California Poets Updates
Updated: Oct 8
California Poets - October 20th, 2026
After more than six years of editing California Poets, the need for an update has become increasingly essential—ever since November 2023 nothing’s been written. One issue in particular has inspired me to compose this piece, and maybe it only took six humble years to address it because such a phenomenon can’t be noticed with one or two instances alone—and if it can, these become rather isolated cases instead of reoccurring events. Any admirer of poetry who visits the California Poets page and looks at the list of contributors will invariably notice that many of the poets published either weren’t born in California or no longer live there. More glaringly, it is I, as the sole editor of this project, who actually checks both those boxes, but I want to leave myself out of the equation—at least till the end.
What is it that California Poets in fact represents? At first glance, it all looks pretty simple: Publishing poets from California. Except it’s actually a lot more complicated than that. Poets who were born here but now reside elsewhere are hesitant to submit. Poets born elsewhere but living here often do so readily. Why is it less problematic when a writer was born in New York but now works in LA, instead of the other way around? Then there are also poets whose birthplace was neither California nor is the state their current home, yet they appear in these pages. Once again, why? Because, I suppose, they’ve lived and worked in the Golden State at some point in their lives.
If I had to answer that aforementioned question, what is California Poets about, I’d use one word: Identity. I find it fascinating how that term is given so much agency when it comes to personal choices, yet is so little emphasized when it pertains to geography. If biology, for instance, isn’t the sole determinant of sex, then physical presence shouldn’t alone determine belonging either. This project is about identifying with California and there isn’t one individual in these pages who doesn’t have a substantial connection to either the mountains, plains, or valleys of this state. As editor, I’ve tried my best to ensure that. In fact, it’s the invitations I send out to poets that bring about the choice of belonging, or not. It is then the poets’ willful decision—indeed the act of submitting—which either reinforces the identity, or not. Naturally, this is a simplistic view of things. The resolve not to contribute isn’t always entirely based on one factor alone. It could be a lack of work, a lack of time, or a lack of interest in this particular project—whatever. It really doesn’t matter because that’s not the point. The point is that the act of belonging is never tied to one place, full stop. So many poets who are now a part of this project yet currently reside outside the boundaries of California, may today indeed feel a greater sense of connection to their new home, yet this doesn’t mean their bond to where they came from or where they’ve been is entirely erased.
There is, as stated, a personal reason for all this. I’m the only editor of California Poets. But as mentioned before, I also wasn’t born in the state nor do I live there today. Still, I identify as a California poet because without California I would've never been a poet. It’s here that I met the mentors who’d become instrumental in my development. It’s here, in 2009, that I published my first ever poem in a literary journal called Eclipse, edited by Bart Edelman at Glendale College. The work, a villanelle, was called “Masquerade,” and appeared next to a piece by Lyn Lifshin. One couldn’t ask for a better entrance than that. So even if I’ve now made the exit and write somewhere else, it’s California where I’ll always belong.
Volume Twenty of Eclipse, edited by Bart Edelman "Masquerade" appeared under the name David Hovhannisyan
California Poets - November 26th, 2023
LAdige is the new home of California Poets. Selection of work, at this juncture, remains by invitation only, but given the establishment of this independent publishing platform, editorial policies will likely change in the future.
California Poets - March 8th, 2023
For the past two or so years, California Poets has brought together some of the important and emerging voices working in the Golden State. When I first conceived this feature, in collaboration with Peter Robertson (Founder and President of Interlitq), it was our intention to assemble twenty to forty writers who could best represent what was being done from the cliffs of Crescent City to the beaches of San Diego. In reality, we wound up with another reality: Twelve solid names, and most of them from LA. You have to start somewhere, but not necessarily end where you start. We decided to put together another installment—and we noticed results: Two additional names, and more poets outside of LA. The enterprise was still heavily Southern California. For better or worse, the old mantra remained: No reason to stop when a good thing begins. And we’ve been doing just that: Building momentum with each subsequent feature, which keeps on growing. More than 90 writers now grace our pages. When it all took off, we couldn’t imagine going for as long we did; what surprised us, however, was the willingness, and more importantly enthusiasm, with which poets kept sending work. Eventually, a desire to bring greater attention to those who had passed on (we’ve featured tributes to Holly Prado Northup, Scott Wannberg, and Shelley Scott) began to grow as well.
Why all this at this moment? Simply to say, again, that one doesn’t have to stop where one starts. There have indeed been many different anthologies dedicated to California poets. Some have been big; some have been small; some have devoted themselves to a city, a region, or perhaps even a geographical feature. Truly, they were all different, but there was one thing that made them the same: They all had natural beginnings and a deliberate end.
As with any effort, the act of writing has had its fair share of communities—some of which vanished quickly, and some of which lasted in time. It was the latter that created generations, like the Beats. It's not clear now where California Poets fits on this spectrum, but after two years of publishing and interviewing poets, the enterprise is certainly no longer an anthology; likewise, after 800 or so days, it’s also not the Beat Generation—indeed, nowhere close it. Yet the fact still remains: Roughly 30 months of collaboration, along with starting the concurrent California Poets Interview Series, have contributed to bringing this endeavor out of the terrain of traditional anthology parameters and causing it to approach something akin to a “community,” though it’s still ways away from that.
Considering all that's been written, stopping now wouldn’t symbolize the achievement of creating a nice representation of Californian poets. Rather, it would entail losing the chance to build what truly matters—a dynamic space. For all of these reasons it makes sense to continue this project indefinitely. And though nothing can last more than infinity, it's nevertheless our intention to go beyond the circumscribed “anthology” boundaries for two reasons: The first is simple—the internet's power simply allows us to do it; secondly, this project, in any case, is already beginning to leave those aforementioned borders, though it may still be far away from what many might call a community. To get to this latter point, we’ll need everyone’s help, and what this help entails is really no different than what contributors have already been doing before—recommending names and spreading the word, with the former being of utmost importance.
We hope to keep the enterprise going for as long possible. We extend our kindest gratitude in advance for all your assistance.
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