James Cushing

James Cushing (PhD, UC Irvine, 1983) was California Faculty Association Distinguished Lecturer for 2004-’05 and Poet Laureate of San Luis Obispo for 2008-2010. Winner of Renegade Magazine’s 1994 “Warlord of the Subculture” Award, Cushing has published four full-length collections of his poetry with Cahuenga Press of Los Angeles: Pinocchio’s Revolution (2010), Undercurrent Blues (2005), The Length of an Afternoon (1999), and You and the Night and the Music (1991). His poems and essays have appeared in such publications as Antioch Review, California Quarterly, Denver Quarterly, RATTLE, Massachusetts Review, and Yabolusha Review, as well as in The Second Set, a jazz-poetry anthology edited by Yusef Komunyakaa (Indiana UP, 1996). He joined the faculty in 1989. Since 1997, Cushing has hosted a jazz program on Cal Poly’s radio station, KCPR.