Moonday to Host Local Poets

Moonday hosts poets Laurel Ann Bogen and Mary Lee Gowland at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, July 9 at Village Books on Swarthmore. Bogen is the author of 10 books of poetry and short fiction including ‘Washing a Language’; ‘Fission’; ‘The Last Girl in the Land of the Butterflies’; ‘The Burning’; ‘Do Iguanas Dance, Under the Moonlight?’ and ‘Rag Tag We Kiss.’ From 1996 until 2002 she was literary curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she coordinated the Writers in Focus poetry series. She has been an instructor of poetry and performance for the UCLA Extension Writers Program since 1990 and is well known for her lively readings. Selected Best Female Poet/Performer by L.A. Weekly. Recipient of the Curtis Zahn Poetry Prize from the Pacificus Foundation and two awards from the Academy of American Poets, her work has appeared in over 100 literary magazines and anthologies. Gowland graduated from Palisades Charter High School in 1967. Two years later her best-selling book of poems, ‘Tender Bough’, was published. In the 1970s she published two volumes of poetry and drawings. In the 1980s she became active in the L.A. poetry scene, hosting a monthly reading series, ‘Poetry on the Sand.’ In 1990 she moved to the Sierra Nevada foothills, where she teaches creative writing. Her poems, essays and articles have appeared in dozens of journals and magazines. Last year she published ‘Surprise Yourself! Fun Writing Exercises for Today’s Kids.’