Friday, May 1, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Skylight Books, Los Angeles
 CLICK HERE TO RSVP _**RSVP is recommended but not required. Entry and seating are first-come, first-served. RSVPs do not guarantee entry to a full event.**_ **Poets and writers explore the devastation of the cataclysmic 2025 fires in Los Angeles, California, penetrating the unfathomable despair of losing everything, exposing the struggle with the ensuing grief, and, through it all, summoning the courage to rise again.** Fueled by dry conditions and relentless Santa Ana winds rushing over the landscape with speeds upwards of 100 miles per hour, everything bending to the will of the wind, the spark of Los Angeles's January 2025 fires exploded into an unprecedented gut wrenching apocalypse. In this superbly curated collection, edited by award-winning L.A. poets S.A. Griffin and Richard Modiano, contemporary poets and writers from L.A. and beyond explore the intense horror of devastating loss, the helplessness of watching from across the country, the grief in the aftermath, and the resolve to rise again together from the ashes. Contributors include: Susan Auerbach, Lin Nelson Benedek, Mary Anne Berry, Michelle Bitting, Laurel Ann Bogen, Lynne Bronstein, Jeffrey Bryant, Mona Jean Cedar, Teresa Mei Chuc, Jeanette Clough, Brendan Constantine, Iris De Anda, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Rich Ferguson, Kathleen Florence, Land Flowers, Kat Georges, S.A. Griffin, Spencer L. Griffin, Susan Hayden, Steve Hochman, jerry the priest, La Romb eacute;, Tom Laichas, Rick Lupert, Suzanne Lummis, Phoebe MacAdams, Sarah Maclay, kamla maya, Holaday Mason, Ellyn Maybe, Richard Modiano, Bill Mohr, Chris Morris, K.R. Morrison, Majid Naficy, Jim Natal, Harry E. Northup, Cynthia Perello, Puma Perl, Kennon B. Raines, Nicca Ray, Riot Renwick, Marilyn N. Robertson, Beth Ruscio, Cathie Sandstrom, Dan Saucedo, Maryrose Smyth, Mike Sonksen, A.K. Toney, David L. Ulin, jimmy vega, Pam Ward, Dig Wayne, Hilda Weiss, Jessica M. Wilson, Gail Wronsky, and Z. **S.A. Griffin** is the author of Pandemic Soul Music (Punk Hostage Press) and co-editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry (Thunder's Mouth Press, Firecracker Award). In April-June 2010 he toured the U.S. with Elsie the Poetry Bomb, a 7-foot-tall Vietnam era practice bomb converted into an art object and filled with poetry from around the world in an effort to create and inspire civil disagreements. Carma Bum, father, husband and Vietnam era veteran of the USAF. **Jeffrey Bryant** is a Pushcart nominated queer poet from Los Angeles. His work has appeared in the LA Weekly, L.A. Times, Poetic Diversity, New Verse News, Poetrysuperhighway.com, Synkroniciti, Quill and Echo, Tension Literary, Journal of the Plague Years, Coiled Serpent, Altadena Literary Review, Shadowplay and Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts. He is a featured poet in the forthcoming spring edition of Cholla Needles Literary Journal. His debut collection The Catacombs of Vanished Lovers (2025, Cherry Pie Press). **Mona Jean Cedar** has been spilling her spoken word poetry with American Sign Language (ASL) around the globe for over 30 years. Her poetry pedigree includes being on the Long Beach Slam team; interpreted for the National Slams and the Women of the World Slams; interpreting for the Coupe du Monde de Poesie in Paris for five years when in the final year she actually competed and represented the USA; multitudinous readings, a few Dada events… presently performs with her husband, a circuit bender (google it). A bunch of other stuff too… has a dance company choreographing with international signs… Burning Man, ... blah blah blah. **Susan Hayden** is author of the hybrid memoir; Now You Are a Missing Person (Moon Tide Press). It was a Kirkus Reviews’ Best Indie Book of 2024, after receiving the Kirkus Star. She’s been published in numerous anthologies, including From Venice to Venice: Poets of California and Italy (El Martillo Press), Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press) and The Black Body (Seven Stories Press). She is Creator/Producer of Library Girl, now in its 17th year. **Steve Hochman** has covered music for 40 years, most prominently with the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, KPCC and KQED. Currently he’s a featured writer in SPIN, New Orleans’ OffBeat and the Bluegrass Situation, and serves as a frequent moderator of events at the Grammy Museum. In recent years, with the loving encouragement of his wife, Susan Hayden, he has also embraced a more personal voice, writing pieces for her monthly live literary series, Library Girl. **Tom Laichas** is author of three books of poetry, most recently Three Hundred Streets of Venice California (FutureCycle Press, 2023). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Plume, The Los Angeles Times, The Irish Times, Blue Unicorn and elsewhere. The featured American poet at the High Window Review (UK), his work has also won awards from Jabberwock Review, Puerto del Sol, and Prime 53. He lives with his family in Venice, California. **Phoebe MacAdams** was born and raised in New York City but has mostly lived in California. She moved to LA in 1986. With the poets James Cushing, the late Holly Prado and Harry Northup, she is a founding member of Cahuenga Press, which now includes the poet Jeanette Clough. She taught English at Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights until her retirement in 2011. She has published seven books of poetry, the last five with Cahuenga Press, including in 2016, her new and selected volume, The Large Economy of the Beautiful. In 2017, Beyond Baroque published Every Bird Helps: A Cancer Journal. She lives in Pasadena with her husband, Ron Ozuna. **Richard Modiano** became active in the literary community connected to the Poetry Project where he came to know Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, William S. Burroughs and Ted Berrigan. In 2001 he was a programmer at Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center, joined the Board of Trustees in 2006, and from 2010 to 2019, he served as Executive Director. The Huffington Post named him as one of 200 people doing the most to promote poetry in the United States. Richard Modiano is the winner of the 2022 Joe Hill Prize for labor poetry and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. His collection The Forbidden Lunchbox is published by Punk Hostage Press. **Bill Mohr** has worked as an editor, publisher, literary historian, and poet since the early 1970s. His books include Holdouts: The Los Angeles Poetry Renaissance 1948- 1992 (University of Iowa Press; 2011) and a bilingual edition of poems, Pruebas Ocultas (Bonobos Editores, Mexico; 2015). What Books will publish Remiges: Collected Longer Poems in the fall of 2026. **A.K. Toney** is a griot, musician, and educator. Toney is writing his first book along with a double-album chronicling his life as an ethnographer through the experiences of urban griot. As the Neo Griot, Toney uses musical accompaniment with poetry to provide call and response with listeners as a tool of engagement for participation. He is a founder and the Literacy Coordinator of Reading Is Poetry, LLC. readingispoetry.com. A.K. is also a jazz artist that has worked with Jimetta Rose, Georgia Ann Muldrow, Ryan Porter, Tatiana Tate, Allakoi Peete, Josef Leimberg, and Jamael Dean. **Dig Wayne** teaches Method Acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in West Hollywood. Originally from Ohio, Dig has lived, worked, and practiced his art in New York City and London. He has published two books of poetry, Hip Pockets and Bongo Skin. His recent collection, One Fell Swoop was published by innateDIVINITYbooks. His poetry has been featured in a number of literary magazines and anthologies including the last two issues of The Sparring Artists: Anthology of Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts. **Z** lives in California.