5:15-6:15PM Docent tours at the Guest House

          6:30PM Readings

Beach=Culture and the Red Hen Poetry Series present three poets and a musician in this fourth evening in a four part exploration of current poetry.

Ron Koertge (pronounced Kur-chee) was born in 1940 in Olney, Illinois. Koertge received his BA from the University of Illinois and his MA from the University of Arizona and taught English at Pasadena City College from 1965 to 2001. He is the author of Fever, Sex Object, 12 Photographs of Yellowstone, The Hired Nose, The Father Poems, The Jockey Poems, Men Under Fire, Diary Cows, Life on the Edge of the Continent, High School Dirty Poems, Making Love to Roget's Wife, and Geography of the Forehead. He is also the recipient of an NEA fellowship and a California Arts Council grant for his poetry. Koertge’s work has been included in Best American Poetry 1999.

Sesshu Foster has taught composition and literature in East L.A. for 20 years, and has taught writing at the University of Iowa, the California Institute for the Arts and the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work has been published in The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, Language for a New Century: Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond, and State of the Union: 50 Political Poems. One of his last readings at St. Mark's Poetry Project NYC is audio archived at www.salon.com and local readings are archived at www.sicklyseason.com. He is currently collaborating with artist Arturo Romo and other writers on the website, www.ELAguide.org. His most recent books are the novel Atomik Aztex and World Ball Notebook.

Eloise Klein Healy is the author of six books of poetry, most recently, The Islands Project: Poems for Sappho (Red Hen Press, 2007). Healy has been awarded artist residencies at The MacDowell Colony and Dorland Mountain Colony. She directed the Women’s Studies Program at CSU Northridge and was founding chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. Her imprint with Red Hen Press, Arktoi Books, specializes in publishing the work of lesbian authors.

Jared Burton is a prolific writer of songs that range from folk to rock-pop, although he would rather describe his style as “amerikana” with direct reference to Kafka's novel. As the offspring of poet parents, his pointed lyricism holds its own with his musical talents in guitar, piano, mandolin, and voice. Burton is an avid bird watcher, aspiring librarian, and lives in Pasadena with his fiance, Kelly. You can learn more about Burton and hear some of his songs at www.myspace.com/jaredburton.

A national presence in independent publishing, the fifteen year-old Red Hen Press publishes twenty titles of poetry, fiction and non-fiction every year and presents seven reading series in New York and Los Angeles. The Red Hen Poetry series at the Beach House is cosponsored by American Composers Forum Los Angeles. http://www.redhen.org; http://www.composersforum.org/chapters_about.cfm?oid=1460.

Stop by early for Beach House tours by docents from the Santa Monica Conservancy before every evening event, first come, first served.

Tickets: Free but seating is limited and reservations are required. If you would like to attend, please reserve online. Please plan to arrive by 6:15pm to retain your reservation. Late seating is not guaranteed. To adjust or cancel your reservation for this event, email beachhouse@smgov.net. We appreciate your keeping in touch!

Parking and Driving directions: From the Pacific Coast Highway north of California Incline, turn at the Beach House Way traffic light into convenient parking ($4/hr, $8/day, disabled placards and Santa Monica senior beach parking passes accepted).

Other events:

Winter/Spring Beach=Culture events are being finalized and will take place on a different schedule to be determined. To view & make reservations for future Beach=Culture events, check  http://www.eventbrite.com/org/199463539 every few weeks.

For more information about events at the Beach House, visit http://beachhouse.smgov.net/plan-your-day/events-and-happenings.aspx