Songlines, Scripps College’s unique performance series of eclectic poetry and music by California artists, will host a performance by Central Coast poets Glenna Luschei and Jackson Wheeler on Wednesday, March 12, at 7:30 p.m. in the Hampton Room of the Malott Commons. The performance, “Two Voices from the Central Coast: Poems on Love and Loss,” and reception immediately following are free and open to the public. SONGLINES is sponsored through the Alexa Fullerton Hampton Speaker Series at Scripps College; for more information, please call the Malott Commons Office at (909) 607-8508.
Glenna Luschei has been an integral part of the contemporary American poetry scene for over 30 years. In addition to having her poems published in numerous literary anthologies and poetry collections, as well as authoring over 20 books of her own poetry-most recently Shot With Eros and Pianos Around the Cape-Luschei is the founding editor and publisher of literary magazines Café Solo and the award-winning SOLO: A Journal of Poetry. Her success in this medium led her to create Solo Press, a company that since 1975 has published more than 40 books by various American poets.
According to critics, Luschei’s poetry “celebrates elements and seasons…with sharp, evocative colors and a sinewy verse music…her poems are always lively, brave, and sometimes biting as lime juice.”
Luschei earned her master’s degree in English and bachelor’s degrees in English, Spanish, education, and philosophy from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship, a D.H. Lawrence Fellowship, and a Fortner Literary Award, and in 1984, Luschei’s book Unexpected Grace was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
California poet Jackson Wheeler is the author of Swimming Past Iceland, which features a collection of his work, and A Near Country: Poems of Loss, which he wrote with fellow artists Glenna Luschei and David Oliveira. Like Luschei, Wheeler has made significant contributions to the literary community outside of his own critically-acclaimed poetry; he is co-editor of Luschei’s magazine “SOLO: A Journal of Poetry”; he started the Ventura Poetry Festival in 1994 with an individual artist’s grant from the City of Ventura; and he hosts the Arcade Poetry Reading Series at the Oxnard Carnegie Art Museum. Wheeler’s work can be found in numerous literary journals and anthologies of American poetry.
SONGLINES is made possible through the Alexa Fullerton Hampton Speaker Series, a fund established by the generous bequest of Alexa Fullerton Hampton, Scripps College Class of 1942.