Author Reading: Cindy Williams Gutierrez with Gemma Whelan

BOLD is thrilled to host a reading with poets Cindy Williams Gutierrez and Gemma Whelan. Cindy will be reading from her latest poetry collection, This Tender Geography, and Gemma Whelan will be reading from Lisa Dart’s collections, The Bird You Are and Even So, This Song, published by Gemma’s Shangana Press.

This Tender Geography by Cindy Williams Gutiérrez (2024, FlowerSong Press)

This poetry collection explores the tender geography of the primal forces in our lives: of both the power and frailty of familial bonds—“this is where I will find you/ a seemingly endless hole”—and of the body —“Tumors make no sound.” These poems trace the inner journey of a woman who stands on the threshold of elderhood reflecting on the broken and shimmering terrain she has traversed. It is the story of one life, and it is the story of many lives, of anyone who has loved and grieved, erred and forgiven, regretted and resumed, sickened and survived. In the words of National Book Award Winner Craig Santos Perez, “Every page feels like an ocean of emotions breaking open; at the same time, every page is ‘one wing opening.’”

The Bird You Are

“I'd like to be a painter,” writes Lisa Dart in these brief, stunning portraits. Each prose-poem is addressed, epistle-like, to her mother, as though the once strikingly beautiful red-head, now diminished by illness, loss, and age, into a white-haired rarely lucid woman, might explain the inexplicable truths of their entwined and tragic history. A train's evening-lit passing, sheepskin ankle boots with snow melting on their tread, the pulse of an emergency room heart monitor— this lyrical and searing language paints a moving picture of the painful but ultimately loving relationship at the fluttering heart of this collection.

Even So, This Song

Lisa Dart’s courageous and beautifully intense lyric collection gives us a candid and unflinching chronicle of her profound grief following the death of her life partner, the poet Peter Abbs; from the domestic minutiae that create the loved texture of a shared life, to the limits of what the psyche can endure. This is a grief that is evoked by everything around her—a pair of shoes, a dropped daffodil bulb, a headboard, falling snow. These are poems that howl, that long for rescue and the turning back of time. Yet in the end that all-pervasive mourning becomes the sign, and the music, of life continuing.

Cindy Williams Gutiérrez is a poet, playwright, producer and educator. She is the author of three poetry collections and five produced plays. Her awards include: a 2025 Washington Humanities Award for K-12 Education, 2018 Willow Books Editor’s Choice Poetry Selection, 2017 Oregon Book Award for Drama, 2016 Oregon Literary Fellowship, 2015 International Latino Book Award Finalist, and a Poets & Writers Magazine 2014 Notable Debut Poet. Her poems have appeared in Harvard’s Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, UNAM’s (the National University of Mexico’s) Periódico de Poesía, Portland State University’s Portland Review, and Benedictine University’s Quiddity, among others. Cindy will be reading from her new collection, This Tender Geography, which explores family, mortality and forgiveness.

Lisa Dart is a poet and prose writer. A finalist for the Grolier Poetry Prize (USA, 2004), The Aesthetica Poetry Competition (UK, 2013), and The Troubadour International Poetry Prize (UK, 2022), she has a doctorate in creative writing from the University of Sussex (UK). Her poetry has appeared in many journals, including Eastern Iowa Review, Tears in The Fence, and The London Magazine. She is the author of The Linguistics of Light (poems, Salt, 2008); Fathom (prose memoir, Free Association Press, 2019); This Thing of Darkness (IPBooks, 2024), a highly experimental illustrated book using multiple texts, which won a British Arts Council Award; and The Bird You Are (Shangana Press, 2025).

Gemma Whelan is a director, novelist, screenwriter and educator. She was the founding Artistic Director of Wilde Irish Productions in the San Francisco Bay Area, and of Corrib Theatre in Portland, Oregon. In Portland, she has also directed at Artists Repertory Theatre, Profile Theatre, Milagro, CoHo Theatre, Boom Arts, and Portland Center Stage’s JAW Festival. She has been directing, and teaching at universities and conservatories in the U.S, Ireland, and Asia for 4 decades and leads an annual Theatre Tour to Ireland. Her novels are Fiona: Stolen Child and Painting Through the Dark. Gemma has a BA (English, French) from Trinity College, Dublin, an MA (Theatre) from UC Berkeley, and an MFA (Cinema) from S.F. State University.

Arrive at 6:30 p.m. to grab a snack or drink. The event will start at 7:00 p.m.

*****

Event cohosted by BOLD Coffee & Books and Indigo: Editing, Design, and More.