CALIFORNIA  POETS

Please note: you must be a poet living in California to submit to this website.

CALIFORNIA HERE WE ARE!

CALIFORNIA POETS aims to highlight, publish, inform, share, and otherwise disseminate the work of poets living and writing in California today. We are open to submissions, announcements, articles, reviews and comments. This is a new and ongoing project that has no other agenda than to broaden the base of poets' access to the poetry audience. This is an experiment built on respect and the best of intentions. All are welcome!

California Poets is still under construction since its launch on New Year's Eve, 2014. Poets are invited to read our guidelines page for submitting poems, articles, quotes, commentary, book announcements, and information about readings venues, etc. We do not post calendar events, for the post part, unless the event is a large festival or gathering that attracts poets from across the state.

What We Do

Publish poems (the poet always retains the copyright).

Put the spotlight on featured poets and poems.

Publish profiles, commemorations, and obituaries of contemporary or past California poets.

Provide a forum for discussing and arguing about poetry; stimulating and even provocative articles are welcomed and will only be lightly edited for grammar and spelling.

Serve as a go-to source for the mainstream media as a resource for learning about California poets and poetry.

Share community news* about each area's reading venues and hosts (although we won't be doing a monthly calendar).

Provide links to poets' own webpages or blogs, publishers, print and online magazines that publish poetry, and other resources for poets.

Print reviews and/or notices of books freshly off the press or currently available online.

* Unfortunately, we are not providing monthly listings of readings and events. Poetry Flash and local websites already do a terrific job with their calendars. To maintain and keep current such a project is beyond our capacity. However, if you are privy to local websites providing such listings, we will link to them!

What Does it Mean to BE

a California Poet?

While it may seem limiting to define oneself as a regional poet, it is sometimes helpful to identify with an area for the sake of being part of a community and "growing" your audience. California Poets will help poets who live in, work in, or have long had affiliations in the state of California to achieve some of that, while not taking away from the fact that all poets are world poets and even -- in a few cases -- interstellar poets. If you live in Califoria, work in California, grew up in (but no longer live in) California, or love the state of California and identify with its edgy, western, diverse, and Pacific-view of history, you are more than welcome here and may consider sending in your contributions. (See our guidelines for submission and our contacts page or write to us at the snailmail address below.)

California Poets

SNAILMAIL ADDRESS

1164 Solano Ave., #140

Albany, CA 94706

The only thing that

can save the world

is the reclaiming

of the awareness

of the world.

That's what poetry does.

- Allen Ginsberg