Join poets Danusha Laméris and Emilie Lygren for an evening of poetry and conversation in celebration of the recent release of their books: Lygren's second collection, Once I was a stone and Laméris's third book, Blade by Blade. Bring a journal or paper and a pencil or pen! We may invite the audience to do some writing of their own. 

From the book publishers:

Danusha Laméris’s third book, Blade by Blade, is a book of hungers: Hunger for the bright glare of poppies, for the hidden name of the beloved, for the cracked continental edge, for all we keep in “the heart’s farthest chambers.” These poems are luminous missives tossed on the wind asking us to re-enter the world we’ve forsaken, to set foot, as if for the first time, on the green earth and begin again.

Emilie Lygen's Once I was a stone is an intimate portrait of gender nonconformity rooted in the context of childhood and the natural world. This timely collection catalogues intersections between identity and place, awareness and grief. With an honest and hopeful tone, Emilie Lygren grapples with the complexities of selfhood, power, and loss, offering insight on our intricate relationship with Earth’s ecosystems.

On the poets: 

Danusha Laméris, a poet and essayist, was raised in Northern California born to a Dutch father and Barbadian mother. Some of her work has been published in The Best American Poetry, The Sun, The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, Ploughshares, The American Scholar, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and Orion. Laméris served as the 2018–2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California. Laméris's widely shared poem “Small Kindnesses” has been translated into multiple languages, quoted in O Magazine, turned into a short film, and recently read by actress Helena Bonham Carter. She is currently on the faculty of Pacific University’s low-residency MFA program. 

Emilie Lygren is a poet and educator whose work is grounded in curiosity and reverence. She’s the author of two books of poetry and dozens of publications focused on nature journaling, outdoor science education, and social-emotional learning. Emilie holds a BA in Geology-Biology from Brown University and an MFA in creative writing from Maharishi International University. Currently, she is a professor of creative writing, a poet in the schools, and at work on an anthology of poems about mental health for youth and teens.