Outta the Blue Poetry Series

POETRY AT THE BLUE LINE GALLERY

Four Readings Scheduled

ROSEVILLE, Calif., January 6, 2010—Sacramento Poet Laureate Bob Stanley and popular and award-winning Grass Valley poet Molly Fisk will kick off the “Outta the Blue Poetry Series” at the Blue Line Gallery on February 4, 2010.

The brainstorm of poet and former Press Tribune editor, John Bowman, a Roseville Arts member, the series will introduce the art of poetry to the Blue Line Gallery’s repertoire of friendly arts events. The lineup thus far:

·         February 4, 7:00-9:00p.m. – Bob Stanley and Molly Fisk

·         April 8, 7:00-9:00p.m. – Bill Gainer of Grass Valley, and Michelle Johnson, a professor at Sierra College and also co-advisor of the college’s Contemporary Arts Club.  Gainer is co-founder and board member of the Nevada County Poetry Series.

Other poets who will be appearing in subsequent readings in August and October include Kate Asche, Sacramento poet and essayist and associate director of Arts and Humanities at UC Davis Extension; Tim Kahl, who reads and hosts readings at the Sacramento Poetry Center; Roger Groghan, Meadow Vista poet who has read his work at numerous area events; Kathleen Lynch of Sacramento, published poet, essayist and gifted reader of poetry; and Moira Magneson of Placerville, who teaches at Sacramento City College.

WHO:                    Roseville Arts Blue Line Gallery

WHAT:                  First of four readings in “Outta the Blue Poetry Series”:  Molly Fisk and Bob Stanley

WHEN:                 February 4, 2010, 7–9 p.m.

WHERE:                Blue Line Gallery, 405 Vernon Street, Suite 100, Roseville

WHY:                    To cultivate poetry as an important part of Roseville’s culture. 

COST:                    $5 members & students; $15 non-members. Sign up for Roseville Arts membership & get in free!    

ABOUT MOLLY FISK

Molly Fisk was born in San Francisco. She earned her B.A. from Radcliffe College/Harvard University, her M.B.A. from Simmons College Graduate School of Management, and began writing at the age of 35. She's the author of Listening to Winter, Terrain (with Dan Bellm and Forrest Hamer), the letterpress chapbook Salt Water Poems and the CD of radio commentary Using Your Turn Signal Promotes World Peace. (See Books/CDs)

Molly has received fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the Marin Arts Council. She's won the Dogwood Prize, the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize in Poetry, the Billee Murray Denny Prize, and the National Writer's Union Prize.

Linda McCarriston says about Molly's book Listening to Winter:  "...[an] intellectually self-aware, bold and brilliant re/consideration of the culturally paradigmatic problem of incest. In lacunae and ellipses as artful as the poems themselves, she shows to the mind the heart's wounds and forces it to make of them an answer. Complex, memorable, Listening to Winter makes vivid the real and dangerous work of what is called, contemptuously, 'confessionalism,' meditating, from its most intimate perspective, on the nature and costs of 'The Old Order.'"

ABOUT BOB STANLEY

Bob Stanley is the 2009-2011 Poet Laureate of Sacramento. He has written poetry and volunteered in poetry organizations for over three decades. Currently president of the Sacramento Poetry Center, Bob has also served on the board of Alameda Poets and has led hundreds of creative writing workshops and readings. In 2008, he organized and moderated a gathering of poets laureate from across California on behalf of the California Arts Council, and in 2009 he edited Sometimes in the Open, an anthology of poems by sixty-five laureates. His poems have won a number of awards, including the California Focus on Writers prize in 2006, and have been published in a variety of journals and anthologies.

Stanley holds a BA in English from UCLA and an MA in Creative Writing from CSU Sacramento. A fourth generation Californian, Bob and his wife Joyce have raised their four children in Sacramento. After working 28 years in the automotive business, Bob now teaches creative writing and English at CSU Sacramento, Sacramento City College, Solano College, and UC Davis Extension. Walt Whitman Orders a Cheeseburger, his first chapbook, was released in June, 2009, from Rattlesnake Press.

ABOUT ROSEVILLE ARTS BLUE LINE GALLERY

2009 VOTED #1 ART GALLERY IN THE SACRAMENTO REGION—KCRA  A-LIST and ROSEVILLE, GRANITE BAY, ROCKLIN STYLE MAGAZINE

Roseville Arts’ Blue Line Gallery is a non-profit community center for the arts.  Further information may be obtained on the website:  www.rosevillearts.org or by calling (916) 783-4117. To set up an interview or to request high resolution photography, please contact Veronika Nagy at roseart@surewest.net .