BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:icalendar-ruby CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTAMP:20260604T224558Z UID:257eccdb-c41d-46b3-8c01-924320501dbb DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250226T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20250226T200000 DESCRIPTION:🎟️ Free with RSVP\n🔗 Link\nThe Arboretum Library’s bo ok group explores the portrayal of western North American landscape in fic tion\, non-fiction\, drama\, poetry\, letters\, graphic novels\, etc.  Th e group generally\, but not always\, meets the 4th Wednesday of the month in the Arboretum Library.  When the weather is good and the mosquitos are less active\, the group will meet outside in appropriate places in the gl oriously\, beautiful grounds of the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botan ic Garden. At other times the group will meet in the Arboretum Library wit h social distancing and masking if desired. The group leader will decide e ach month whether the meeting will be in-person (in the Arboretum Library or outside on the Arboretum grounds) or on Zoom.\nThe group uses a modifie d version of the Shared Inquiry™ method developed by the Great Books Fou ndation.  The discussion is greatly enhanced if the chosen book of the mo nth is read\, although we welcome those who just want to listen. Let the h ost know you want to listen. New participants are always welcome!\nClick h ere to see the questions already asked for this year’s past books and ch eck out the history of the book club by hovering on the tab and explore th e books from previous years.\nFor more information and to be added to the e-mail reminder list about the Community Book Discussion Group\, please co ntact\, Arboretum Librarian Emeritus\, Susan Eubank\, at Susan.Eubank@Arbo retum.org.  You must RSVP to Susan for the discussions you would like to attend.\n\nConcentrate by Courtney Faye Taylor\, Minneapolis\, Minnesota: Graywolf Press\, 2022.\n“Taylor is an expert at concentration\; rarely d eterred\, though heavyhearted in her pursuit of truth\, her poems are prec ise\, crisp. “Normalcy devastates. Stillness lies to me\,” she writes as the author is once again reminded\, and here to remind us how purposefu lly memory can be erased\, the way life goes on despite its wounds\, that we are just filling the holes with sand until once again\, it erodes. Conc entrate begs us to do just that for our insured survival.”– Ashia Ajan i\, Split Lip Magazine\nWinner of the 2021 Cave Canem Poetry Prize\, selec ted by Rachel Eliza Griffiths In her virtuosic debut\, Courtney Faye Taylo r explores the under-told history of the murder of Latasha Harlins–a fif teen-year-old Black girl killed by a Korean shop owner\, Soon Ja Du\, afte r being falsely accused of shoplifting a bottle of orange juice. Harlins ’s murder and the following trial\, which resulted in no prison time for Du\, were inciting incidents of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising\, and came to exemplify the long-fraught relationship between Black and Asian America n communities in the United States. Through a collage-like approach to col lective history and storytelling\, Taylor’s poems present a profound loo k into the insidious points at which violence originates against–and bet ween–women of color. Concentrate displays an astounding breadth of form and experimentation in found texts\, micro-essays\, and visual poems\, mer ging worlds and bending time in order to interrogate inexorable encounters with American patriarchy and White supremacy manifested as sexual and rac ially charged violence. These poems demand absolute focus on Black womanho od’s relentless refusal to be unseen\, even and especially when such lum inosity exposes an exceptional vulnerability to harm and erasure. Taylor ’s inventive\, intimate book radically reconsiders the cost of memory\, forging a path to a future rooted in solidarity and possibility. “Concen trate\,” she writes. “We have decisions to make. Fire is that decision to make.” SUMMARY:Reading the Western Landscape Community Book Discussion END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR