Mission Poetry Series: Three Poets in Autumn

SBPL and The Mission Poetry Series invite the community to the poetry reading: Three Poets in Autumn, featuring award-winning authors Lynne Thompson, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, and Gustavo Hernandez. The event offers complimentary broadsides, poets’ books for sale, and the chance to meet and chat with our featured authors. This reading is made possible by the City of Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara Poetry Fund, and the Santa Barbara Foundation.

LYNNE THOMPSON

was Los Angeles’ 2021-22 Poet Laureate and is a Poet Laureate Fellow of the Academy of American Poets. She is the author of Beg No Pardon, winner of the Perugia Press Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges New Writers Award and most recently, Fretwork, winner of the Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize selected by Jane Hirshfield. Her 4th collection, Blue on a Blue Palette, will be published by BOA Editions in 2024. Thompson is the recipient of multiple awards including an Individual Artist Fellowship from the City of Los Angeles, the Tucson Literary Festival Poetry Prize, and the Steven Dunn Poetry Prize, as well as fellowships from the Summer Literary Series to study in Kenya and the Vermont Studio Center. She sits on the Boards of The Poetry Foundation, Cave Canem, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

JULIAN TALAMANTEZ BROLASKI (it / xe / them)

is a poet and country musician and the author of Of Mongrelitude (Wave Books), Advice for Lovers (City Lights), and gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse). Julian is a 2023 Bagley Wright lecturer, a 2021 Pew Foundation Fellow, and the recipient of the 2020 Cy Twombly Award for Poetry. With its band Juan & the Pines, it released the EP Glittering Forest in 2019; Julian’s first full-length album It’s Okay Honey came out in August 2023. 

GUSTAVO HERNANDEZ

is the author of the poetry collection Flower Grand First (Moon Tide Press) and the chapbooks Form His Arms and Little Fleece (Ghost City Press). His work has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, The Harvard Review, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, and The Slowdown Podcast. He was born in Jalisco, Mexico, and lives in Southern California.

MPS program curator Emma Trelles

is the recipient of an Established Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council (2023) and the 9th Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara (2021-2023). She is a Poet Laureate Fellow at the Academy of American Poets (2022-2023), one of 22 poets in the United States appointed for their creative and community work. The daughter of Cuban immigrants, and originally from Miami, she is the author of Tropicalia (U. of Notre Dame Press), winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, and is currently writing a second book of poems, Courage and the Clock. She is a CantoMundo fellow and is the series editor of the Alta California Chapbook Prize, open to Latinx poets in U.S. and published in bilingual editions in the spring by Gunpowder Press.

MPS production coordinator Mark Zolezzi

is a musician and has worked as a bookseller for 20 years in both college and independent bookstores, most recently as the book buyer at Santa Barbara City College. He has performed in many venues and festivals, including the Art Center of South Florida; South by Southwest in Austin, Texas; the Art and Culture Center in Hollywood, Florida; and the Miami Book Fair. You can also find him busking on State Street in downtown Santa Barbara with his band The Gruntled.

Disclaimer(s):

This reading is made possible by the City of Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara Poetry Fund, and the Santa Barbara Foundation.

Participants in this event may be photographed by Library staff. These photos may be used in promotional or educational publications, including in print, social media, and presentations. Please see staff if you do not consent to having your photo taken. Staff will obtain individual, signed photo releases of photographs that contain only an individual as opposed to a group.