Fire-A-Versary

Reading this Friday night at Beyond Baroque.

Dear Poets,

A late return from holiday travel left me racing through January and now (stunningly) it’s February! I will post a personal ‘fire-a-versary’ update below for those who care to read that far. Meanwhile, I’m noticing the gears starting to turn as the upcoming Associated Writing Program annual conference (in Baltimore in early March) starts to rev up. More details to come. Let me know if you’re going! One of the great ironies of AWP is it’s sometimes easier to meet up with local friends there v. trying to break out of the matrix of family/work/obligations, never mind geographical constriction, that pins us all in place even though we’re in the same city.

Before another minute goes by, I want to invite those who can to a triple celebration tomorrow night (2/6 at 7:30) at Beyond Baroque’s Wanda Coleman Theater where I will be reading with Lin Nelson Benedek and Patty Seyburn. Tickets are $10 and support a venerable Los Angeles institution. Please come see us in person or by livestream. 💙

On February 28th (at 2:00) I will be reading with Prageeta Sharma at the Claremont Helen Renwick Library in the wonderful Fourth Saturday series.

Sharing with you:

If you can make a day of it, there is a small press book fair that afternoon at Claremont Graduate University. I hope to get over to the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art to see the exhibit “She Opens the Door: Women Artists and Writers Shape Language and Space,” curated by poet Chloe Martinez. Included in the exhibit are poems by Genevieve Kaplan and Prageeta Sharma.

On February 21st there is a talk entitled, “At an Angle to the World: A Reading and Conversation with the Writers of She Opens the Door” with the curator and poets in the exhibition. Yet another event on the 28th is a conversation from 5:00-6:30 connected to the exhibit entitled “Less Me More We: Women Artists in Conversation.”

Applications for the fourth Yetzirah 2026 Jewish Poetry Conference open on February 23 and close on March 15, 2026. More information here.

I’ve long lamented that most writing residencies take place on the east coast; herewith an opportunity for Californians: Writing Between the Vines: Vineyard Retreats for Writers. The deadline to submit is February 11th.

I was sorry I never met Miami poet Maureen Seaton, but reserved a ticket to a tribute which celebrates her posthumous collection. If you’re not busy with the Superbowl, tune in on Sunday, Feb. 8th from 4:00-5:00 PT. Celebrating Maureen Seaton + UNDERSEA from JackLeg Press

“Did You Know That Poetry Used to Be an Actual Olympic Sport?” Nick Ripatrazone reports on what happened at the 1912 Olympics in LitHub.

I was thrilled to see this article in the entertainment section of the Los Angeles Times: “A year after the fires, 5 Altadena writers reflect on loss and the creativity that survives,” poignant as it was. Bonnie Kaplan and Michelle Huneven lived close by and seeing this just after the fire-a-versary was meaningful.

I would be remiss if I didn’t post that the Altadena Library is looking for its next two poets-in-residence. I held this role (when it was consolidated into one position) from 2016-2018 and I encourage anyone interested to apply! Altadena needs community more than ever and this is an opportunity to cultivate that over the next two years. Apply here and feel free to reach out if I can answer any questions.

On a somber note, I want to honor poet Renee Good who was standing up for what is right in Minneapolis. I’m sure anyone reading this knows the tragedy that occurred. Here is her poem “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.” I have been closely following the dispatches sent from Trio House Press publisher, Kris Bigalk (“Words Matter: A Bulletin from Occupied Minneapolis”) and was glad to participate in their virtual vigil for Minneapolis. You can find the whole playlist here. Here is my contribution.

Fire-A-Versary Update

When I booked a return ticket to L.A. on January 6th, I didn’t think about what it would mean to land just 24 hours before the one-year anniversary of the Eaton and Palisades fires. Some feel strongly the 8th is the date to mark, since that is when they know their house burned. For some, it is the night of the 7th when they realized, with minute-by-minute urgency, that danger was heading straight towards them, although to what extent was yet unknown.

It seemed as if for a full 48 hours those who were directly affected were walking around in a haze/daze, marking a period of mourning. In the Beautiful Altadena Facebook group (our community bulletin board) people were posting about taking the day off of work, being awakened at 3 in the morning (when, a year prior, they woke as their houses were filling with smoke). Overall, it felt like a bizarre anniversary to mark — somber, terrifying, with the feeling of just wanting to be past it.

Someone in the Beautiful Altadena group put together a spreadsheet of ‘fire-a-versary’ events and there was a staggering number. There was a morning press conference (to which all survivors were invited) with international outlets covering this milestone. I showed up at the end of it, more interested in the post-press conference ‘gathering’ that was arranged with grief counselors from a trauma center. All of this took place at the Altadena Collaboratory — an impressive space I wanted to check out with various nonprofits set up to help survivors figure out their next steps. It was another moment I was glad to recognize how much support has been offered to this community, despite mixed feelings about needing it.

A map at the Collaboratory where the press conference was held. Our house is circled and the gold hearts are fatalities.

Someone handed out yellow long-stemmed roses. There was a table piled high with donated pastries and coffee. People wore their Altadena gear. And yet, what I noticed most were the shell-shocked faces of a community that has been blighted, smote, murdered, plundered (insert other catastrophic terms) and was very much still in shock. There was a community altar where we were invited to place an object which represented what was lost. There were shards of ceramics that had been recovered in the pits where homes once stood, half-recognizable items, broken and clearly burned, that had been salvaged. Someone left a respirator mask. It was clear every thing in this motley collection held meaning. I placed our annual holiday card with a picture of myself and my husband in our respirators and hazmat suits next to another person who included a picture of her home’s rubble on her annual card.

The trauma counselors divided us into circles and I was impressed with my group’s leader. He was committed to letting everyone speak about what they had lost — physically, emotionally, psychologically — and as a result we only got halfway around the circle which was fine with me. What was most striking to me was how deeply people are still suffering. Yes, we showed up, dressed, fed, talking about insurance and rebuild rates, where we were with permitting, but behind that veil people were clearly in so much pain. More than one person burst into tears as they described the terror of that night, some realizing when they awoke at 3 am they really did have to flee for their lives. Then the shock of coming back on the 8th to witness the unimaginable — the roof of one’s house on the ground — and everything in between just… gone. The apocalyptic landscape, the decimation of familiar neighborhoods, the left pets, the charred trees and blackened fruit — the deluge of grief which has been like a wave this past year, washing over everything again and again. People talked about heirloom Christmas ornaments that were pulverized because their holiday trees had still been up. The irreplaceable photographs of ancestors, the record collection started when a teen and moved place to place for years, the books that were no longer in print. The sharpness of the suffering seemed a through line to everything else in their lives. And I understand that well. There are days I think of the fire like a machete, hacking what we knew into two halves (the ‘before’ and ‘after’) but then coming back around and slicing through every new layer.

The various ‘fire-a-versary’ activities were abundant throughout the week. I watched the livestream of a community singing event, went to a sound bath at the Armory, then decided to attend the big commemoration taking place at the Grocery Outlet parking lot which turned out to be a political display more than anything else. It was insanely crowded and I wish I had found myself near the Altadena for Accountability group who wore T-shirts and buttons demanding that Attorney General Rob Bonta launch an investigation into why there was no fire response, particularly in West Altadena (where I lived).

The anger about how Altadena was ‘left to burn’ is still (pointedly) white-hot and I share in this. I would have liked to stand with this group when they were shouting at Kathryn Barger who was posturing as best she could about the county’s response. Most moving was hearing a Pasadena High School recent graduate read a poem and seeing a parade of local clergy invited to the stage holding large images of the 19 people who died in the fire. All that being said, it felt more like a showcase of what was being done v. addressing the visceral pain that was like a chord vibrating through the crowd.

Picture from the LA Times article: “Anger overflows in west Altadena: Where is the accountability for 19 deaths, epic losses?”

A kind of ‘after tribute’ followed at Fair Oaks Burger which I wish I had attended instead, but jet lag was getting the better of me. I heard it responded to the ‘real’ Altadena with community members speaking, music, and a sense of connection held through shared grief. There was a Sunday night vigil at the Altadena Country Club which I heard was thoughtful but I was commemoration’ed out at that point.

Most meaningful that week was gathering with our block on the night of the 8th. We held a bizarre sort of ‘lot potluck’ — unexpectedly in our (still intact) driveway, since our lot was closest to the few functioning streetlights. I had never been to our lot at night before and there was a strange, eerie feeling, using flashlights to locate food, peering at the empty spaces. On a positive note, four houses were already framed and there was hopeful talk of architectural plans and dates to return, while acknowledging how our block will never be the same.

I was glad to teach a well-attended workshop at the Bob Lucas Altadena Library on January 10th entitled “New Year, New Myths” in which we tried to balance on the new year’s fulcrum of hope for what might be with the sober knowledge that what will happen is never known.

On January 24th I was also glad to take part in an anniversary reading organized by current poets laureate Sehba Sarwar and Lester Graves Lennon. It was an exceptionally moving event, spearheaded by two high school students reading their work, one of whom tried very hard to not burst into tears as she spoke about leaving behind her comfort object, a stuffed animal she had had since birth, on the night of the 7th. The theme of never realizing when we left that evening that would be the last time we were inside our houses — or that our houses would even exist — was present. At the end there was a sense of catharsis, and my awareness that the hum of pain is vibrating inside this community — at all times — struck me deeply again.

I wish I could end on a more upbeat note. We have finalized our architectural plans, which is a positive, though we are now in the liminal zone of waiting on permit approvals, which could be awhile. There is plenty to do in the meanwhile — find a contractor (not a simple process), forge ahead with the dreaded inventory list we’ve avoided, many more calls to our insurance agent to alter our policy (again!). I’ll spare you more but it’s there — the third, fourth, fifth, sixth jobs that we never wanted. I recently saw a new grant announced on the Beautiful Altadena Facebook page and a friend commented that she spent close to two hours on it before giving up in frustration with others chiming in similarly. I spent three hours in line last week for a gift card giveaway for fire survivors only to have to leave without getting it since I had to pick up my child. The hours and hours of this kind of labor and, more broadly, general ‘opportunity cost’ of this fire to all of us, unwitting victims, strikes me again and again.

Sometimes I wonder is it any different from someone suddenly coping with a medical illness? One that will take at least a year or more to treat and might be a lifelong condition to adjust to afterwards? I don’t know… I’ll guess there is little point in trying to make that comparison. Things come along and blight us — smite us — and we have to find a way to deal with them. That’s what this community is doing — what else can it do? To be sure, it’s not a rhetorical question. It is a choice. I was stunned to drive by an altar (in front of the nonexistent house) of someone a few blocks up who took his life months after the fire, unable to face the rebuilding, on all levels, it would take to forge on.

Last Saturday, I went to a ‘fire survivors swap’ at practiceAltadena, (a yoga studio that opened before the fire). They had the brilliant idea of inviting people to bring all the donated &^(*#$%&* that people gave foisted upon survivors and never used, didn’t like, or was an excuse to ‘feel good’ about passing along their crap and generally resented receiving. The idea was to leave it there, take anything else you liked, and the rest would be donated (eliminating yet another task for survivors, especially as many are starting up another round of needing to move [TK on that one]).

Afterward, I went across the street to Sidecca, a wonderful neighborhood shop with good Altadena merch. I ran straight into the parent of one of my son’s former classmates who moved back east with her family after they lost their home. She now works remotely for her L.A. company and was back in town for meetings. We talked for close to an hour (she called this a ‘trauma date,’ her name for the meetings she had when visiting with local friends again) and mentioned how hard it has been for her family to process their grief while on the other side of the country where people might have heard of the Eaton fire, but don’t understand its impact. She spoke of wishing she could have been in town for the fire-a-versary just to share in the collective sense of healing. I hadn’t thought about how difficult that would be, but it made me appreciate all that was being offered. Despite how harrowing that week was — those few days in particular — I was glad to participate in what grace was offered to this community — from each other to each other — most of all.