Month: March 2025

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April is upon us

A dark teal graphic with aqua, pink, hot pink, and purple decorative shapes surrounding the text, which reads: Every day in April at the Bloof Blog—NaPoWriMo. The poets of Bloof have been invited to post drafts, doodles, revisions & creative undefinables to our blog all month, trying to meet the challenge first set by Maureen Thorson many moons ago to write a poem a day in the month of April. We usually make a glorious mess. Stop by bloofbooks.com/blog to read along. See napowrimo.net for more information.

Tomorrow is April 1. You know what that means.

Who’s in?

Stop by to see what we are slinging, every day in April.

And be sure to visit Maureen Thorson’s inimitable (many have tried) website at https://napowrimo.net for the history of this Unofficial, Unsponsored, and Noncommercial poetry game. She also offers optional daily prompts!

#NaPoWriMo #AprilPoems #PoemADay #30for30

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Bloof poets at AWP

AWP 2025 Los Angeles banner from the AWP website, including dates: March 26–29 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. An LA skyline and sunset provides a backdrop in mostly oranges.

We, as in the press, will not be at AWP this year. But several of our poets will be. Here’s a little list to help you spot them in Los Angeles.

PANELS & OFFSITES

MARISA CRAWFORD
Switchback Books / Meekling Press / Futurepoem Reading 

Thursday 3/27, 8–10 p.m.
MONKSPACE
4414 W. 2nd Street
Los Angeles

with Fulla Abdul-Jabbar, Marisa Crawford, Lindey Choi, Tilghman Alexander Goldsborough, CR Grimmer, MC Hyland, Stephon Lawrence, Sylvia Jones, Heather McShane, Manuel Paul López, Darby Price, Olivia Muenz, and Rachel Jihye Han.

MARISA CRAWFORD & MORGAN PARKER
OFFSITE: AWP After Party at Tabula Rasa
Hosted by Morgan Parker

Sunday 3/30, 4–8 p.m.
TABULA RASA BAR
5125 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles

with Will Alexander, Juan Amador, Cathy Linh Che, Gabrielle Civil, Marisa Crawford, Sarah Ellen Flower, Tori Gesualdo, Katja Grover, Elisabeth Houston, Genevieve Husdon, Cherene Sherrad-Johnson, Christine Larusso, Tomas Moniz, Alex Moreno, Joseph Mosconi, Paasha Motamedi, Angel Nafis, Lisa Locascio nighthawk, Jennifer Sappettone, Charif Shanahan, Natalie Shapero, Callie Siskel, Adam Stutz, Lynne Thomson & MORE.

DANIELLE PAFUNDA
THURSDAY 3:20 PM – 4:35 PM
AWP PANEL: Still Surreal: A Poetics of Revolution
Room 402AB Level Two LA Convention Center

Will Alexander, C. Francis Fisher, Joyelle McSweeney, and Danielle Pafunda. How do contemporary practitioners of US surrealist poetics grow from, resist, or reenvision André Breton’s 1920s movement? What does it mean to be surrealist amidst the postmodern horror of climate collapse, hyperrealist global warfare, and the absurdity of the twenty-four hour news cycle? Witness writers on the margins—women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+—adopt surrealist practice for personal and political expression to engage its long-standing ideologies and revolutionize its anachronistic tactics.  

Cover for Along the Road Everyone Must Travel by Danielle Pafunda (Saturnalia, 2025)

DANIELLE PAFUNDA

THURSDAY 6:00–8:00 p.m.
OFFSITE READING: Black Ocean / Burnside Review / Saturnalia
Bar Henry
1228 W Sunset Blvd.

DANIELLE PAFUNDA & KATIE JEAN SHINKLE

FRIDAY 12:10 p.m.–1:25 p.m.
PANEL: Reimagining Futures Through Speculative Writing
Room 408B Level Two LA Convention Center

Ching-In Chen, Kenning JP Garcia, Danielle Pafunda, Katie Jean Shinkle, and Dior Stephens. Writers know that who imagines the future and how they imagine it has a profound cultural impact on the eventual present moment. Just as Octavia Butler influenced 2024 when she set Parable of the Sower there in 1993, we BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and disabled innovative and speculative writers rescript those bleak futures spun from our present day marginalization that have been imagined for us. We offer worldbuilding strategies to construct futures rooted in our resistance, liberation, safety, and joy.

BECCA KLAVER
Thursday, Mar 27, 2025
3:20 p.m.—4:35 p.m.
PANEL: Teaching Amidst Trauma: Practices for Our Times
Room 502A, Level Two
Los Angeles Convention Center

Moderator: Miranda McLeod  Presenters: Diego Báez, Marcus Jackson, Becca Klaver

Creative writing classrooms can be repositories for artifacts of traumas both personal and public. As university instructors, how do we teach in a time of accelerating emergency? How can we effectively invite students into the time-honored tradition of making art in the face of existential crisis? How can we do so without turning workshop into group therapy? In this panel, we’ll share lesson designs, community practices, and tips for classroom management and self-care for teachers and learners.

IN THE BOOKFAIR

MARISSA CRAWFORD will also be signing books with Switchback Books on Friday at 12:00 noon and Saturday at 3:00 p.m. with Feminist Press.

DANIELLE PAFUNDA will be signing her new book, Along the Road Everyone Must Travel, on Thursday from 12:00 to 12:30 at the Saturnalia Books table (619). And Friday 10:30 a.m.–12:00 noon Danielle will be signing The Book of Scab at Ricochet Editions @USC’s Bookfair Booth (426).

[Probably more TK. We’ll keep adding …]