Donna Hilbert, Help Poet Fest Tonight

I am leading off today, with a poem by my friend, the poet Anna Badua:

Skin

Funny how skin is waterproof
I think
As I look at the beads of water
Drip
off your freshly showered back
How it can stretch
Over our bones
Protect our vital organs
Heal itself from wounds
How it wrinkles
etches wisdom
onto our faces
How it takes a lifetime
to finally feel
comfortable in

As a writer, I feel lucky to live in a city with a lively literary community with poets for friends and collaborators.  Writers need a place to hold events, buy books, sell books, hang out and hatch plans.  Sean Moor’s Gatsby Books, in just over a year, has become such a place.  It was at one of the famous “Hump” poetry readings held on the third Wednesday of the month at Gatsby's and hosted by the thoroughly wonderful poet and publisher, Kevin Lee, that a group of us came up with the idea for a poetry festival: BESIDE THE CITY OF ANGELS A Long Beach Poetry Festival, which will be held on October 15 of this year.  I will write more about the festival in future blogs, but tonight the festival hosts will stage a fundraising reading at Gatsby Books.  Please join us!

Fundraiser Reading for the Beside the City of Angels LB Poetry Festival

Friday, September 16 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm

Featuring festival hosts:
Anna Badua
Donna Hilbert
Kevin Patrick Lee

Tamara Madison
Clint Margrave
Paul Kareem Tayyar

Friday, September 16 @ 7pm
Gatsby Books
5535 E. Spring St.
Long Beach CA 90808
(562)208-5862
Gatsby Books

$10 suggested donation at the door
There will be books available from Aortic Books, Pearl, and World Parade Books for a donation, as well as wine and treats and an all around feeling of doing something good for your community.

Other Patch stories involving Gatsby: http://patch.com/A-ghJY