LEEANN PICKRELL & CATHRYN SHEA at Books Inc. Alameda

Join us for The Book of Light Poetry Series : This month we present Leeann Pickrell reading from her new book, Gathering the Pieces of Days and Cathyrn Shea reading from her new book, Ghost Matinee.

Gathering the Pieces of Days is a collection of 52 poems-one for each week of the year-born from a daily ritual begun by LeeAnn Pickrell in 2018. Committing to a page each morning about the previous day, she captured life's details in real-time, later condensing each week into a page of reflections. The following year, Pickrell transformed these 52 weeks of thoughts into poetry, blending free verse, prose poetry, contrapuntals, and list poems. This book emerged as a year of life expressed through poetry-messy, frustrating, joyful, and bittersweet.

In these poems, no subject is too small or too grand. Pickrell reminds us to savor everything: the morning coffee, a baseball game, the warmth of a loved one beside us, a cat curled at the foot of the bed, dreaded work, and cherished moments with friends. Her poems span mundane moments and profound emotions, inviting us to notice each fleeting day. Gathering the Pieces of Days celebrates the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary, from laughter and love to loss and longing, and the dreams that carry us forward.

Ghost Matinee, Cathryn Shea's second full-length poetry collection, she delves into the haunting influence of memories that shape both the present and the future. Shea's poems weave together the personal, political, and global, revealing the buried and overlooked amid the ordinary. With a keen eye on the fleeting beauty of our world, Shea offers a profound meditation on time-where "the past is a frontier" of uncharted, subjective memories and "the future is a sanctuary" of hope and refuge. Rather than yearning for "the good old days," these poems look forward, even as the ghosts of the past cast shadows over the matinees of our lives. Ghost Matinee presents a deeply reflective exploration of how we carry the past while seeking solace and possibility in what lies ahead.

The Poetry series celebrates the spirit and soul of beloved poet, Lucille Clifton !

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LeeAnn Pickrell’s debut collection, Gathering the Pieces of Days, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in April 2025. Her work has appeared in a variety of online and print journals, including One Art,MacQueen’s Quinterly, Loud Coffee Press, Atlanta Review, West Marin Review, Eclectica, where she was a Spotlight Poet, and the anthologies Coffee Poems and The Gathering of Finches. A poem from her book, “May 1,” received honorable mention in The Prose Poem contest. Her chapbook Punctuated was published in 2024 by Bottlecap Press, and her book Tsunami is forthcoming in 2026, also from Unsolicited Press. She lives in Richmond, California, and has worked as an editor for over thirty years. She has an MFA from Mills College. On Substack, she writes LeeAnn’s Punctuated Poetry (leeannpickrell.substack.com). See more at www.leeannpickrell.com.

Cathryn Shea’s second full-length poetry book is Ghost Matinee (Unsolicited Press, April 2025). Her first full-length poetry book , is also available from Unsolicited Press of Portland, Oregon, and on Amazon. Cathryn's newest chapbook is "Did Eve (Did) (dancing girl press, 2025). Cathryn's poetry has been widely featured in numerous publications and was nominated for Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net. Her fourth chapbook, Backpack Full of Leaves, was published by Cyberwit.net in 2019, and her third, The Secrets Hidden in a Pear Tree, was released by dancing girl press the same year. She also published It's Raining Lullabies with dancing girl press in 2017. Her earlier works include her first chapbook, Snap Bean (CC. Marimbo, 2014). Cathryn was a 2017 Best of the Net nominee and a merit finalist in the 2013 Atlanta Review International Poetry Competition. In 2004, she received the Marjorie J. Wilson Award, judged by Charles Simic. Her poetry is featured in many anthologies, including most recently Thin Places and Sacred Spaces by Amethyst Review. See https://www.cathrynshea.com

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