Newer Poets X at LAPL

Last night I attended the event that calls itself “LA’s most prestigious annual poetry event” to hear three up-and-coming poets selected from the LA Poetry Festival and three selected from Beyond Baroque. I enjoyed the musicality of Lynne Thompson, the imagery of Mariano Zaro (all the more striking in Spanish), and was captivated by Holaday Mason, whose words as I heard them I could tell stood up well on the page, whose spare but imtimate reveries again reminded me of the most important materials of poetry: honesty, vulnerability, and deep observation. Congratulations and best wishes to all the poets of the evening.