Rick Lupert has been involved with poetry in Los Angeles since 1990. He is the recipient of the 2017 Ted Slade Award, and the 2014 Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center Distinguished Service Award, a 3 time Pushcart Prize Nominee, and a Best of the Net nominee. He served as a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets for 2 years, and created Poetry Super Highway. Rick hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading for almost 21 years which has lived on as a weekly Zoom series since early 2020. His spoken word album "Rick Lupert Live and Dead" featured 25 studio and live tracks. He's authored 25 collections of poetry, including "The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express," "Hunka Hunka Howdee!" and "God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion" (Ain't Got No Press) and edited the anthologies "A Poet's Siddur", "Ekphrastia Gone Wild", "A Poet's Haggadah" and the noir anthology "The Night Goes on All Night. He also writes and draws (with Brendan Constantine) the daily web comic "Cat and Banana" and writes a Jewish poetry column for JewishJournal.com. He has been lucky enough to read his poetry all over the world.
“One of the smartest, funniest poets around.” Alexis Rhone Fancher, poetry editor, Cultural Weekly, seven-time Pushcart nominee
“One of my favorite poets” Amber Tamblyn, author and actress
“Rick Lupert is a writer’s chef” Derrick Brown, poet and publisher, Write Bloody Publishing
“I know of no other poet able to establish intimacy with the audience as fast as Rick Lupert.” Brendan Constantine, poet, teacher, Red Hen Press and Write Bloody Publishing.
The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express
Rick Lupert’s 25th collection of poems and latest travelogue written in Japan while visiting Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima, follows in the footsteps of Richard Brautigan and is loosely inspired by his title The Tokyo-Montana Express. Follow Lupert through Japan with his signature wit and poet’s eye as your guide, as he stands in the mysterious “stick line”, as indescribable food is put in his mouth (and described anyway), as a monkey crawls on his head, as Hiroshima looms at the end of it all.
God Wrestler
A poem for each of the weekly Torah portions, written by Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert who immersed himself in the weekly text and came out on the other side with a poem that adds humor, modern insight, and “reverent irreverence” to his interpretations of these ancient stories around which modern-day Judaism has developed. This collection of Jewish poetry adds to Lupert’s growing canon of Judaic liturgy interpretations which have found receptive audiences and readers, from all over the world, who are seeking modern interpretations of our oldest text.
Making Love To The 50 Ft. Woman
Brendan Constantine is My Kind of Town
I’m A Jew, Are You?: Poems From A Tribal Perspective
Rick Lupert Live and Dead (Spoken Word Album)
I Am My Own Orange County: Selected Writings: 1990 – 1997