Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center is pleased to present Second Tuesday Poetry featuring Rosa Lane (Maine, East Bay) & Tama Brisbane (Stockton)
Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Time: 7:00 pm PST
Where: Bookish Modesto, 811 W. Orangeburg Ave, in the Roseburg Square shopping center
Limited open mic; sign up at the event. Hosted by Gillian Wegener & Stella Beratlis
Rosa Lane
Rosa Lane, poet and architect, was found to be the youngest girl to have built a house. She was 11 years old when she built her 1st home, which is featured in a book entitled Making Ourselves at Home: Women Builders and Designers (Papier Mache Press, 1995). But Lane’s primary love is poetry. She is the author of four poetry collections: Called Back (Tupelo Press, 2024); Chouteau’s Chalk (University of Georgia Press, 2019); Tiller North (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2016); and Roots and Reckonings, a chapbook published by Granite Press East under a grant from the Maine Arts Commission.
Most recently, her work was selected as the Best of Poetry for the 2024 Geminga Prize, winner of the 2023 Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Award, runner-up for the 2023 River Heron Poetry Prize, and named finalist for the 2023 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition (Cork, Ireland) and the 2023 Australian Book Review‘s Peter Porter Prize (Melbourne)
among other awards.
Lane’s latest poems have appeared in Catamaran, Crosswinds, Five Points, Nimrod, RHINO, River Heron Review, Southword, Third Coast, and elsewhere. She splits her time between the North Bay and coastal Maine, her native home where she lives with her wife. Website: www.rosalane.com
About CALLED BACK
“Rosa Lane’s Called Back breaks through the membrane that separates us from Dickinson’s time. Here, we enter Dickinson’s world brand new with the vigor of research re-imagined, obsession expressed with prolific inventiveness and mounting urgency, and language that astonishes in its apt, abundant, and irresistible embrace of sound. This is a book fearless in its approach and lavish in its accomplishment.”
– Rebecca Kaiser Gibson, author of The Promise of a Normal Life: A Novel
Tama Brisba
ne
TAMA L. BRISBANE is the City of Stockton’s Poet Laureate Emerita. She served four historic terms
from 2015-2023, presenting well over 300 times, including the inauguration of the city’s first Black
Mayor, Michael Tubbs. Her debut Laureate project helped engineer Stockton’s return to All-American
City status with an innovative spoken word presentation incorporating dozens of multigenerational,
multiethnic voices. Her performance as Guest Poet at The King Center and Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta led Martin Luther King III to say to her, “your words matter.” She remains in constant demand as
a keynote speaker and spoken word artist.
Tama is also President of With Our Words LLC, and a Program Director with Concrete Development Inc.
In her capacity as a literary and performing arts consultant, she develops curricula, programs, and events
across the United States and around the world. The impact of her words and her works have positively
shifted creative and cultural landscapes in Stockton and beyond.
“Mama T” is a published author, a Susan B. Anthony Award Winner for Creative Arts, a Black Women
Organized for Political Action Honoree, a University of the Pacific Woman of Distinction, an Action on
Behalf of Children Honoree, and a founding member of the National Black Poet Laureates Group. Her
tireless efforts on behalf of youth – particularly youth of color and from marginalized communities – have
been celebrated and recognized by both houses of the California Legislature, by the United States House
of Representatives, and the United States Senate.
Tama is grateful to her Creator for her earthly assignment. She takes inspiration and guidance from her
two favorite quotes. The first is from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “The salvation of humanity lies in the
hands of the creatively maladjusted.” The second is attributed to an Eastern proverb: “If you sit on the
bank of the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.”
a poem to share at open mic! Reading starts at 1:00 p.m. in the Community Room just inside the front entrance.