On the 5/14/25 Edition of Dr Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Mary Mackey joins the show to discuss her poetics, the planet, and how to preserve hope and joy in the face of catastrophe. In her new book In This Burning World: Poems of Love and Apocalypse, Mackey imagines what life may be like as the climate changes, and how that will move us to mobilize as people. Through her poetic series, she outlines how creating places where grief cannot enter, participating in collective activism, and fostering appreciation of the earth can help offset the impending fear and doom of climate change. Mackey shares two poems titled “Memories of Snow” and “The Kama Sutra’s Kindness: Position #4” before detailing her upcoming book tour, including locations in Davis, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Sacramento. The next guest is Robby Nykodym, who outlines their poetic journey that spanned the length of their undergraduate career, now a featured reader at Poetry Night in Davis. Nykodym describes the intersection between their molecular biology research and writing, outlining the different lenses that the fields take and how they help inform each other. They then read a poem titled “Bless This Body Pale.” Nykodym also discusses some of the thematics of their unpublished manuscript “This White Dress,” and the process of trying to publish that body of work. To end the show, Dr. Andy reads a poem, “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats.

Mary Mackey became a writer by running high fevers, tramping through tropical jungles, being swarmed by army ants, and reading. She is the author of 9 poetry collections, including Sugar Zone, winner of a PEN Award, and The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for Best Book Published by a Small Press. Her poetry has been praised by Wendell Berry, Jane Hirshfield, D. Nurkse, Al Young, Daniel Lawless, Rafael Jesús González, and Maxine Hong Kingston for its beauty, precision, originality, and extraordinary range. She is also the author of 14 novels including The New York Times bestseller A Grand Passion.

Robert Nykodym is a poet and scientist, born and raised in Northern California. Their poetry is deeply personal, exploring the relationships between themself, the land in which they were raised, and the bodies around them every day. In addition to writing poetry, Robert spends their time following his creative vision through collage and photography. They can also frequently be found in the lab, researching molecular biology at the forefront of medicine. Their work has appeared previously in the Open Ceilings literary magazine.

The Poetry Night Reading Series takes place on first and third Thursdays of the month at 7 PM, is generously supported by the people and poets of the Sacramento Valley, by John Natsoulas, Robby Nykodym, and by Thea and the other members of the staff at the John Natsoulas Gallery. Your host will be Dr. Andy Jones, the poet laureate emeritus of the City of Davis. Our May 15th Poetry Night will feature local poets Mary Mackey and Robby Nykodym. We meet at 7 PM on the roof of the John Natsoulas Gallery, and we hope you can join us

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

On the 5/7/25 Edition of Dr Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Doria E. Charlson joins the show to discuss the Department of Theater and Dance’s upcoming spring dance “Rules of Play.” She outlines the process behind the department’s plays, with an informal showing in the fall, and a formal showing in the spring quarter platforming the work of selected students. Charlson states the play highlights student’s unique dance training, interdisciplinary studies, modes of inquiry and approach to dance. This week's performance will highlight the legacy and generational impacts of racist practices in performance such as jim crow blackface minstrelsy. The next guest on the show is Mark Wish, who reads the first five minutes of his recent novel Necessary Deeds, which was nominated for a national book award. He describes his professional journeys, taking full time, adjunct, and editor positions alike. Wish also shares the thorough process of reviewing submissions for the anthology COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES.

Doria E. Charlson is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance in the Department of Theatre and Dance at UC Davis. Doria earned her PhD in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies from Brown University, from which she also holds MA degrees in History and Theatre Arts and Performance Studies. She also earned a BA in History with a minor in Drama from Stanford University. Her manuscript project, Consuming Crises: Migrant Labor, Spectacle, and Precarity in the 20th Century considers how the laboring body becomes mobilized during moments of economic and social crisis. Doria’s research and scholarship is deeply informed by her decades of praxis as a dancer. She has trained with ODC/Dance, Mark Morris Dance Group, the Alvin Ailey School, the Joffrey Ballet School, and at Stanford University. She completed her residency as an oncology chaplain at UCSF Medical Center and holds a certificate in Interreligious Chaplaincy from the Graduate Theological Union.

MARK WISH is the author of the novels Necessary Deeds, Watch Me Go, Show Up Look Good, and Confessions of a Polish Used Car Salesman, receiving praise from the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic's C. Michael Curtis, Salman Rushdie, Anne Serling, Daniel Woodrell, Jonathan Lethem, and Rebecca Makkai. Mark is also the founding editor of Coolest American Stories, an award-winning annual anthology of short stories by writers from all walks of life for readers from all walks of life. His own short stories have appeared in more than 125 print venues. He is the recipient of a Tobias Wolff Award, a Kay Cattarulla Award, an Isherwood Fellowship, and a Pushcart Prize. His narrative poems have appeared in venues such as Poetry, The Iowa Review, Ecotone, Prairie Schooner, New York Quarterly, Post Road, and Poetry International. Mark served as the fiction editor of California Quarterly, was the founding fiction editor of New York Stories, and a contributing editor for Pushcart.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. On Thursday, May 1, the Poetry Night Reading Series is proud to present Patrick Grizzell and Oswaldo Vargas. We meet at 7 PM on the roof of the John Natsoulas Gallery, and we hope you can join us! Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

On the 4/30/25 Edition of Dr Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour:

Oswaldo Vargas joins the show to discuss his role as a board member of the Sacramento Poetry Center, coordinating and facilitating events. Vargas discusses his efforts to highlight and platform the intersection of Sacramento’s queer and poetry communities together, and how his identity and life experience influence his poetics. He speaks on behalf of the Sacramento Poetry Center as a place that hosts open mics, events, memorials, educational events, and charitable efforts for community members in need. He shares a poem “Antiprom” before discussing his upcoming champbook project and prospective writing future. The next guest on the show is Patrick Grizzell, who details the Big Day of Giving in Sacramento, which serves as a celebration of the nonprofits serving the Sacramento region. He underlines his efforts to make the Sacramento Poetry Center more equitable, stating his efforts to include spoken word poetry in the newest iteration of the Tule Review. Grizell describes his new project The Vignettes, which he is hoping to publish in the coming years, before sharing a poem called “Help Me.”

Oswaldo Vargas is a former farmworker and a 2021 recipient of the Undocupoets Fellowship. He has been anthologized in Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color (Nightboat Books, 2018) and Here to Stay: Poetry & Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora (HarperCollins, 2024). His work can also be found in Huizache: The Magazine of a New America, the American Academy of Poets' "Poem-A-Day" series, and Narrative Magazine (among others). He lives and dreams in Sacramento, CA.

Patrick Grizzell is a poet, songwriter, journalist and visual artist. His books include Dark Music, Chicken Months (about which Robert Bly wrote, "... the poems have a sweet spontaneity and tenderness.”), Minotaure Into Night (with sumi paintings by Jimi Suzuki), 13 Poems, It's Like That, and The Vignettes, a work in progress. A founding member and current president of, as well as an editor for, the Sacramento Poetry Center, he founded or co-founded most of the SPC publications, and was editor-in-chief of On The Wing, an arts magazine, and has written reviews and articles for many other publications. He has performed poetry and music with Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Leon Redbone, Jim Ringer, Ed Sanders, Robert Creeley, Gary Snyder, Shizumi Shigeto Manale, William Stafford, and others. His band, Proxy Moon, released its premiere CD in 2016. A second is in the works. John Lee Hooker once said he "sound pretty good" on the dobros.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. On Thursday, May 1, the Poetry Night Reading Series is proud to present Patrick Grizzell and Oswaldo Vargas. We meet at 7 PM on the roof of the John Natsoulas Gallery, and we hope you can join us! Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, visit his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.

Find out more about Dr. Andy's Poetry Night Reading Series in Davis, California by visiting http://www.poetryindavis.com. Invite your friends to sign up for the mailing list. To learn more about Dr. Andy’s tiny media fiefdom, subscribe to his weekly newsletter at https://andyjones.substack.com.