EVENTS

UPCOMING READINGS & EVENTS

  • Featured Poet
    Thu Feb 2, 2012 - 8:00pm
    Feral Fusion Reading @ Amsterdam Cafe
    10905 Magnolia Blvd,
    North Hollywood, CA 91601
  • Fire in the Pasture Panel Reading
    Fri & Sat Feb 3-4, 2012 (exact date & time tba)
    Sunstone West Conference
    Claremont Graduate University
    Claremont, CA

RECENT APPEARANCES

  • Reading with Ruben Quesada, Griselda Suarez, and Mario Macias, Viento y Agua Coffee House and Gallery, Long Beach, CA, Nov 23, 2011
  • Visiting Poet Reading, English Department, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, Sep 23, 2011
  • Featured Poet @ Synchromy Concert, Beyond Baroque, Venice, CA, May 21, 2011
  • Poets & Writers Sponsored Reading, Beyond Baroque, Venice, CA, May 7, 2011
  • Featured Poet, Ugly Mug Cafe, Orange, CA, Feb 9, 2011
  • AWP Panel Forum, "Kundiman from Community to Communities: Reaching out from the Writers' Retreat," AWP Conference, Washington, DC, Feb 4, 2011
  • AWP Panel Reading, "Smashing the Box: Fresh Faces and First Books by Asian American Poets," AWP Conference, Washington, DC, Feb 3, 2011
  • Reading with Susan Ito and Heidi Durrow, Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA, June 13, 2010
  • Reading with Dina Hardy, Second Sunday Poetry Series, Cafe Alibi, Pasadena, CA, May 9, 2010
  • Reading with Oliver de la Paz, Ching-In Chen, & William Archila, 3rd Area Reading, Frank Pictures Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA, Apr 29, 2010
  • Loudest Voice Takes Denver - AWP Offsite Reading, Dikeou Collection, Denver, CO, Apr 10, 2010
  • Group Reading, Kundiman West & Achiote Press Chapbook Launch, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, Sep 17, 2009
  • Alumni Reading, Kundiman Reading Series, Verlaine, New York, NY, Sep 13, 2009
  • Performance of The Lost Country of Sight (Composed by Juhi Bansal), What's Next Series. Jeanette Macdonald Recital Hall, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, June 15, 2009
  • Reading, Mixed Roots Roots Film & Literary Festival, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA, Jun 13, 2009
  • Prism Review Release Party Reading, University of La Verne, La Verne, CA, May 7, 2009
  • UC Riverside MFA Alumni Reading, UC Riverside, Riverside, CA, Apr 15, 2009
  • Visiting Writer Reading, The Warehouse, Florida State University, Talahassee, FL, Mar 31, 2009
  • Reading, Hotel Cafe, Hollywood, CA, Mar 29, 2009
  • Featured Poet, The World Stage, Los Angeles, CA, Mar 25, 2009
  • Reading with Robert Wynne, Ugly Mug Caffe, Orange, CA, Mar 4, 2009
  • AWP Panel Reading, "Kundiman Kindles the Flame," AWP Conference, Chicago, IL, Feb 13, 2009
  • Reading, The Loudest Voice Series, The Mountain Bar, Los Angeles, CA, Jan 29, 2009
  • Reading with Elena Karina Byrne, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, Jan 22, 2009
  • Reading with Michelle Bitting, dA Center of the Arts, Pomona, CA, Jan 18, 2009
  • Reading with Sholeh Wolpe, Arcadia Series, Carnegie Museum of Art, Oxnard, CA, Jan 17, 2009
  • Reading with Nancy Shiffrin, Moonday Series, Village Books, Pacific Palisades, CA, Jan 12, 2009
  • Philip Levine Prize Reading, California State University Fresno, Fresno, CA, Nov 21, 2008
  • Reading with Susan McCabe, English Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, Nov 18, 2008
  • Performance of The Lost Country of Sight (a suite of 4 pieces based on poems from the book). Music composed by Juhi Bansal. Thornton Composition Department Recital, Alfred Newman Recital Hall, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, Nov 16, 2008
  • Book Launch for The Lost Country of Sight, Village Books, Pacific Palisades, CA, Nov 3, 2008
  • Reading, 1st Annual Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA, Jun 13-14, 2008
  • Featured Poet, Ugly Mug Caffe, Orange, CA, Apr 30, 2008
  • Reading with Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Village Books, Pacific Palisades, CA Apr 22, 2008
  • Featured Poet, Coffee Cartel, Redondo Beach, CA, Apr 15, 2008
  • Panel Reading, "Obsession," AEGS Conference, Los Angeles, CA, Mar 29, 2008
  • Reading & Interview, Moe Green Poetry Hour, Mar 16, 2008
  


Neil Aitken is a true visionary poet. His instincts for the craft of poetry, its assemblage as verbal object, its locations in time and context, are startling. He is the kind of writer who makes readers want to read and poets remember why they write. He makes poetry feel young, as though the last three thousand years have passed as a single decade and there are still libraries of wonder to be written. Mr. Aitken is filling their shelves as we watch with our hands to our mouths, our cups of tea forgotten.

—Brendan Constantine



His poems are doubled-forests, like Magritte or early Taoist landscape paintings; you journey outside in one direction admiring the foliage, the arrangements of shadow and landscape, then suddenly, you fall inside into voracious vortices of light, fire, voice, and wisdom – the kind that shimmer behind the words. His breadth is vast and his depth is a tremulous chakra opening, burning quietly, even deliciously in your heart. A rare and perhaps the most gifted new writer on the loose.

—Juan-Felipe Herrera



His lines are a measure of control and verve, where you will find edges of violent beauty not hardly seen in a writer so young. In a world where "...swimmers drown/ in the same moment/ a pair of jacaranda trees/ set suddenly aflame," your shortened breaths will tell you this is a poet to watch, a poet who, in turn, will make you watch this world more carefully.

—Aimee Nezhukumatathil