My Burning Map —an evening of poetry and music with American Poet Lucien Zell— I wander through the dark wilderness by the light of my burning map. Poets who extensively travel return with new ways of seeing that lead to new ways of saying. Propelled to Europe by the hurricane gust of his brother’s death, American poet Lucien Zell found solace and strength in the power of poetry to acknowledge loss and embrace transformation. Now thirty years an expatriate, he will appear for a Valentine's Day performance in Olomouc to share some of the many insights his road has given him. Along with recitations of his poetry, Zell will show us his latest video "Gone Gone Gone," a poem by Allen Ginsberg which he recently set to music.

Come catch the glow of Zell's burning map. Born in LA, raised in Seattle, Lucien Zell lives in Prague. His writing has appeared in The New Orleans Review, Tikkun, Poetry Salzburg Review, and several internationally distributed anthologies. His first American book of poetry Tiny Kites (Dos Madres) was published to acclaim in 2019. A prolific singer-songwriter, his folk/rock album Fall Into Flight is available on iTunes and Spotify and he's written songs for jazz singer Yvonne Sanchez (My Garden, Warner Music) and pop singer Debbi (Touch the Sun, Universal). Carnival of Shades, a classical piece for which he composed the libretto, premiered in November 2021 at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Zell currently lectures at a private academy of art in Prague, conducts international online poetry workshops, and is putting the final touches to his novel The Rabbi of Auschwitz.