READINGS : Poetry Paying Dividends : A poets group founded 13 years ago fills a void in the Valley. It will open its new season of readings at a bank.

If coffeehouses are today’s hip alternative to bars, there are those who go to poetry readings more for the espresso and the scene than for the sound of the written word. But for those who value substance over setting, the Valley Contemporary Poets Series presents first-rate writing in a no-frills venue: the Glendale Federal Savings bank office in Canoga Park.

The bank’s brick-walled meeting room offers little in the way of comfort beyond folding chairs and fluorescent lights. But local poetry lovers of all ages have settled for standing room there to hear their favorite writers, who have included such nationally known luminaries as Tess Gallagher.

Founded 13 years ago by Woodland Hills writer Nan Hunt, the monthly series is the oldest of its kind in the San Fernando Valley. Hunt conceived it, she explains, to fill a void in “poetry-related activities up here” and combat “the attitude that nothing of cultural significance happens above the Sepulveda Pass.”

Sponsored in part during its first decade by the Valley Cultural Center in Woodland Hills, the series has always sought out “poets of note in the publishing world--mostly from Southern California,” Hunt says. It has also encouraged emerging poets to share their work during the open-reading hour that precedes every featured reading.

According to Sherman Oaks poet and series regular Carol Kent Ireland, the Valley Poets is distinct from other groups in “the depth of understanding” of its audience. “Though we’re very diverse in terms of age and experience, many people here have had a lot of formal study,” she observes. “They strongly respect traditional forms in addition to the experimental.”

On Sunday night, the Valley Poets will inaugurate its 1993 series with a reading by husband and wife poets John Thomas and Philomene Long of Venice. Thomas, an internationally published writer whose books include “Abandoned Latitudes” (Red Hill Press, 1982) and “Nevertheless” (Illuminati Press, 1990), draws on history, contemporary life and his love for Long in his richly imagistic work.

Long, a former nun who teaches poetry and fiction writing at UCLA Extension, has written movingly about the Los Angeles civil uprising, her convent days and life with Thomas. “The Book of Sleep,” their collection of love poems to each other, was published by Momentum Press in 1991.

From the other side of the city--the Latino barrios of East Los Angeles--comes Sesshu Foster, a junior high school teacher and Academy of American Poets Prize winner who will read Feb. 21. Foster, author of “Angry Days” (West End Press, 1987) and co-editor of “Invocation L.A.: Urban Multicultural Poetry” (West End Press, 1989), considers his family’s mixed Asian-American, African-American and Latino heritage integral to his poetry. His reading will feature selections from “City Terrace Field Manual,” a volume of prose poems about East Los Angeles.

Sharing the bill with Foster will be Leslie Monsour, aA. poet and author of “Gringuita Poems” (Missing Measures Press, 1990). Monsour describes her work as “exclusively metrical verse” with an emphasis on “traditional line measures and strict adherence to rhythmic patterns.”

On March 21, Japanese-American poet Mitsuye Yamada will read from “Camp Notes and Other Poems,” a 1976 collection just reissued by Kitchen Table Press that concerns Yamada’s experience in a World War II internment camp. An Irvine resident who teaches literature and creative writing at Cal State Fullerton and Cypress College, Yamada expresses her commitment to “human rights and peace issues” through poems redolent with the agony of personal injustice.

Two writers will share the evening of April 18: Holly Prado, a widely published poet and novelist, and Donna Frazier, a lifelong poet and senior editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine. Prado, whose six books include the novel “Gardens” (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985) and the poetry collection “Specific Mysteries” (Cahuenga Press, 1990), focuses, she says, “on immediate physical reality that invokes larger themes: love, art, faith, doubt.”

On May 16, Shirley Love of Westlake Village will read poetry that leans toward prose and is flavored with childhood memories of the Colorado prairie. A writer who has published mostly in local journals and anthologies, Love is preoccupied with family themes and stories that, she says, allow her to “interweave emotional tone, setting and a heightened use of language.”

Jill Waldron, a Topanga writer and English professor at Pierce College, will read June 20, along with a select group of her students, in an evening designed to draw young, emerging poets to the series.

Where and When What: Valley Contemporary Poets Series at Glendale Federal Savings building, 7119 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Canoga Park. Hours: Third Sunday of each month; open reading sign-up at 6:15 p.m., featured reading at 7:30 p.m. Price: $3 donation. Call: David Del Bourgo, (818) 225-9376.