Date & Time: Sun., Mar. 21, 2010 @ 2:00-5:00PM
Location: Stories Books & Café, 1716 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, (213) 413-3733
Admission:
Hollywood Institute of Poetics (H.I.P.) presents
Moe Green Poetry Show Reading/Panel Discussion On Poetry in the Prison System hosted by Rafael F J Alvarado; featuring: Robert Juarez, Hugo Machuca, Luis Javier Rodriguez and Hannah Wehr

Hugo Machuca served 28 years in prison. He is one of the first inmates to participate in the Honor Yard Program of the California State Prison at Lancaster in 2000, which is a program for men who are alcohol and drug-free, no gang affiliation or recent history of violence while inside and want to live out their time in peace with a multicultural group of men. He is the founder of C.R.O.P. (convicts reaching out to people) an organization that invites at-risk youth to prisons to listen to men’s stories of what led up to their incarceration and impress upon them the importance of getting the help they need before it’s too late. He is currently working full-time at The Catalyst Foundation as an Outreach Worker.

Luis J. Rodriguez is one of the leading Chicano writers who has published fourteen books in memoir, fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature, and poetry. He has won a Poetry Center Book Award, a PEN Josephine Miles Literary Award, a Paterson Poetry Book Prize, among others. Luis is best known for the 1993 memoir of gang life, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. Written as a cautionary tale for Luis’ then 15-year-old son Ramiro-who had joined a Chicago gang, the memoir is popular among youth and teachers. Despite this, the American Library Association in 1999 called Always Running one of the 100 most censored books in the United States. Hannah Wehr is a student in the Creative Writing Program at UC Irvine, an active member of the Orange County and Los Angeles spoken word scene and teaches poetry workshops at various juvenile incarceration facilities.

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