Wine Predator Poetry Reading
Did you know that the Wine Predator –aka me, Gwendolyn Alley– is a published poet?
I started in journalism, earned a creative writing degree from UC Santa Cruz, and then began doing poetry as a grad student in English at the University of Nevada Reno. My publications include my poetry collection middle of the night: poems from daughter to mother :: mother to son, some three dozen poetry broadsides in Art/Life (a limited edition magazine sought, bought, and collected around the world), a co-edited collection (with Danika Dinsmore) between sleeps: the 315 experiment 1993-2005), plus two major public art poetry commissions, one in Pasadena and one in Santa Barbara.
I started in journalism, earned a creative writing degree from UC Santa Cruz, and then began doing poetry as a grad student in English at the University of Nevada Reno. My publications include my poetry collection middle of the night: poems from daughter to mother :: mother to son, some three dozen poetry broadsides in Art/Life (a limited edition magazine sought, bought, and collected around the world), a co-edited collection (with Danika Dinsmore) between sleeps: the 315 experiment 1993-2005), plus two major public art poetry commissions, one in Pasadena and one in Santa Barbara.
Here’s me reading a poem at a Climate Crisis event “All Fall Down” in January 2020; the poem is from the 2019 collection, psalms of cinder and silt.
Tomorrow Thursday, December 3, join me, Gwendolyn Alley, at the EP Foster Library online reading hosted by Phil Taggart. While my featured reading starts at 7:30, the zoom chat room opens at 7 and an open mic follows. You can join the zoom here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9607501600. Meeting ID: 960 750 1600
In the announcement of the reading, Phil sent along the ZOOM link and the YouTube link as well as this poem below that was originally published in Art/Life:
Bread
i see him when he’s making bread mostly
he doesn’t see me
he is relaxed, focused
elegant in his motions
smooth waltz with the dough
he is young and beautiful
smooth cheeked girl slim
i imagine him bringing me bread
warm the bread is warm and crunchy and soft
flour dusts his blue jeans and plaid flannel shirt
the scent of warm bread on his breath
in his brown hair
i wouldn’t want to wash his clothes
wouldn’t want to wash the bread smells from him
he can’t smell it any more but i
would wrap myself in his bread clothes
understand his life
what he does with his days
the baking of bread i understand this i understand
his rhythm his motion
he would have time to think
his feet would be tired his back
i would knead him
smell the bread smells in my hands
a baker’s life starts early
he would leave the warm bed for the bakery
through the window he can see the dawn
see the children cross the street to school
see them on saturday play soccer
he would walk home at lunch
and we would have bread
with salads with soup in sandwiches
it would be enough his bread
and we would be happy
I’ll probably be reading for 15-20 minutes, ending before 8pm. I will probably read the poem above as a testimony to all of the bread baking going on in 2020. I’ll probably read the poem from the video above, and the long poem about water that was commissioned by the city of Pasadena and was part of a public art installation in a park there. I have a new poem inspired by a chance operation on the occasion of the passing of Diane di Prima in October and I’ll do some of my COVID American sentences that I wrote last April during National Poetry Month.
Find more of my poetry check out Art Predator where I published my 2000th post in April 2020.
Thank you Phil for inviting me to read!
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 
Pingback: HAPPENINGS | Dec. 3 - 10, 2020 - VC Reporter | Times Media Group