© Brett Hall                      © Al Young

Late Summer Night Dreams

Photos: Al Young | Squaw Valley, Berkeley, Palo Alto, California

© Brett Hall

Al Young and Amy Tan at the annual Community of Writers at Squaw Valley mid-week picnic.

Photos courtesy Peet’s Midtown Café, Palo Alto, CA

above | Al Young and poet-translator Darlene Reddaway of Stanford’s Slavic Studies meet to go over Russian versions of Al’s poems that Moscow poet Vadim Mesyats is translating for a three-city conference. Invited by the Moscow Academy of Sciences to tour Helsinki, St. Petersburg and Moscow in mid-September with Russian and other American poets (Michael Palmer among them), Al has opted to video-confer from California. below | Darlene patiently teaches Al the WebEx moves.

Click to enlarge

Official invitation/travel visa issued to Al Young after the Moscow Academy of Sciences invited him to attend a September 2010 poetry and literature conference in the Russian Federation.

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“The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.”
— César Chávez (1927-1993)

left | Screen actor Ian Holm as Greenwich Village poet-bohemian Joe Gould in Stanley Tucci’s Joe Gould’s Secret (2000); right | Joe Gould himself

“In winter I’m a Buddhist;
In summer I’m a nudist.”
— Little Joe Gould (1891-1957)

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© Al Young

Aloe California [hybrid], 2010

© Al Young

Sweet Basil and beyond

© Al Young

Gini’s flower

© Al Young

Summerless young tomatoes

© Al Young

Ed and Helen’s “orchid time”

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© Maria Syndicus

Michael Young and Dad | Palo Alto, July 2010

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Lake Merritt by Al Young

above | Poet Joseph Lease photographed by Al Young
below | Al Young and Joseph Lease — who both teach in California College of the Arts’ MFA Writing Program, San Francisco — meet over coffee at Farley’s East near Lake Merritt, Oakland, August 2010 photographed by Solomon Pope

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© Al Young

Legendary Sons of Champlin guitarist Terry Haggerty and vocalist Danielle Thys perform “Ten Cents a Dance” with the Randy Craig Trio + One at Caffè Trieste, Berkeley, CA

© Robin Haight

Facebook pals Danielle Thys and Al meet face to face in real-time for the first time at Caffè Trieste.

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© Safi wa Nairobi

Writers Marvin X, Tennessee Reed, Conyus, and Al Young | Koret Auditorium, San Francisco, July 2010

Al Young

Following an onstage conversation with producer Justin Desmangles at the San Francisco Library’s Koret Auditorium, the tireless Ishmael Reed signs copies of Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media; just published in Montréal, Québec by Baraka Books.

© Tennessee Reed

(L-R) Painters Dewey Crumpler and Arthur Monroe; writers Ishmael Reed, Conyus, Marvin X, Al Young

Al Young

Poet Conyus and broadcast journalist, producer and visual artist Safi wa Nairobi

Al Young

Safi wa Nairobi and master painter Arthur Monroe at El Zócalo, Bernal Heights, San Francisco

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Al Young

Photo courtesy La Note Restaurant

For their annual get-together, Al poses again with two luminous former students he taught at UC Santa Cruz and San José State University respectively: Persis Karim (left) and Kate Evans (right), the both of them now prolific writers and treasured professors at San José State.

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Clickable

Photo: Terry Ehret

Al Young delivers Kenneth Rexroth’s “Time Spirals” and his own “For Kenneth and Miriam Patchen” at Diesel Books, Oakland, to celebrate publication of The Place That Inhabits Us: Poems of the San Francisco Bay Watershed (Sixteen Rivers Press) | July 2010

Photo: Sharon Coleman

Writers Ellen Weiss and Jackie Huss Hallerberg suspend their bookstore conversation with Al to huddle for a shot.

© Al Young

Host Richard Silberg of Poetry Flash and editor-writing teacher Sharon Coleman stare into Al’s friendly lens while poet Jackie Huss Hallerberg politely steps aside.

Richard Silberg reads his poem “Sunset” at Diesel Books, 11 July 2010

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Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute 2010

© Al Young

Sun rising over Lake Altus-Lugert at Quartz Mountain, Oklahoma

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Photo © Jill Enfield

OSAI [Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute] Creative Writing Class 2010

Front row, L-R ~ Alison Liu, Kathy Zhou, Katie Duncan, Brooke Bolding, Erin Miller

Second row ~

Mary Alexa Woodard (bending), Renae Perry, Hannah Erb, Kailee Bird West

Back row ~

Al Young, Arthur Dixon, Elizabeth Sholar, Olivia Leigh Branscum, Claire Winfrey, Ross Haley, Margaux Griffith

The 2010 OSAI writing workshop in action at Beverly Badger Memorial Library, where poems and prose-poems were composed on the spot. Student laptops were rigged to block internet access.

Workshop photos © Brooke Bolding

OSAI summer workshop student Elizabeth Sholar test-reads one poem out loud.

Photos: Connor Choates

Two versions of how to look preternaturally cool (or altogether vanish) in 100°F heat on a typical June afternoon at Oklahoma’s Quartz Mountain.

Front row, L-R ~ Alison Liu, Erin Miller, Kathy Zhou, Katie Duncan, Renae Perry

Second row ~ Kailee Bird West, Hannah Erb (leaning), Al Young, Olivia Branscum

Far back row ~ Ross Haley, Claire Winfrey, Mary Alexa Woodard, Elizabeth Sholar, Arthur Dixon

© Mary Woodard

Photo: PC Mack

During a much-needed workshop excursion by bus to nearby Mangum, Oklahoma, Al Young and Creative Writing liaison Margaux Griffith relax outside the Old Greer County Museum & Hall of Fame.

Courtesy Old Greer County Museum & Hall of Fame

Coming across a stash of American flags as the class explores Mangum’s long abandoned Franklin Hotel, Hannah Erb, Kailee Bird West and Margaux Griffith note Oklahoma’s devoted patriotism.

Kathy Zhou and Katie Duncan (below) are off to look at Mangum while Hannah Erb, Olivia Branscum, and the rest of us look around the ruined hotel.

Photos: Al Young

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(top) Trombone instructor Wesley Broadnax, PR assistant Joy Kotey, Al
(bottom) Acting instructor Vincent Dowling, Ballet instructor Giana Jigarhan, Al

Photo: O.O. Gabugah

Al Young in after-hours party mode

Al Young

Violin instructor Misha Galagnov, French horn instructor Charles Gavin, trombonist Wesley Broadnax, Orchestra instructor Chrisian Knapp, Choral liaison Christine Hrubik, Modern Dance liaison Kristie Schaffner, Creative Writing liaison Margaux Griffith — snapped at the close of a morning staff meeting at Sunset Café.

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