_________________________________________

© Vivian Torrence

Winter window

Google headquarters, Mountain View, CA   | © Google

Assim Shankar

Julia Li, Google Strategic Partner, hosts Al Young, December 2008

Prelude to Al’s Authors@Google presentation

Now retrievable 24/7 at YouTube, the Al Young Authors@Google talk recedes in time — but not in memory.

Publisher Malcolm Margolin; Gary Snyder, legendary Pulitzer poet-bodhisattva, and Al Young at the second annual Heyday Books fundraiser, the Hillside Club, Berkeley 2008
Jim Dennis

Al and Dan Robbins in ardent performance for Heyday Books Night at the Hillside Club
Jim Dennis

Dan Robbins and Al Young smiling to know that The Sea, The Sky & You & I, their long-awaited compact disc, will come out on Bardo Digital in February 2009 .
© Jim Dennis

December moon shot from sundeck   | Al Young

Michael Young and composer-saxophonist-educator Roscoe Mitchell at Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Public Library, December 13, 2008.   “Roscoe was great,” Michael writes. “Serene, graceful,
even austere — like a mystic zen priest with a horn.” The occasion was a commemorative celebration of poet Bob Kaufman — Does the Secret Mind Whisper? — produced by Justin Desmangles.
Photo: Jenifer Nogaki

Holiday window with ice lights, December 2008 |     Al Young

Taj Mahal and Al at Anna’s Jazz Island, December 2008
Photo: Adelle Foley

Al Young and Ishmael Reed converse with (backs turned) Taj Mahal and Anna de León following the 2008 American Book Awards presentations at Anna’s Jazz Island |   © 2008 Carl Martineau

Al Young outside Anna’s Jazz Island, December 2008 |   © Carl Martineau

With wife-husband authors Persis Karim and Craig Strang at their 2008 Christmas/Chanukah gathering to celebrate Craig and his birthday. |   Photo: Xochitil Seguera

Trumpeter-bandleader David Hardiman, drummers Willis Kirk and Akira Tana with poet Al Young backstage at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music during the January 12, 2009 celebration of the life and work of percussionist-composer Omar Clay (1935-2008). | Photo © Kathy Sloane

Master pianist Larry Vukovich with Al Young following their Omar Clay Tribute at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, January 2009

Big moon, San Francisco, January 2009   | Al Young

Aimee Allison hosting the 5th Annual KPFA Peace Awards to nine outstanding members of the peace and social justice community, Oakland, CA, 18 January 2009 | Photo: Al Young

KPFA’s Aimee Allison with Al Young following the KPFA Peace Awards |  Photo: Brian Edwards-Tiekert

Blues-Eyed, the Marc Silber Trio, plays to a packed house at Strings in Berkeley, CA, February 2009. Marc Silber at left (vocals and guitar), Michael Hubbert, middle (cuattro, harmonica, clarinet), Rod Glaubman at right (guitar soloist).   | Photo: Al Young

Photo: Carl Martineau

Al Young and Marc Silber captured again by cell phone cam in front of Berkeley’s French Hotel, February 2009

_________________________________________

October in Oregon at Linfield College
Al Young

South studio window in October
Al Young

Graduating senior Jolene Nieves gives Al Young a late-morning tour of Seton Hill University‘s exquisite campus in Greensburg, Pennsylvania during his week-long visit in mid-September 2008 | Al Young

Michael Arnzen, fiction writer, poet and Professor of Creative Writing with Al following a gala Friday night presentation and book-signing reception at the Seton Hill University Theatre  | John Spurlock

At Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma, CA, poet Joyce Jenkins — in the musical company of her partner Mark Baldridge, a feeling flautist — reads from Joy Road and other recent work. |  Al Young

Mark Baldridge and Joyce Jenkins of Poetry Flash kick back to listen to Avotcja perform with her blues-koto trio at the Petaluma Poetry Walk 2008. | Al Young

Avotcja performing in the outdoor patio of the Bella Luma Caffe at the 2008 Petaluma Poetry Walk (poet-percussionist Avotcja, koto master Shirley Kazuyo Muramoto, and bassist Eugene Warren). | Al Young

Poets from every direction: Al Young, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Ishmael Reed (New York City, October 2008 following the Cave Canem Legacy Conversation at The New School).   |  Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Poet-broadcasters Bryan Sanders, Rafael Alvarado, and Corrie Greathouse of World Wide Word pose with Al at the Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery, Santa Monica College, October 2008
Bruria Finkel

October in full glory at Linfield College (McMinnville, Oregon)
Al Young

Visiting Woodrow Wilson Scholar Al Young addresses a Linfield College classroom on the urgency of our times and the healthful role that poetry and artistic creativity play in the human struggle to survive.
© Rachel Palinkas (The Linfield Review)

Student writers from Camas, the Linfield College literary magazine, gather with Al at Dillin Hall for a late afternoon snack.

At Nick’s Italian Café with my host Fred Ross (Senior Adviser to the President of Linfield College), Cindy Ross, and their daughter Amy Ross. Photo: Carmen Peirano

With Pamela Z, composer/performer/sound artist/extended vocalist extraordinaire, at the 2008 Artful Harvest, an annual auction and dinner orchestrated to fund the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (Woodside, CA). Photo: Randall Schwabacher

Oklahoma Sunset |     Al Young

Quartz Mountain Arts & Conference Center:
One lake view (October 2008)
Al Young

The Quartz Mountains: Are these rock formations really mountains?
Al Young

Most of my energetic Oklahoma Arts Institute poetry workshop at Quartz Mountain, October 2008 [Names forthcoming] |     Emily Clinton

Jazz School poster design © John Malmquist

Bassist Robb Fisher, poet-vocalist Al Young, and drummer Akira Tana in performance at The Jazz School, Berkeley, Halloween night 2008. Our sympathy lay with pianist Susan Muscarella, whose father’s death forced her to cancel the trio-leading engagement she had fondly organized.
Mark Cohen

Johnson C. Smith University, an historically Black U.S. university established just after the Civil War.

With Professors Glenn Hutchinson (English and Foreign Languages), Kirsten Hemmy (English, Literature, Creative Writing), poet Donald Mager (Dean of Arts and Letters), and Pamela Richardson (Composition, English, African American Literature) in the lobby of the Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium, Johnson C. Smith University, November 2008. | Jamil Callub

With Dr. Ronald L. Carter, President of Johnson C. Smith University, in his office, November 2008. |   Donald Mager

To emphasize the power of sense-appealing imagery and metaphor in writing, Al Young reads a student poem to the afternoon workshop at JCSU, Charlotte.    |    Joshua M. Nypaver

Al and Don Mager with the JCSU poetry workshop on a Friday afternoon (Translation: Not everyone was present). Joshua M. Nypaver

Click here to access Flickr for Joshua M. Nypaver’s photostreams of Al Young’s 2008 visit to Johnson C. Smith University

Two People
Gary Gach, dispatcher |  The Buddhist Channel

Painter Eddy Monroe, guitarist-shopkeeper Fat Dog, and Moose (songster Marc Silber) at Berkeley’s Mediteraneum Caffè,
November 2008
Photo © 2008 Carl Martineau

North studio window in summer |   Al Young

Playwright-publicist Kim McMillon, poet-bandleader Avotcja, Al Young at Bacheeso’s, Berkeley, August 2008

Al in the Bronx outside Teatro Pregones moments before the Lincoln Center La Casita performance begins, August 2008

Janet Coleman, WBAI‘s Arts Director, August 2008 | Al Young

Janet Coleman and husband David Dozer fast at work, WBAI New York, 2008
Al Young

Outside Janet Coleman’s WBAI Wall Street office window overlooking the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge
Al Young

Al, Janet Coleman, David Dozer at WBAI, New York, August 2008

Dred Scott Keyes, WBAI production engineer, New York 2008
Al Young

Mexico’s popular poet Francisco Hernández and  producer Claudia Norman on the steps of Teatro Pregones, Lincoln Center La Casita Festival,The Bronx 2008
Al Young

Three drummers and singers from Pipestone, the award-winning, Minnesota-based troupe of performers of traditional and contemporary Ojibwe song and poetry and dance (Lincoln Center La Casita Festival, New York City 2008)
Al Young

Books by Oakley Hall stacked atop one another as faculty member after faculty member read passages from them during an early August 2008 tribute to the late novelist-teacher and co-founder of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers
Al Young

From the manuscript of a new memoir — partially devoted to her experiences with émigré Arab women in France  — novelist-essayist-screenwriter Diane Johnson reads during the annual Squaw Valley Community of Writers Conference, August 2008
Al Young

Novelist Louis B. Jones and novelist-tap dancer Rhoda Huffey in rapt discussion on the deck of the popular Olympic Plaza, high in the Sierras, Squaw Valley, August 2008
Al Young

Milo Robbins, Dan Robbins, Kate Robbins at Burning Cat Recording Studio, Santa Cruz, CA, August 2008
Al Young

Bard on BART with Bird and Ella, San Francisco, July 2008

Cecil Brown and Randi’s cat Bianca with carrot juice | Al Young

Winners of Alameda, California’s Jewel By the Bay Poetry Contest gather at Jackson Park, 19 July 2008: Mary Loughran, first prize (center right); Alameda poet laureate Mary Rudge, honorable mention (left); Patricia Edith, Frank Bette Center for the Arts‘ literary arts director (center left); Al Young, 2008 contest judge (right) | Photo: George Rowan, Jr.

Patricia Edith in Alameda’s Jackson Park reads from The Commute, her poetry collection. | Al Young

Al with old pal Peg O’Donnell of Chelsea Green Publishing at American Library Association, Anaheim 2008

At the Sourcebooks, Inc. booth, Al signs copies of Something About the Blues: An Unlikely Collection of Poetry, ALA (American Library Association) 2008 | Melanie Thompson

Drummer Jaimeo Brown in live performance, Jazz at Pearl’s, North Beach, San Francisco (across the street from City Lights Books), 20 July 2008. Jaimeo and his quartet were joined onstage by his mom and dad — saxophonist-flautist Marcia Miget and singing bassist-guitarist Dartanyan Brown — along with California poet laureate Al Young

Photo: Al Young

A photo recap of the California poet laureate’s June 14th visit to Sonoma State University, where he addressed Roshni Rustomji‘s New College M.A. Seminar on the Humanities and Leadership. Al Young’s topic: The Poet and Leadership.

 

 

Roshni’s MA Seminar in Humanities and Leadership at year’s end: (standing) Gary, Paul, Beth, Roshni, Tori Jacobs; (seated) Pam, Sheila, Emmanuel | Al Young

 

Emmanuel’s recital with dancer | Al Young

 

Friends and family swell and energize the Saturday afternoon audience for Emmanuel’s recital on jazz and vocalists Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Natalie Cole. | Al Young

 

Sheila Norman | Al Young

 

Tori Jacobs | Al Young

 

Roshni Rustomji | Al Young

 

Soulmates: Charles Kerns and Roshni Rustomji Kerns | Al Young

 

Al with poet-professor and passionate performance artist Genny Lim
Sheila Norman

 

Roshni and Al at Khana Peena, Indian Cusine, Berkeley
Charles Kerns

Vivian Torrence

Wendy Rockett

 

With other friends of Reginald Lockett, screenwriter Karen Folger Jacobs and Al wait their turn at KPFA Berkeley to pay tribute to the late poet on Living Room, Kris Welch’s popular noontime show, 30 May 2008
Raymond Nat Turner

 

New Orleans, 2008 | Al Young

 

California high school student recipients of Poetry Out Loud awards and citations gather with their judges and producers in Sacramento, April 2008
Mary Beth Barber

 

Gospel Brunch, United Methodist Church, San Luis Obispo, 2008
Al Young

 

Glenna Luschei, Al, Nancy Giles, Pastor Jane Voights
United Methodist Church, San Luis Obispo, Easter Sunday, 2008
Bill Horton

Guitarist Maxwell Gualtieri, poet-teacher-producer Gwendolyn Alley, and trmpeter Louis Lopez following our evening of poetry, jazz and song for Ventura College, April 2008

 

With Cozetta Guin, California History Center, De Anza College, May 2008

 

Tom Izu, Director of the California History Center, and distinguished educator Ulysses Pichon, De Anza College, 2008
Al Young

 

Hanging with noir mystery writer Jim Nisbet at the Friends of the San Francisco Library Laureates Dinner, April 2008

 

Writers photographed at the Friends of the San Francisco Library‘s “Noir in the City” Laureates Dinner, April 2008
[Names and photographer credit forthcoming]

 

Joyce Jenkins, Mark Baldridge, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Al, Floyd Salas, Claire Ortalda, Eileen Malone, James LeCuyer and unidentifed Bulldogs T-shirter. Photographed at the Northern California Independent Booksellers Awards (13 April 2008), the Sunday they honored Al Young with the Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award at San Francisco Public Library’s Koret Auditorium.

 

French Quarter, New Orleans, 2008 | PC Mack

 

With popular poet and Times-Picayune columnist Jarvis Deberry at the Tennessee Williams Festival, New Orleans, 2008, where DeBerry and Al Young conversed on-stage about life, art, craft, personal history, and vision.

 

Hurricane Katrina shop window poster display, French Quarter, New Orleans, 2008 | Al Young

 

On the set at Post Modern Group Studios in Irvine, CA with Sam Reece, producer and director of The Paul Laurence Dunbar Collection, a forthcoming PBS-length documentary honoring the life and work of the enduring 19th century African American poet. Al narrates the film and reads some of Dunbar’s poems on-screen. The cast includes Nikki Giovanni, Ishmael Reed, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Mitch Capel, Charlotte Blake Alston, and Awele Makeba. 

Spring at Sea Ranch on the California Coast | Al Young

 

Adam David Miller and Al Young, respective recipients of Upsurge’s first and second Annual Bay Area Jazz/Poetry Festival Recognition Award for sustained excellence in art and community service. | Zigi Lowenberg

 

Zigi Lowenberg and Raymond Nat Turner, co-founders of Upsurge Jazz
Al Young

 

Saint Al of UCLA | Wendy Rockett

………………………………………
Visit painter & storyteller J. Michael Walker’s
ALL THE SAINTS OF THE CITY OF THE ANGELS
Official Web Site

Heyday Books publisher Malcolm Margolin and Wendy Rockett, Heyday’s director of marketing and publicity, pause to pose with Al at the 2008 L.A. Times Festival of Books on a globally heated UCLA afternoon.

 

Patty Milich, California Arts Council’s public awareness coordinator, takes orders for My California: Journeys by Great Writers, a popular and outstanding collection of memoirs and essays. Sales directly benefit the Arts Council whose state funding was slashed by 96% in 2003. | Al Young

 

With William Minor, poet, novelist, essayist, pianist and author of Monterey Jazz Festival: Forty Legendary Years. Bill’s other books include Unzipped Souls: Jazz Journey Through the Soviet Union, Jazz Journeys Through Japan: The Heart Within, Some Grand Dust, and the comic novel Trek: Lips, Sunny, Pecker & Me
Photo: Jim Schneeweis (Angel City Press)

 

Poet Jill Bialosky, W.W.Norton editor and moderator of “Rhyme and Reason,” a Los Angeles Times Festival of Books panel that featured former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky, poet-translator James Ragan and Al Young.

 

James Ragan — poet, screenwriter, translator, and reader extraordinaire — holds his L.A. Times Festival of Books audience spellbound during his performance at UCLA’s Poetry Stage. Ragan commits his work to memory, which is, he says, the way he revises. | Al Young

 

Novelist and poet Joyce Carol Thomas and Eileen Callahan commiserate at the memorial service for author-publisher Bob Callahan held at Anna’s Jazz Island, Berkeley, February 2008 | Al Young

 

Carla Blank, Spain Rodríguez, Ishmael Reed, Joyce Carol Thomas, Gary Gach pause to pose at the Bob Callahan memorial, Berkeley 2008
Al Young

 

Culver Hotel, Culver City, CA | Al Young

 

With Ivry and Cynthia Pride Glamore, L.A. cousins, lunching at Pacifico in Culver City, April 2008

 

Cousin Cynthia Pride Glamore

 

With poet-novelist-essayist Morton J. Marcus at the gala debut of Striking Through the Masks, his time-stopping memoir, Santa Cruz, March 2008 | Peter McGettigan

 

“The sea, the sky, and you, and I — we’re all blues …” | PC Mack

 

Just outside Gualala
O.O. Gabugah

 

Savoring morning sea air, bassist Dan Robbins measures and scores the sky’s mood | Al Young

 

Al Young

 

Sleepy Train at Sunset
Al Young