Beverly Korenwaser has been immersed in the arts since her chilly beginnings in Michigan.
She discovered a love for writing in between dance rehearsals at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
In Los Angeles she opened Norris Fine Art Guerrilla Gallery where, after hours, poets,
musicians and actors performed; she also worked as Artistic Director at the Sangeet School of
World Music. In Northern California, she was featured reader with the Woman’s Writing Salon.
Some of her poems are published in the Cafe Writers Anthology, and most recently Beverly read
her poem “Isadora” with the Isadora dance performance at the Crocker Museum. The weaving
together of all these rhythms has become “The Poets Quartet.” Like a jazz/chamber group, four
poets, reading masterworks and contemporary poems, a unique fusion of dynamic poetry, humor,
and original music.
Iven Lourie was Poetry Editor at Chicago Review in the 1960s, and he has pursued editing,
writing, and performance art since. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and
fulfilled two years of alternative service for a halfway house for mental patients. After
completing his MFA at U. of Arizona (1978), he moved to the Sierra Foothills to work as Editor
for Gateways Books, teach composition and literature at Sierra Community College, and lead the
Café Writers group. His publications include poetry in journals such as Poetry (Chicago),
Midstream, Louisville Review, many others; collections Miro’s Dream (1991), one of six poets in
Yuba Flows (Hip Pocket Press, 2007); and chapbooks SHORTS (Rattlesnake Press, 2009), Return
to Mykonos (Artemis Books, 2013).
Myra Traugot grew up as an army dependent world-traveler. She has been writing poetry her
entire life as well as playing folk guitar and singing, meanwhile studying linguistics, Scottish
history, and spirituality. She has read her poetry for years for Nevada County Poetry Series
events, published a chapbook titled Some Poems, helped create the Poets Quartet, and is featured
as a performer at the annual KVMR Celtic Festival. A pioneer of the vegetarian nutrition and
homebirth movements, Myra is the mother of five children and grandmother of six (and
counting).
Howie Deutsch marched on the Pentagon during the ‘60s and published political cartoons in the
East Village Other. He demonstrated against the Vietnam War at Stonybrook University in New
York and burned his draft card in 1968. He has been living and working in the foothills of the
Sierra Nevada mountains for the last forty years, writing, composing, singing, and performing
songs in the Mother Lode country. Beginning in the mid-1990s, he began collaborating with
local poets and spoken-word performers in Nevada County, providing musical adornment on
Native American flutes, harmonica, and percussion. Becoming part of the Poets Quartet is the
latest evolution of that work.
