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John Oliver Simon began his worldly travels in 1942, from the red diaper bullpen of New York City, to scribing poem-broadsides to sell on Telegraph Avenue. While at Cal, he was active in the Free Speech Movement; he read with Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Lew Welch and Kenneth Rexroth. Since 1971, he has taught poetry to kids, with California Poets in the Schools, where he has passed the poetry baton onto his granddaughter. In the 1980s, he began translating poets from Mexico to the farthest corners of Latin America. He picked up an NEA translation fellowship along the way. And the City of Berkeley honored him for his 50-year-contribution to arts and culture, proclaiming January 20, 2015, as "John Oliver Simon Day." —Maureen Hurley
Maureen Hurley emerged in 1952 from the ravine that trickles from the bloody green wordstreams of Eire out of the poverty creeks on the backside of Tamalpais where her mother hung out for a thousand years in the No Name Bar with Jack Kerouac and Bob Kaufman. Schooled in her craft with California Poets in the Schools, she has carried her lyre from Chernobyl to Lake Titicaca. She holds an MA in creative writing from San Francisco State and has been awarded eight California Arts Council artist in residence grants. She lives in Oakland. —John Oliver Simon
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