Sunday, August 18, 2024

Reading Poems at the 2024 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Now that I'm soon to be "skyin' up" (as a good friend of mine would call it) in a flight to New York City for more poetry readings, in this year of launching my new poetry book God in Her Ruffled Dress, I realize that I never blogged about going down to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (LATFOB) in mid-April to read on the poetry stage.

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
 
What a choice gig! Two full days of 20-minute sets by poets with new books out that year on the beautiful USC campus. And the chance to stay for the cost of less than the usual fortune, because of conference rates, at the gorgeous, historic Millenium Biltmore hotel in downtown LA (DTLA), in an unusually large room with a window that opened. 

I loved hearing so much poetry. And I really loved the festival overall, not only because it featured many events with authors from all sectors of publishing and all genres, but also because it was free and attracted thousands of attendees -- strikingly diverse and excited about books, strolling the many aisles of book-related booths. A rare chance to be among a teeming crowd there for book culture.  

A homey thrill was connecting with Bay Area poet friends and organizers Joyce Jenkins, of Poetry Flash, and Jennifer Joseph, of Manic D Press, whom I'd known for decades but not talked with much in the last decade or two, who had a booth together. Ironic that we connected in LA.

The festival was a well run machine, the organizers on top of their jobs at every step. For instance: providing not just a green room but an entire green building for all the presenters, whose enthusiasm was palpable. Gaggles of panelists partook of the generous buffet along with famous actors and entertainers who had published recent memoirs. These prose writers and book business people were sociable and chatty. 

On the USC campus for the LATFOB, poet-singer Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) 

BUT I confess that on this second visit to DTLA, after a vacation there with my sweetheart five years earlier, I concluded that I just didn't vibe with the neighborhood. Big, windy, no there there. (Ironic, as that's the phrase that Gertrude Stein assigned to my current longtime hometown Oakland.) It seemed to offer the familiar but strange combination found in big U.S. cities today of expensive warehouse space converted into condo lofts and their stylish residents juxtaposed with down-on-their-heels addicts and homeless folks. But without that feeling of personal excitement or rubbing shoulders that one finds in NY. 

And I was lonely traveling alone this time, especially as a COVID-cautious holdout amid people gaily eating indoors unmasked. I did enjoy discovering pockets of old L.A. and ethnic culture -- that alley street filled with 10 different Greek restaurants, the old Fashion District, the Jewelry District. The largely Mexican-American staff of the hotel were courtly in their old-fashioned uniforms and warm.
   
Underlying my sense of isolation was the feeling of not being in the poet in-group. Maybe that's inevitable for all poets whether they show it or not, usually being introverts. Yet it was clear that my situation was rare among the other poets: the scene has become strikingly more academic since my first book, The Transparent Body, from Wesleyan University Press's prestigious New Poets Series, was published in 1989, and I was not an academic. 

The past three decades-plus brought an explosion of graduate creative writing programs along with proliferating poetry prizes and contests. Getting a book published now fulfills the academic need to publish, and winning a prize or award is even more helpful to a professor's career. In this way, the book becomes a function of the academic career. Not that I blame poets; it's good to be able to have a poetry job. But I was not a player in this particular game. And I could taste the flavor of the academy there and in many of the poems no matter how subversive the content. A big vibe shift for me in this return to the scene since this second book of mine came out the previous October: feeling like an outsider.

In between my two books, I kept writing poetry and publishing it in excellent literary magazines and anthologies, but the bulk of my artistic focus veered to becoming a singer (no small feat) and producing and releasing my original jazz/groove music over seven albums. Over this period, the music business kept changing rapidly, with independent CDs in reach for indies rather than the requirement to go through gatekeeper major labels, then the advent of mp3s, then streaming. This was a lot of figure out in a lot of ways. 

And further resourcefulness was demanded of me as I learned to navigate the music world, because even in jazz and its sister genres, I was unique, with my songs including both sung and spoken verse, the latter more poetic than the rap-grounded verse more common in this music. 

Before entering the indie music business, I was quite grounded in the literary poetry scene. After earning a master's degree in creative writing/literature at San Francisco State, I cofounded a literary magazine in the '80s in San Francisco, including all the work of outreach and editing and even running a reading series over a few years. I kept my eye on the ins and outs of the national poetry scene. I even spent two years teaching and serving as Associate Director of The Poetry Center at San Francisco State, where I'd received my master's only eight years before taking that job. During those two years, I also began writing and recording music as well as studying to become a psychic reader. A hectic, exciting time. 

Yet by 2023, my artistic community had shifted to the jazz-and-beyond universe within the music business. In this universe, while some jazz musicians also have academic jobs, they are by no means largely academic in style or art; many still play in clubs and are still connected with the Black culture that is the foundation of the art form. And music, even indie jazz-and-beyond by someone stretching genres as I was, is released, distributed, and promoted within a commercial framework. The goal was to sell it, even at the pitiful streaming rates we now face, or at least chart or otherwise gain traction with the public so as to be able to get gigs. Reviews, radio play, and other promotion were fast-paced and even garish compared with the more genteel context for publishing and publicizing poetry books.  

And suddenly, after a number of smaller readings with just a few other poets (in LA, Miami, Berkeley, San Francisco, Venice) here I was in a large concentration of poets of 2024. 

Not only poets, but also poetry professors. I was maybe one of three poets among over 50 poets there who was not teaching creative writing and/or literature in a college or university. Certainly not one who had been attending the profession's big annual gathering, the Association of Writers and Writing Progams's (AWPs's) annual conference, over many years.

These folks were mainly nice to me, but they tended to already know each other and to want to hang around with each other rather than me. Even some of the poets published by my LA-based publisher, What Books Press. Also, my style as a performer was different -- influenced by my experience on stage in clubs as a singer-poet and bandleader, not to mention my work as a psychic reader and coach intent on communicating on a different wavelength from that of the cloistered poet or the professor.

Poet-singer Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) at the LATFOB

The art of poetry is solitary by nature, not collaborative. Poets are a lot more private and inward-directed, and more in their heads, relative to musicians, who live and work more in their bodies and are more oriented outward toward performance, even entertainment. These obvious differences hit me as I stayed close to the poetry stage area for two days, feeling a bit like someone returning to a country that she had once known well, but no longer did.

The readings were good but mostly they still felt as if they were being delivered by non-performers. And that's fine. I don't feel comfortable in the more performance-oriented poetry slam scene either, as the craft is so different from what I crave from poetry; it's just that sometimes more literary poets don't do justice to their own work in presenting it. Being a good writer and being a good presenter of one's writing are two separate skills.  

This is not to say that I have not often experienced the dichotomy between poet and performer within my own being. Was I Emily Dickinson or Barbra Streisand, to choose two iconic figures?  Here in this group the dichotomy was made external and even clearer. I had always maintained that in ancient cultures, the poet and the singer and the shaman/spiritual leader were often one and the same person, so why not claim and seek to inhabit all those spheres? But being at the LA Times Festival of Books, especially in the ultra-vividness of emerging into big crowds after the long retreat of the initial pandemic phase, it was dramatically clear that the scene was not ancient culture. At that moment, literary poetry existed in a distinct world. 


Still, I had fun just being there, feeling isolated or not. And I bridged the dichotomy of my two art forms for myself by including some a cappella singing in my set. The singing drew people into the audience from the farther reaches of the festival. I should have done more earlier rather than later in my set. Always more to learn.
 
The day after the festival ended I drove out of multi-lane, multi-freeway LA to see my pals in 29 Palms, where I've visited many times. Ah, the clarifying desert. The stimulation and comfort of long friendship and rich conversation. A pool in which to find my inner compass tilting toward true north again. 

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) at the Joshua Tree National Park

It's been wonderful to have an excuse to travel after the pandemic isolation I felt was necessary, even though I continued to mask (using a semi-transparent N95) during the previous poetry readings I gave, which were indoors. As a type 1 diabetic who has kept up with the data on the ravages of COVID, I remain cautious. I loved that this festival, being outdoors, allowed me to present my poetry without a mask on. 

Once home, I bridged the feeling of isolation by writing all of the other poets who had read there. From the safety of our homes and the privacy of writing and replying online, we made connections (most of the time) and traded books (some times). A good feeling. 

And I'm off in a couple of days to two more outdoor readings in the noisy, accessible glamour and dense contact of the Big Apple! The joy of sharing my work and reading with other excellent poets, in the city of my ancestors, promises to be a homier experience. 







Saturday, August 17, 2024

Jazz Lives Blog Features "God in Her Ruffled Dress"

Review by Michael Steinman in Jazz Lives blog of the poetry book "God in Her Ruffled Dress" by Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)

C
heck out this wonderful review of my new poetry book by jazz critic, appreciator, liner notes writer, and archivist (and poetry aficionado) Michael Steinman at Jazz Lives. Honored by his take on my work!

The headline (love it) followed by an excerpt:

WITH BOLD DELICACY: “GOD IN HER RUFFLED DRESS,” by LISA B (LISA BERNSTEIN)


"I had a certain skepticism about “jazz poetry,” or “poetry about jazz,” based on a good deal of familiarity with the genre, or should I say, product. It relies on an implied connection — experience and emotion — between poet and reader....

But truly resonant poetry is more than a dropping of famous names, or playing readers as if they were keyboards. Bernstein has understood this, and she avoids familiar tropes, easy associations. To write about Billie Holiday is treacherous because the formulaic is frozen through decades of repetition, but when Bernstein, in “Billie Goes Home,” imagines her saying or thinking, “Growl to me, Mister, / please,” I am charmed and touched by what she has envisioned...“Uptempo with Ella,” simultaneously whimsical and serious — is it dream, short story, or vision, or all three? — takes us into an elevator with Ella for a ride where Ella is “gleaming a blessing.”

But the poems are not all about jazz... And what a breadth of experiences! There is the bright detritus of present and past; Richard III, Whole Foods, apricots, time spent at the computer or in front of "Law and Order," elliptical conversations between lovers... And there is the Body — always the subject too rich to be exhausted by inquiries and exultations: erotic pleasure, menstruation, birth, illness, pain...

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) is also a well-established jazz singer, more than a handful of compact discs to her credit. So it makes perfect sense that GOD IN HER RUFFLED DRESS is also available as an audiobook..."

Big thanks to Jazz Lives! Worth your subscription for Steinman's consistently engaging voice and insights.

Hometown Girl Makes Good in Press from Serene Santa Cruz Pubs

Santa Cruz and its press gave me a very warm welcome when I returned to my former hometown (well, one of them), which is my former college town to boot, for a poetry reading August 6, 2024 in my continued rollout of the poetry book God in Her Ruffled Dress (now available in both paperback and audiobook!).
 
The event was part of Inter|Act's newish series of poets and spoken-word artists giving recitations of their work at the lovely Satori Arts theatre on the West Side -- not far from where I lived in my last year of school at UC Santa Cruz. (We drove by that house afterward.)
 
Good Times published a fat paragraph about the event. Wow!

Then the Santa Cruz Sentinel's profile ran not only online but on a half-page in the print edition! I enjoyed speaking with reporter Nick Sestanovich for the story at the ungodly-for-me hour of 10 a.m., and he did a great job with it. I'd wager h
e didn't even know I was still in bed. 

The audience had that reliably welcoming, somewhat serene Santa Cruz vibe that never seems to change no matter how many new people move to the city. I liked the readers in the open mic too, and appreciated the solid, friendly stewardship of the event by Jace Rowe from Inter|Act and Tom Brady from Satori Arts. May their arts work and play continue to cruise in Cruz! Thanks for bringing me back to read poetry here for the first time in decades!

Good Times Item on Poetry Reading by Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)Good Times Item on Poetry Reading by Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)

Good Times Item on Poetry Reading by Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)




Good Times Item

Thursday, July 18, 2024

NYC Book Launch Readings for Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)'s "God in Her Ruffled Dress," Bryant Park Reading Room & Unnameable Books, Brooklyn

Does a new book really exist if it's not launched in the Big Apple!?

I'm grateful for the organizers of these two poetry readings, and my fellow readers!, for these upcoming launch events featuring my new poetry book God in Her Ruffled Dress (What Books Press). 

Plus, yay, a new chance to come from my Oakland, Calif. home to New York City, where my parents were born and grew up, and where my grandparents put down strong roots (after Eastern Europe)!

Bryant Park Reading Room - Summer Poetry Series
Tuesday, August 20
6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Free

Hosted by Jason Schneiderman

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)
AND
Jenny Factor, Daisy Fried, Rodney Terich Leonard, Tom Sleigh

Bryant Park is located between 40th and 42nd Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues behind the New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman building.

Take the B, D, F, or M train to 42nd Street/Bryant Park.
Take the 7 train to 5th Avenue.

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)
Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)

Jenny Factor
Jenny Factor
Daisy Fried
Daisy Fried
Rodney Terich Leonard
Rodney Terich Leonard
Tom Sleigh
Adam Sleigh


Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)'s new volume of poems God in Her Ruffled Dress (What Books Press) appears 34 years after her debut full-length poetry book The Transparent Body (Wesleyan University Press). Her poems have appeared in 60+ anthologies and journals, including City Lights Review, Kenyon Review, Lilith, Ploughshares, Poetry International, Tikkun, and Zyzzyva. She has won creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and others. She is also a jazz and groove singer and spoken-word artist; her seven albums received critical acclaim and extensive radio play. She has a complementary career as a psychic reader and healer. See lisabmusic.com and lisabintuitive.com. 

Info on all the poets here.

What a cool, only-in-NY place! With a storied history, the Reading Room provides the free use of books, newspapers, and magazines in the park during warm-weather months. You'll also find a robust schedule of literary events in addition to the Poetry Series, including Books on Broadway, Author, BookClub, StoryTime, and much more! https://bryantpark.org/activities/reading-room - 
scroll down to Poetry.
_________________________________________

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) Featured in the Blog of Rob McLennan, Writer, Editor, Reviewer, Publisher, and All-Around Literary Maven

 I'm delighted to be featured in: 

rob mclennan's blog


Friday, July 12, 2024

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Lisa B

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)'s new volume of poems God in Her Ruffled Dress (What Books Press) appears 34 years after her debut full-length poetry book The Transparent Body (Wesleyan University Press). Her poems have appeared in 60+ anthologies and journals, including City Lights ReviewKenyon ReviewLilithPloughsharesPoetry InternationalTikkun, and Zyzzyva. She has won creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and others. She is also a jazz and groove singer and spoken-word artist; her seven albums received critical acclaim and extensive radio play and are available on all music platforms. She has a complementary career as a psychic reader and healer. See lisabmusic.com and lisabintuitive.com.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book, The Transparent Body, came out in the Wesleyan New Poets series in 1989, while my second, God in Her Ruffled Dress, came out from the L.A.-based publishing collective What Books Press in late 2023. That 34-year gap made the two books feel significantly different. I went from young poet to way older, indie singer-poet-songwriter who still wrote poetry for the page. My first gave me joy, jitters, and relief at a stamp of legitimacy as poet. And satisfaction that what I envisioned, after what felt like a long slog of submitting the manuscript, came to pass. As it turns out, I had no idea what a long slog really was. Though I kept writing poems and seeing them published in journals and anthologies, and submitting my evolving poetry manuscripts, by the time my second book came out, my focus had shifted a great deal to the music world, as I had released seven full-length albums since 1999 while the music scene itself kept shifting (indies pouring into the music marketplace, CDs, mp3s, streaming, pandemic) and I had practically given up hope of publishing a second poetry book. With the new book, I feel as if I've parachuted back into a poetry scene that sure looks different in 2024 – essentially, much more academic, more award-focused, and with many more poets. But I appreciate the relative collegiality of poetry publishing and its focus on art versus commerce. It's easier than the music scene to navigate, at least for me. As for my work, it's wider-ranging, newly including inspiration from music and vocalizing and newly reflecting the interests and revelations from studying clairvoyant reading and healing and then launching a career in 1993 as a professional psychic reader.   

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
My mother was a poet, though not published, and our family bookshelves included the best poetry of the era and before, the Beats and Black Mountain and the most interesting work of the 60s and 70s. All of which I devoured.  And being an incipient singer and a music lover, my soul craved lyricism.
 
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I don't take notes. At this point, I write to investigate what feels most pressing to me in my life and perceptions and self. I've learned to write and then put it aside. Usually when I take the poem out again to revise, whether two months or years later, the revision is minimal. But I do often like book-length projects and series, so the shaping of those is often painstaking and full of changes small and large. I'm relieved not to have the academic pressure to publish or perish.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
As for where I begin, I listen when something tugs at me urgently internally, an image or word or line, and sit down and make myself follow where it leads – usually at night and usually when everyone else is asleep and out of my air space, so to speak. . At this point, I do generally have a book in the back of my mind, because my obsessions and deep dives over a certain period tend to explore a certain territory.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love giving poetry readings. Giving them made me realize I really was a performer – reading poetry and holding an audience felt like a calling that opened up into singing. I had studied music and piano-playing as a child but really wanted to sing, but I was too chicken. Poetry readings gave me the confidence to seriously study singing and start learning how to perform as one and lead a band. Now, returning again to many poetry readings as part of this latest book tour, and even adding some a cappella singing, I revel in the simplicity of the process – the logistics are minimal, the realm is more high art than commerce, amplification is straightforward, I don't have to pay or hire anyone else or rehearse with them, I don't have to worry about how much alcohol the crowd will buy or deal with bookers concerned about that, I have no musical charts to carefully notate for the band. I wouldn't say that the readings are part of the process of my producing a poem – rather that since my poems are very musical, they call out to be performed, and reading them publicly completes the creative process.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I dislike poetry that wears on its sleeve a concern with theory of any kind. I've been a socialist feminist lefty since I was a young teen, and that was many decades ago, so I find myself rather bored by the repetition of political theoretical concerns that I've been reading and thinking about for so long. By all means be faithful to your journey in all its dimensions, but make it new, concrete, and musical, and not self-indulgently intellectual even when you're thinking through it.  My current questions seem to be remarkably of a piece with my initial questions, having to do with how to be both a body and a spirit and how to keep growing as myself. But that sounds so reductive and simple. I guess I still follow William Carlos Williams' "no idea but in things," meaning honor the concrete image, to which I would add, "Does it sing?"    

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
Many different roles are available to a writer today but they don't feel as central to the larger culture as they once were. I wouldn't prescribe which path any writer should take. But every path is challenging since our culture has shifted from the book to the computer/phone screen. As for myself, I honor the ancient tribal role of being at once poet/singer/shaman/healer. I want to create positive change in the physical and energetic body of the reader or listener, from the base of the spine to the top of the head, that results in more personal and community freedom. Does the larger culture support or welcome this? To some extent: the larger culture now means the online culture, and that does attract millions of "eyeballs" (as they say) and ears to vocalists and musicians and some poets, who have aims similar to mine in some ways. In a smaller slice of the culture, academia, students also discover poetry, which is good, but it feels parenthetical to where the rest of the culture is pointing them. The writer serves the screen in our culture. But we can still seize interest.    

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Both. I prefer a light touch from a really smart and open-minded and -eared editor. I show all my work to a few trusted readers and ask for feedback.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Find some amusement.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to songwriting/recording/performing)? What do you see as the appeal?
It's refreshing to switch genres – different technical demands, different frames for production and consumption, different opportunities as an artist seeking an audience. Poetry is the entire orchestra, while song lyrics whether sung or spoken must leave room for many other instruments. Poetry is private, music collaborative. I desperately need both.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I do lots of different things throughout the days. Lately, again, I try to include reading some poetry. That often leads to writing some. I don't follow a writing routine; see answer to question 4.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
The work of another poet or musician. Or to physical movement from housecleaning, walking, dancing.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Chocolate.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
All of that. Also the "movies" I see and the dialogue I hear as a clairvoyant/clairaudient reader and healing practitioner working with others.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
So many, but some of my favorites are Emily Dickinsonmetaphysical 17th century poet George HerbertFederico Garcia LorcaShakespeareWilliam Carlos WilliamsAdrienne RichLangston Hughes. I was also inspired by many lyricists, including Gil Scott-HeronStephen Sondheim, and Cole Porter, and by the blues genre.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
A well-paid international tour as a performing poet-singer with my band.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I have two other overlapping careers (singer and psychic reader-healer). I'm glad I'm not solely a poet. This is a family trait or model of possibility – my father was a professional engineer, attorney, and jazz photographer. I also worked for many years as a technical editor and then a marketing writer for environmental scientists and engineers, and sometimes for educational nonprofits. I liked that. Some art, lots of craft, a way to focus on the external world and how it's put together, and to be helpful to people in ways that they needed. And of course, a way to earn money. My coworkers usually liked my art and supported it, so I felt more "in the world" while being at my core a poet.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
An overflow of sensitivity, the support of my parents, and a lot of stubbornness.  

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I just finished a deeply satisfying novel, Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan. The last great film eludes me, but I will say I thought the television series The Wire was a masterpiece.

20 - What are you currently working on?
A poetry manuscript called "The Corridor" – basically, about mortality and the way its looming larger to me.

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Santa Cruz Book Launch: Inter|Act Spoken Word Open Mic 8/6/24, 7 p.m., Features Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) Reading from "God in Her Ruffled Dress"

Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) Reads Poetry in Santa Cruz, 8/6/24, Open Mic to Follow

Inter|Act Poetry & Spoken Word 
by Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein) with open mic to follow
Tuesday, August 6, 2024
7 p.m. 
Free
Satori Arts
815 Almar Avenue #9, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(warehouse building near the back; follow signs)

For open mic, sign up at http://www.maginei.com/openmic.html, or onsite starting at 6:30 p.m.

I'm delighted to read from my new poetry book at this fairly new Santa Cruz arts venue, Inter|Act Spoken Word with open mic! 

Not least because Santa Cruz is one of my main hometowns. My folks bought forest property in the county, in Soquel, when I was in high school, and after some years renovating the old log house and traveling there every weekend, we moved there fulltime from Cupertino just in time for me to attend Soquel High in my senior year. 

I then attended UC Santa Cruz, getting my first in-person taste of what it meant to write contemporary poetry, study with respected poet-professors including Lynn Luria-Sukenick and George Hitchcock, and meet fascinating young fellow writers, some of whom remain my friends and colleagues.

My mother still lives in Soquel, although not in the woods, so I'm once again going there weekly, this time from my home in Oakland. Trekking down the winding curves of Highway 17, the road where I learned to drive, and its shortcuts through the meadows and forests is both a bit harrowing and comforting after lo these many decades.  

Come on down and bring a poem to read! Sign up at the link above or in person starting at 6:30 p.m. the first Tuesday eve in August. I hope to see and hear you there!

Friday, June 14, 2024

Full House Review: "God in Her Ruffled Dress" A Marvellous Read

 

Full House Literary Review logo
"A certain powerful physicality associated with the divine that is seldom approached so boldly... [and] a delicate sensuality and eroticism": 

New review of God in Her Ruffled Dress from A. R. Arthur at U.K.-based Full House Literary Review:


Monday, June 10, 2024

When Someone Really Gets Your Book: Harbor Review and Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer on "God in Her Ruffled Dress"

The elegant online journal of poetry and art Harbor Review is a must for discerning poetry-lovers, not only because of its contents but also because of its striking layout and visual creations. 


Harbor Review logo

Last International Women's Day, the journal published a review of my new poetry book that really got the work. Reviewer Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer expanded on the snippet she offered for the Broad Street Review's best-of-2023 roundup, connecting with my poems on many levels. Here's the full text:  

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

"Rewriting the Old Prayers": "God in Her Ruffled Dress" Spotlighted in April 2024 Issue of "Girl Trouble"

Quote from Girl Trouble Review of "God in Her Ruffled Dress" by Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein)


I recently discovered "Girl Trouble," the Substack newsletter from Diana Whitney, who is a poet, writer, writing coach, workshop leader, and all-around engaging commentator on subjects from mental health to Vermont to parenting, and much more. 

So I was extra gratified by this mini-review of my new poetry book God in Her Ruffled Dress (What Books Press) in Girl Trouble's April 2024 issue, "Notes from Eclipse Season." 


Girl Trouble newsletter header 4/24 with review of "God in Her Ruffled Dress"



 Image of Diana Whitney's review of poetry book "God in Her Ruffled Dress"


Here's the text as text, not image:


Singer-poet Lisa B rewrites the old prayers in her new collection, weaving feminism with Jewish mysticism in strange, musical, funny, sexy poems. "I'm...tired of the One Dad God," she writes, exploring shifting definitions of the divine while staying grounded in the body, its strengths and illness and need, its miraculous desires. Look no further for a deeply spiritual, feminist celebration in verse.


Wow! That series of initial adjectives may be an apt description not only of my new book but also of me (I mean, starting after "strange"). 

Check out this issue of "Girl Trouble" here. From there, you can subscribe to either the free or paid version of the newsletter. 

See links to purchase options for the book here (including ordering a signed, personalized copy directly from me).

Saturday, May 25, 2024

"God in Her Ruffled Dress" Fall 2023 Book Launch Highlights - Two Videos

I made a couple of videos highlighting the launch and tour I did in Fall 2023 for my new poetry book, God in Her Ruffled Dress (What Books Press). 
 
The book appeared on many publishing platforms in late October 2023, with full publication in December 2023.

The first video recaps the tour to the accompaniment of some of my original tune "Lisa's Lord's Prayers," the poem for which is in the book. The second vid is a short using part of a remixed tune by DJ Davion.


I read/sang at:

- Village Well Books & Coffee, Culver City, Calif., with other authors with fall releases from What Books Press and their affiliated publisher Giant Claw, Michael Ventura, Maria Perez-Talavera, Celeste Goyer, Bryan Price, and Sarah Maclay;

- Books & Books, Coral Gables, Florida, with Caridad Moro-Gronier;

- Poetry Flash at the Art House Gallery & Cultural Center, Berkeley, Calif., with Dick Cluster;

- The Livermore Jazz Society, Livermore, Calif., with my fabulous band Ben Flint, piano, Fred Randolph, bass, and Julian Hogan, drums;

- Bird & Beckett, San Francisco, with Thoreau Lovell;

- And the second What Books/Giant Claw fall launch reading, Beyond Baroque, Venice, Calif., with Sarah Maclay, Michael Ventura, Celeste Goyer, and Bryan Price.

Lots of fun to get out there and share this material after so much careful seclusion during the first stage of the COVID pandemic! More since (the LA Times Festival of Books) and more to come (Santa Cruz, Calif. and NYC in August, yay!). 

See my website for links to purchase the book.