“In the Garden of Broken Things,” a 34-page chapbook of prose and short fiction works by Lawrence, Kan., poet on-the-rise Mercedes Lucero, is a short journey, but it maps the crevices of the heart and soul, stopping a while to reflect on life’s messy entanglements.

U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera will give a reading at the Central Library on May 27. Photo by Carlos Puma, for UC Riverside. How..

Maybe it is true what folklore says about red hair—it is the color most likely to adorn poets and madmen.  Bridget Lowe, with her shimmering auburn hair, holds in esteem the inner workings of both. Perhaps that is why Herbert Leibowitz, publisher and founding editor of Parnassus: Poetry in Review, describes her work as “uncommonly mature.”