UC Santa Barbara Gevirtz School’s Chryss Yost, a graduate student, and George Yatchisin, Communications Coordinator, have co-edited, along with Nancy Gifford, the poetry anthology Rare Feathers: Poems on Birds & Art (Gunpowder Press, 2015). The anthology collects poems by more than three dozen California poets--including Department of Education Professor George Singer--on the subject of birds and art, inspired by the FLOCK exhibit of contemporary art curated by Nancy Gifford at Ganna Walska Lotusland.
FLOCK: Birds on the Brink was a contemporary art exhibit designed to educate the public about causes of wild bird population decline with a focus on the relationship between wild avian species and plant species, as well as other animal species. FLOCK fostered understanding of the critical impact of wild bird populations on human well-being and the conservation efforts to save birds, while also celebrating the daily presence of birds in gardens and communities. FLOCK included mixed media visual arts in gallery and garden settings, accompanied by participatory programming to provide a provocative and visceral experience that inspired visitors to action. One such action was the anthology Rare Feathers: Poems on Birds & Art.
Chryss Yost is a master’s degree student in the Department of Education at the Gevirtz School. Yost served as Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara from 2013-2015. She was awarded the 2013 Patricia Dobler Poetry Prize, and many other honors including multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her book Mouth & Fruit was published in 2014 and her poems have been included in the most popular poetry textbooks in the country and widely anthologized elsewhere. As an editor, Yost has edited two influential collections: California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present, edited with Dana Gioia and Jack Hicks, and Poetry Daily: A Year of Poems for the World's Most Popular Poetry Website, edited with Poetry Daily founders Dianne Boller and Don Selby. Yost earned her BA from UC Santa Barbara.
George Yatchisin has been the Communications Coordinator of the Gevirtz School since 2006. He is co-author of Writing for the Visual Arts (Prentice Hall 2000) with Mashey Bernstein, and his work has appeared in the anthologies I’ll Tell You Mine: Thirty Years of Nonfiction from the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program, Clash by Night: An Anthology Inspired by The Clash’s London Calling, and Buzz: Poets Respond to Swarm. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, he has published widely as a journalist, poet, and essayist.