet/editor Maria Teutsch, whom I was glad to finally meet.  Salinas is a nice town with a lot of charm—as I sampled a seafood restaurant down the street from the Steinbeck Center, as well as the Golden Fish restaurant, where I had the delicious fried prawn sandwich.  We even had time to do a little window shopping.  Thank you again, Hartnell!  Here is a review/blog entry about my reading.

Thinking of the City & Its Poets

I’m thinking a lot about Frank O’Hara and urban/city poets these days, especially after Jim Carroll’s passing.  I bought The Basketball Diaries after seeing Leonardo DiCaprio in the film, but while I liked the book and the film, neither captured my attention as much as Carroll’s poem “8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain,” the first poem in Void of Course.  Maybe I’m thinking of the city because I am reading Oscar Bermeo’s fine poems, or maybe it’s because I’ve seen some people quite down on their luck as of late, speaking to phantoms outside post offices and other government buildings, scratching at their arms or staring up at the sky as if something were about to fall out of it.