Wednesday

Janet Hamill is the author of five books of poetry: Troublante (Oliphant Press), The Temple (Telephone Books), Nostalgia of the Infinite (Ocean View Books), Lost Ceilings (Telephone Books); and her most recent collection, Body of Water, published by Bowery Books, and nominated for the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Prize. She has released two CD’s of spoken word and music in collaboration with the band Moving Star. Flying Nowhere (Yes No Maybe Records, 2000) was produced by Lenny Kaye and executive-produced by Bob Holman; the CD featured cameo performances by Lenny Kaye and Patti Smith. Genie of the Alphabet (Not Records 2005) featured cameos by Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith, Bob Holman and David Amram.

Margaret Randall lived for almost a quarter century in Latin America: Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua. When she returned to the United States, in 1984, the Immigration and Naturalization Service ordered her deported because of opinions expressed in some of her books. With the help of many writers and others, she won her case in 1989. During the 1960s, out of Mexico City, Randall and Mexican poet Sergio Mondragon published the influential bi-lingual poetry journal El Corno Emplumado / The Plumed Horn. She has also done a great deal of translation from the Spanish, making such Latin American poets as Roque Dalton, Otto Rene Castillo, and others available to an English readership. Among Randall’s most recent books of poetry are Where They Left You For Dead (BookWorks), Stones Witness (The University of Arizona Press), and Their Backs To The Sea (Wings Press). My Town will be published by Wings in 2010. Randall lives with her partner, Barbara Byers, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from where she travels widely to read and speak.