Poetry Connection | Connecting with Artists and Performers …...

I recently had the privilege of performing at the Domino in New Orleans. Claudia Duran, who now lives in New Orleans, teamed up with LMNL Arts, a nonprofit organization that organizes poetry and play series, writing workshops and more. As the name implies, LMNL or liminal without the vowels, brings literary works to the stage and celebrates transitional spaces, seeking to be an all-inclusive venue that presents a variety of performance artists. The nonprofit is run by Michelle Antoinette Nicholson and Nikki Ummel.

José Torres-Tama | Photo: Courtesy
In Sunday’s iteration, LMNL presented a playwriting and poetry summer festival, with staged readings of one-act plays and two poetic performances, featuring the work of José Torres-Tama and myself. Jose’s work on immigration issues falls more heavily in the performance art category and is theatrical and musical. He performed an excerpt from his one-man show, Aliens, Immigrants, & Other Evildoers. My set consisted of three poems and their companion songs on guitar. I don’t often have the opportunity to share the songs I have written that are inspired by my poems. I was happy to participate in LMNL’s summer festival while I was in town.
Claudia currently lives and works as a teacher, while maintaining her connection and work with Chicanas, Cholas y Chisme, a theater group based in East L.A. Her vision to unite Latin writers from across the country to share their stories in New Orleans came to fruition, thanks to LMNL. Both Claudia and Michelle are committed to providing a space for creatives to shine and share their work. Claudia was happy to see this program finally happen. She had been in conversation with Michelle for over a year. “We wanted to unite Latin writers from across the country to share their beautiful stories. This summer, they were able to bring writers from Louisiana and California representing Mexico, Ecuador, Honduras, and El Salvador together to read their work. Plays, screenplays, musicals, poetry, and spoken word were among the many formats in which the writers presented at Summer Fest.”
Thanks to program manager Chris Wecklein, LMNL has found a home and performance space at the Domino, a bar and event space on St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans. The venue is reminiscent of Santa Barbara’s Wylde Works on State Street. LMNL also works with a variety of locations from bookstores to pie shops to bars. “My impulse is to bring other people along with me,” said Michelle. “People come up with ideas and we make programming happen.”

Participants at the LMNL event | Photo: Courtesy

As much as Michelle Nicholson promotes creativity in others, she is always working on her own poetry in between LMNL programming and teaching creative writing. She won the 2021 Andrea Saunders Gereighty Poetry Award from the Academy of American Poets and her debut poetry book, Around the Gate, launched this month from Word Works and was selected for the 2024 Hilary Tham Capital Collection.
This week’s poetry connection features three unpublished poems by M.A. Nicholson from New Orleans.

Age 9, Cherry Pie
By M.A. Nicholson
Poison keeping our pace, pumping hi-pitched crescendos as we race: I have memorized this steady pump of thigh, this crank of ankle beside the greased chain,this point-and-flex of foot on pedal. Perfectlytimed, we ride in sync to what blares fromthe boom box perched on your handlebars.So sweet, this salty flash of heat. Flash of boxwood and ranch house. Flash of cream brick then red. We speak of nothing. Ages apart, we sing the words but ignore the lyrics. Ignore mandates to stay on the sidewalk. No one yet knowshow you will be cut off, at the knee. Know one yetknows the price of your sweet tooth. All we know is we will flip the cassette and keep circling the blockuntil we witness the most beautiful sunset made possible by the refinery clouding up our horizon.

43°17’48.0″N 122°53’36.6″W
By M.A. Nicholson
M only took us as far as the bay, scoffed at the wonder of seals slapping around between bouncing yachts, boardwalk turned dance floor, sun spinning, a giant disco ball or a queen decked outin a trillion tiny mirrors to turn the light on us, to drive darkness out into the night. Not a single reservation available beyond I-5 for two days. I’m tired of gas station parking lots, can’t stomach a continental breakfast, found myself disappointed by the foggy coastline at Seal Bay after 11 days of steering. I second-guessed myself. I wondered if I should have stayed in Seattle a little longer, until the friend I remember remembered himself. I just kept driving, stopping only to fill up the tank, to grab a local brew, to search the web until I located the only park open on the map. Paid the North Umpqua my respects with scented smoke drifting downstream. Knee-deep, I was unaware of the refugee camp down the road, had no idea that today I would rise to pitch my tent, scramble my eggs to the stark reality of the fallen forest still smoldering steps away from my tailgate.
July wildfire sipping on Flying Embersfound a place to sleep

Letters for My Lovers
By M.A. Nicholson (From a poetry sprint this past March with Cate Root et al. It’s part of a sequence!)
VIII.
True: I’d never seen a thing so beautifulas that night, my bare thighs sinking into coolgrass, cool soil, dark night behind the hawthornshrub behind you—your face illuminated the foreground, centered, sitting butterfly,a crown of white clovers perched atop the darktangle of your hair.

About the Author: M.A. Nicholson is a New Orleans poet, editor, educator, journalist, and a co-founder of LMNL Arts. M.A. completed her M.F.A. at the University of New Orleans — where she served as Associate Poetry Editor for Bayou Magazine — and was the recipient of the 2021 Andrea-Saunders Gereighty Academy of American Poets Award. She has work featured in Best New Poets 2022, and her debut poetry collection Around the Gate (The Word Works) was selected for the 2024 Hilary Tham Capital Collection. Connect with M.A. at michellenicholsonpoetry.com

Upcoming Poetry Events
July 22, Induction of Santa Barbara County Youth Poet Laureate, Jasmine Guerrero Sevilla at the Solvang City Council meeting.
July 24, Thousand Oaks Library, poet and artist Anita McLaughlin is reading at 6 p.m. Host Ron Fullerton invites readers to bring in an ekphrastic poem.
August 4, Goleta Valley Library Series features Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara’s new Youth Poet Laureate Jasmine Guerrero Sevilla, Soe Bender and Ruben Lee Dalton, 2 p.m.

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