Books on the Garden: Wildflowers and Wildfires Poetry Reading

This is a free event (minus admission to the Garden for non-SF residents), but please RSVP.

Books by featured authors will be available for purchase.

Please bring blankets or chairs for sitting on the grass. Please be mindful of high chairs blocking others' view.

About the Authors

James Cagney is the author of Black Steel Magnolias In The Hour Of Chaos Theory, winner of the PEN Oakland 2018 Josephine Miles Award. His newest book, Martian: The Saint of Loneliness is the winner of the 2021 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. It is due from Nomadic Press in 2022. For more information, please visit JamesCagneypoet.com.

Jennifer S. Cheng is a poet and essayist whose work explores immigrant home-building, shadow poetics, and the interior wilderness. She is the author of MOON: LETTERS, MAPS, POEMS (2018), named a Publishers Weekly “Best Book of 2018,” and HOUSE A (2016), selected by Claudia Rankine for the Omnidawn Poetry Prize. She received awards and fellowships from Brown University, the University of Iowa, San Francisco State University, the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Fulbright program, Kundiman, MacDowell, Bread Loaf, and the Academy of American Poets. Having grown up in Texas and Hong Kong, she lives in the Outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco. www.jenniferscheng.com

Amanda Moore is a poet, educator, and translator whose debut collection of poetry, Requeening (Ecco 2021), was selected for the 2020 National Poetry Series by Ocean Vuong. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including Best New Poets, ZZYZVA, LitHub, and Mamas and Papas: On the Sublime and Heartbreaking Art of Parenting, and her essays have appeared in Catapult, The Baltimore Review, and Hippocampus Magazine. Amanda lives by the beach in San Francisco with her husband and daughter. More at https://amandapmoore.com.

Christine No is a Korean American poet, filmmaker, and daughter of immigrants. She is a Sundance Alum, VONA Fellow, two-time Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Nominee. She has served as Assistant Features Editor for the Rumpus, as Fellow, then as a Program Coordinator for VONA. Currently, Christine is board member with Quiet Lightning, a Bay Area literary nonprofit and works as the Advocacy Program Manager at ARTogether, an organization committed to using art and storytelling to build and empower newcomer immigrant and refugee communities; and to promote healing, cultural humility, and intercommunity connection. She lives and works in Oakland, California with her dog, Ruthie Wagmore.

D. A. Powell is the author of five collections, including Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (Graywolf, 2012), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. His honors include the Kingsley Tufts Prize in Poetry, the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America, and the John Updike Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. His chapbook "Low Hanging Fruit" is available from Foundlings Press as part of their "Strays" series. Powell teaches in the MFA Program at University of San Francisco.

Preeti Vangani grew up in Mumbai and is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (RLFPA Editions, 2019). Her work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Gulf Coast, Hobart among other journals, and has been supported by Ucross, Djerassi and California Center for Innovation. She is the recipient of the 2022 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. An alumni of the program, she teaches at the MFA program at University of San Francisco.

About Our Featured Musician

C.W. Danzig is a singer-songwriter in San Francisco, CA. When Danzig isn't playing bass with Down and Outlaws (Outsidelands, Last Call With Carson Daly, Converse Rubber Tracks) he's writing quieter, pensive songs of longing and wandering. It's music that emerges late at night, a product of moonlight, whiskey, and hushed conversation. Finding inspiration in artists like Bon Iver, Nick Drake, and Tom Petty, Danzig's songs are simple, introspective, and always seeking a peace that's just out of reach.Danzig's debut EP, Calamity, is out now. The four-song collection was recorded over two days at Donut Time Studios in Oakland, CA, by Chris Daddio, who also provided guest guitar work on the record.