Join us for a special presentation on how San Francisco poets discover their inner resources during the pandemic to illuminate sorrow and loss as well as resilience to pain. Listen to local authors, Karen Melander-Magoon, John Curl and Mahnaz Badihian, read their books of poetry, highlighting their latest works.  

About the presenters:

Karen Melander-Magoon is a former opera singer who has written poetry all her life. She wrote many books and four musical portraits of great women (e.g., Clara Barton, Georgia O'Keeffe, Lillie Langtry and Colette), which were performed in many venues in the U.S. and Europe. 

John Curl is the author of twelve poetry collections, including his latest, Rainbow Weather. Curl is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade of San Francisco and co-edited their annual poetry anthologies with San Francisco Poet Laureate emeritus Jack Hirschman. 

Mahnaz Badihian is an Iranian American poet, painter and translator. She runs the literary magazine MahMag, which brings the poetry of the world together. Badihian finished the translation of a book, Spalding Arise, with Jack Hirschman in 2014 and received her MFA in poetry from Pacific University. She is working on her latest novel, Gohar. Badihian’s recent collection of poems, Ask the Wind was published in 2022. Currently, she is an acting member of the World Festival of poetry and travels to different world poetry events in India, Chile, Cuba, Italy, England, Bolivia, Peru and more.