Feb 1

Feb 1 Third Thursday Poetry Presents Michelle Peñaloza by Blake More

By Blake More

Point Arena Third Thursday Poetry presents a virtual Third Thursday Zoom Poetry reading at 7pm on Thursday, February 18, 2021. This month features Covelo poet Michelle Peñaloza, with open mic to follow.

Michelle Peñaloza is author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, which won the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize and will be published in August 2019 by Inlandia Institute. She is also the author of two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015), and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015).

Her work can be found in places like Prairie Schooner, upstreet, Pleiades, The Normal School and Third Coast. She is the recipient of fellowships from the University of Oregon, Kundiman and Hugo House as well as the 2019 Scotti Merrill Emerging Writer Award for Poetry from The Key West Literary Seminar. Michelle has also received scholarships from Lemon Tree House, Caldera, Vermont Studio Center, VONA/Voices, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, among others.

The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, MI and raised in Nashville, TN. She now lives, farms, and writes in rural Northern California. More information can be found at: http://www.michellepenaloza.com/

To watch or participate as an open mic reader, please email blake@snakelyone.com.

Third Thursday Poetry Zoom made possible by the Arena Theater and continues to be supported by Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation.

Blake More

A UCLA graduate and resident of California’s Mendocino Coast since the late 90s, Blake More is an artist with many creative voices and obsessions. Blurring the boundaries between disciplines, her work embraces visual art, poetry, video, performance, costume design, teaching, functional mixed media art/life pieces and hand-painted art cars, including Star Yantra, a Mercedes SL500 painted with a metallic palette (staryantra.life). Blake’s art is often inspired by nature, geometry and the female form, and she regularly incorporates mixed-media collage and painting into her digital expressions. She also hosts two radios shows: a poet interview podcast called “Cartwheels on the Sky” and an hour long public affairs program called Women’s Voices on KZYX&Z FM Mendocino. Author of five books of poetry, her book godmeat is a collection of poetry, prose, color artwork, and a DVD compilation of poem movies (available at godmeat.com), and her chapbook Up In the Me World is available on her website. To explore more of Blake’s creative world, please visit snakelyone.com.