African American Folklorist of The Month - Larry Handy

African American Folklorist of the Month - Larry Handy

Larry  Handy discusses with me the concept of Ethnopoetic theory (a method for analyzing and recording oral poetry and performances to capture the poetic elements of the original performance) and his love for archiving and being a librarian. Handy is a “Folklife Poet” and shares with us the meaning; he also dives deep into activism and protests. Larry lives in California, and we recorded this interview at the height of the California wildfires when he was a few miles away. In sharing his Journey to Folklore, he discusses Folk Consciousness and his "Tour of Duty," an LA Protest Memoir.

BIO:

Larry Handy is a folklife poet who leads the award-winning poetry band Totem Maples.  His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry appear in such journals as The Coachella Review, Cog, Mosaic: Art and Literary Journal, Proximity, Quiddity, Rivet, Roi Fainéant, Storylandia, Straight Forward Poetry, and elsewhere.  He holds an MFA in creative writing and writing for the performing arts from the University of California, Riverside, and a master’s in library science from Emporia State University.  TWB Press published his horror novelette Paper Cuts: 1000 Paper Cranes.  His essay “What to Do When Grandma Has Dementia” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was listed in The Best American series under Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2016.  He is either practicing Chinese martial arts or running 26.2-mile marathons when not writing.  Southern California is his home.