Literary Speakeasy: A Toast to Sylvia Plath

This month Literary Speakeasy pays tribute to one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century –Sylvia Plath. Please join us as we raise a glass and celebrate the words of this iconic poet. Five Bay Area powerhouses will be on hand to read the poems of Sylvia Plath as well as their own original work. Our poets for the evening include Annah Anti-Palindrome, Christian Gullette, Robert Andrew Perez, July Westhale, and Maw Shein Win. Your host and curator each month is James J. Siegel

As always, Literary Speakeasy is absolutely FREE with NO drink minimum. Also, everyone in attendance will get a FREE raffle ticket for their chance to win the secret Speakeasy prize at the conclusion of the show. Please come out and celebrate Sylvia Plath with an evening of beautiful words and fantastic martinis!

Annah Anti-Palindrome is a queer/working-class/hard- femme/JewWitch sound-artist & writer currently living in the SF bay area. She is a Lambda Literary Fellow, a staff writer for Everyday Feminism, and a member of Oakland’s Deviant Type Press collective. Annah’s first book, DNA Hymn, is a collection of poems about rural, working-class, queer-femme survivor identity. Annah’s poems are performed through live, musical soundscapes made w/ a loop pedal, kitchen utensils, gas-masks, raw eggs, blood pressure cuffs, found objects, her body (mostly my throat), and more! For more info about her, see www.annahantipalindrome. com.

Christian Gullette’s poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as New England Review, Smartish Pace, Meridian, Colorado Review, and Cimarron Review. He was recently a finalist for the Iowa Review Poetry Prize. Currently Christian is a doctoral candidate in Swedish literature and language at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a poetry editor for the Cortland Review.

Robert Andrew Perez lives in Berkeley and is an associate editor and book designer for speCt! in Oakland, where he also curates readings. He is an alum of the Lambda Literary fellowship and a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for poetry. His poetry has appeared in print and online in publications such as DIAGRAM, The Awl, The Laurel Review, Vinyl and The Cortland Review. His First collection, the field, was published with Omnidawn. He is currently writing a movie about a divorce and wine tasting; it’s a comedy.

July Westhale is a poet and essayist living in Oakland, CA. She is the author of the chapbook The Cavalcade, (Finishing Line Press), and the children’s book, Occasionally Accurate Science (Nomadic Press, 2017). She has poems in Cimarron, burntdistrict, and Quarterly West, among others. Her essays have appeared in the Huffington Post, Autostraddle, The Establistment, and have been nominated for Best American Essays. She has been awarded grants and residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, Sewanee, Dickinson House, Tin House and Bread Loaf. www.julywesthale.com.

Maw Shein Win is a poet, editor, and educator who lives and works in the Bay Area. Her writing has appeared in various journals, including Cimarron Review, Fanzine, Eleven Eleven, the Fabulist, and the anthology Cross-Strokes: Poetry Between Los Angeles and San Francisco (Otis Books/Seismicity Editions). She is a poetry editor for Rivet: The Journal of Writing that Risks and a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. Her most recent poetry chapbook Score and Bone (Nomadic Press) was nominated for a CLMP Firecracker Award. She is the first poet laureate of El Cerrito. http://www.el-cerrito.org/poets

James J. Siegel is the author of the poetry collection “How Ghosts Travel” published year by Spuyten Duyvil Press. He is also the host and curator of Literary Speakeasy at Martuni’s Piano Bar in San Francisco, which brings together poets, writers, and musicians for a night of performance and martinis. His work has appeared in several journals and anthologies, including Assaracus, The Cortland Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men On Their Muses.