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Christopher Luna by Alisha Jucevic for the Columbian

Christopher Luna by Alisha Jucevic for the Columbian
Christopher Luna by Alisha Jucevic for the Columbian
Showing posts with label Cover to Cover Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cover to Cover Books. Show all posts

Monday, January 16, 2012

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic at Cover to Cover Books Featuring John Sibley Williams February 9


 
GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington
all ages and uncensored since 2004
7pm Thursday, February 9, 2012
and every second Thursday

Cover to Cover Books
6300 NE St. James Rd., Suite 104B
(St. James & Minnehaha)
Vancouver, WA
360-993-7777

mail@covertocoverbooks.net
christopherjluna@gmail.com

http://www.printedmattervancouver.com
http://christopherluna-poetry.blogspot.com


With our featured reader, John Sibley Williams:
John Sibley Williams is the author of six chapbooks, winner of the HEART Poetry Award, and finalist for the Pushcart and Rumi Poetry Prizes. He has served as Acquisitions Manager of Ooligan Press and Publicist for Three Muses Press and holds an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in Book Publishing. Some of his over 200 previous or upcoming publications include: Bryant Literary Review, The Chaffin Journal, The Evansville Review, RHINO, Rosebud, Ellipsis, Flint Hills Review, and Poetry Quarterly. The following chapbooks will be available for sale on February 9: From Colder Climates (2012, $7 for the green and $10 for the signature edition); The Longest Compass (Finishing Line Press, 2012 for $12); and The Chapbook Box Set (four 2011 chapbooks for $15: Autobiography of Fever, Bedouin Books; The Art of Raining, Knives Forks and Spoons Press; Door, Door, Red Ochre Press; and A Pure River, The Last Automat Press).
  
The Voice in the Shell
by John Sibley Williams

If it really began with a woman
ten thousand years ago placing
conch to ear—
            listening interrupted
            and enhanced
            by translation—
to form this sea
separating us,
I’d build a time machine
and retrace the roots of metaphor—
            language, superstition,
            expectation—
to that older world without magic
and sit for a moment
holding your hand
that is not yet a hand,
listening together to the sea
that hasn’t yet a voice.
 Sketch of John Sibley Williams by Christopher Luna

COMING IN MARCH: John Burgess

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Sharon Wood Wortman's Bridge Walks return

I had a feeling that Sharon Wood Wortman would not be able to stay away from bridges for long. Check it out:
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=131966233756253800


Bridge Walks Raise Funds for
The Big & Awesome Bridges of Portland & Vancouver--A Book for Young Readers
                                              
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
1-4 p.m.

Meet at Floyd’s Coffee, NW First and Couch
Bicycle racks available at ODOT, 123 NW Flanders
City Center parking garage at 90 NW Davis
Served by TriMet lines 4, 8, 35, 44, and 77 and two nearby MAX stops

Cost $55, includes a Portland-Vancouver Bridges poster
One Hundred percent of proceeds to Big & Awesome

Sharon Wood Wortman, author of three editions of The Portland Bridge Book, comes out of bridge walking retirement to lead two bridges walks to raise funds for creating and printing the first children’s book about the local bridges, The Big & Awesome Bridges of Portland & Vancouver—A Book for Young Readers.

Ride by bike, then lock up at the Oregon Department of Transportation as we visit the Region 1 bridge museum and Traffic Management Operations Center. See several bridges along the downtown waterfront, then visit the Burnside Bridge and meet the bridge operator. Bridge mechanics and weather permitting, watch a test lift while standing mid-span or inside the bridge tower. Once the traffic is stopped and gates are down, participants are free to walk mid-span to lie down and be “road kill” and live to tell about it. In another group exercise, participants build triangles with their bodies to feel tension and compression. Appropriate dress is recommended. Participants are also invited to bring a favorite bridge poem.

A project of PDX Bridge Festival, Inc., a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, Big & Awesome is the first bona fide book about the local bridges written for young readers. The goal is to donate free copies to PPS third grade classrooms and Vancouver School District fourth grade classrooms. To register, email sharon@bridgestories.com. Those who cannot walk but wish to make a donation may visit www.bridgefestival.org. All donations are tax deductible. Other questions? Call Sharon at 503.330.0900.

Partners as of October 21, 2011: Geotechnical Group of the American Society of Civil Engineers Oregon Section, THA Architecture, KPFF Engineering, TY Lin International, Portland Ironworkers Local 29, Society of American Military Engineers, Parsons Brinckerhoff Engineering, Nutter Family Foundation (Vancouver), Missionary Chocolates, and several individuals--every person, organization, and foundation to be acknowledged in Big & Awesome.

To buy a Portland-Vancouver Bridges poster with the art of elementary students featured in Big & Awesome, visit A Children’s Place Bookstore, Powell’s on Burnside, or Broadway Books in Portland and Cover to Cover Books in Vancouver.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC welcomes Peter Ludwin Thursday, November 10

 
GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC
HOSTED BY CHRISTOPHER LUNA
AND TONI PARTINGTON

Presented by Printed Matter Vancouver

at COVER TO COVER BOOKS
7pm Thursday, November 10, 2011
and every second Thursday
COVER TO COVER BOOKS
6300 NE St. James Rd., Suite 104B
(St. James & Minnehaha)
Vancouver, WA
360-993-7777

With our featured reader, Peter Ludwin:

Peter Ludwin is the recipient of a Literary Fellowship from Artist Trust.  He was the Second Prize Winner of the 2007-2008 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Awards, and a Finalist for the Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award.  For the past ten years he has been a participant in the San Miguel Poetry Week in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he has workshopped under such noted poets as Mark Doty, Tony Hoagland and David St. John.  His work has appeared in many journals, including The Bitter Oleander, The Com-stock Review, North American Review and Prairie Schooner, to name a few.  His first full length collection, A Guest in All Your Houses, was published in 2009 by Word Walker Press. A chapbook, The Door Unhinged, was a semi-finalist for both the 2010 Concrete Wolf Chapbook Award and the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. His second full-length manuscript, Rumors of Fallible Gods, was a Finalist for the 2010 Gival Press Poetry Award.  His poem “Terezin Concentration Camp, Bohemia,” was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize.  An avid traveler who has journeyed on the rivers of the Amazon Basin in Ecuador by canoe to visit remote Indian families, hiked in the Peruvian Andes, thumbed for rides in Greece and bargained for goods in the markets of Marrakech and Istanbul, he recently returned from a month in Western China and Tibet.          

Tagong: the Wild West
by Peter Ludwin

A pack of dogs roams the muddy street
that bisects this one-horse Tibetan town,
and a dead one stains the sidewalk with its corpse.

Rough-looking Khampas gather by their motorbikes.
In the clinic, a young Chinese doctor
gives me a three-hour IV and a shot to bring

my fever down.  Obama! he says.  Kobe!
On the mountainside, prayer flags thick as stars.  


Notes from a Sodbuster’s Wife, Kansas, 1868
by Peter Ludwin

What really got us in the end—
we women who didn’t make it,
who withered and blew away in the open—
was the wind.  Space, yes, and distance,
too, from neighbors, a piano back in Boston.

But above all, the wind.

In our letters it shrieks hysteria from sod huts,
vomits women prematurely undone by loneliness,
boils up off the horizon to suck dry
their desire as it flattened the stubborn grasses.
Not convinced?  Scan the photographs,
grainy and sepia-toned, like old leather.
Study our bony forms in plain black dresses,
our mouths drawn tight as a saddle cinch,
accusation leaking from rudderless eyes, betrayed.

I tried.  Lord knows I tried.
Survived the locusts and even snakes
that fell from the ceiling at night,
slithering between us in bed.
I dreamed of water, chiffon, the smell
of dead leaves banked against a rotting log.
I heard opera, carriage wheels on cobblestone.
Cried and beat my fists raw into those earthen walls.

The wind.  Even as it scoured
the skin it flayed the soul,
that raked, pitted shell.
And how like the Cheyenne,
appearing, disappearing,
no fixed location,

not even a purpose one could name.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic with special guest Tommy Gaffney Thursday, July 14


GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC
HOSTED BY CHRISTOPHER LUNA
AND TONI PARTINGTON
at COVER TO COVER BOOKS
7pm Thursday, July 14
and every second Thursday
COVER TO COVER BOOKS
6300 NE St. James Rd., Suite 104B
(St. James & Minnehaha)
Vancouver, WA
360-993-7777
all ages & uncensored since 2004

With our featured reader, Tommy Gaffney:


Tommy Gaffney
Photo by John Hogl


Tommy Gaffney was born and raised in Kentucky, somewhere between the projects and the trailer parks. He is the author of two collections of poetry and prose, Whiskey Days (2010) and Three Beers from Oblivion (2006). His work has appeared in such anthologies as The Night Bomb Review, The Drunk Poets Society Anthology; Volume 2 and The Broken Word Anthology; Volumes 1 & 2. He has performed at the Insomniacathon, Wordstock, Columbia Gorge Community College, KBOO radio, and hosted the annual Artists Night Out Spoken Word Festival at Artists Repertory Theater. In 2010, Tommy was nominated for the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Gaffney's favorite colors are John Deere Green and Joey Ramone Black. Nowadays, you can often find him wandering the streets of Portland, Oregon.

Banshee Time
by Tommy Gaffney

Head for cover right around banshee time.
Dusk comes about like a fattened bottom lip,
pouting.
The willows pull in their ears
while lightning bugs hunt down
little kids to taunt.
Sonnets crawl into the dog-houses out back,
boarding spiders and prey
now that the half-breeds are dead.
It’s hard to feel brave in open fields,
no corner to back yourself into.
If genes were balls,
maybe I’d be tougher by now
instead of scared of the dark.
Harrods Creek pulls down its blinds.
The county locks away the mowers for the night
while bluegrass winks at cartographers.
Crickets clear their throat
and banshees tip-toe the starting line.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

GHOST TOWN POETRY anthology coming soon

GHOST TOWN POETRY
Cover to Cover Books 2004-2010
An Anthology from the Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Vancouver, WA
Edited By Christopher Luna and Toni Partington
for Printed Matter Vancouver


$10
Available at Cover to Cover Books
and through Amazon.com April 23
ISBN 9781461075110

This anthology collects a mere sampling of the hundreds of unpublished and renowned poets who have read at the popular Vancouver, WA poetry series that spoken word legend Jack McCarthy proclaimed to be “the best open mike between Tacoma and Berkeley.” Founded by Christopher Luna at Ice Cream Renaissance in 2004, in 2007 Ghost Town Poetry relocated to Cover to Cover Books, where it became a crucial component of Vancouver’s growing literary community. Edited by Printed Matter Vancouver co-founders and current series co-hosts Christopher Luna and Toni Partington, the book contains poems that were read at the open mic as well as new work. It also features cover art and a history of the series by Christopher Luna and a chronology of the featured readers who have traveled from around the country and the Northwest to share their work.

Ghost Town Poetry features poems by the following writers: Judith Arcana, Bernadette Barrio, Kristin Berger, Alex Birkett, Diane Cammer, Sheryl Clough, Sage Cohen, Kyle David Congdon, Carter Crockett, Eileen Davis Elliott, Naomi Fast, Olivia Gonzalez, Rob Gourley, Sam Green, Lorraine Healy, David Hill, Taylor Johnston, Maggie Kelly, Rainy Knight, Christi Krug, Barbara LaMorticella, Colleen Lindsay, Jake Loranger, Lori Loranger, Zoe Loranger, Jack Lorts, Angelo Luna, Christopher Luna, M, David Madgalene, Carolyn Martin, Jim Martin, David Meltzer, Norma Mizer, Mokii, Judith Montgomery, G.L. Morrison, Dan Nelson, Toni Partington, Jenney Pauer, Charles Potts, Michael Rothenberg, Kori Sayer-LeMieux, Herb Stokes, Margareta Waterman, Steve Williams, Laura Winter, and Sharon Wood Wortman.

The editors of the book are available for interviews.
 

Saturday, February 5, 2011

THE GHOST TOWN POETRY TOUR continues Thursday, February 10 with Turiya Autry + open mic

THE GHOST TOWN POETRY TOUR CONTINUES*

Open Mic Poetry
7 pm every Second Thursday since 2004!

Hosted By Christopher Luna and Toni Partington

This month’s reading will be held in a special location:

Anam Brugh Studio
Home of Marcia McReynolds
3512 F Street, Vancouver, WA 98663
Behind the YWCA

The Studio is behind the house. Go down the driveway to the right of the garage.
Follow the sidewalk all the back to the colorful door.

Bring a pillow or a low lawn chair, and any food or beverages that you would be willing to share. There is seating for about 25 as is.

Turiya Autry

This month’s featured reader is Turiya Autry: A firm believer in the power of art to heal, transform and inspire, Turiya works with students of all ages. Full-time faculty at Portland State University, she also works independently through several artist-in-residency programs. Since the late 90‘s, she has provided workshops and performances at over twenty universities and over fifty schools k-12, reaching thousands each year.

Turiya’s shared stages with well known figures like Angela Davis, bell hooks, John Trudell, Nikki Giovanni, Ursula Le Guin, Lyrics Born, Spearhead, Saul Williams, Kevin Garnett and Hillary Clinton. She has toured nationally, performed internationally, and co-hosted a talk radio show.

Whether teaching university courses or youth workshops, rocking the mic or working behind the scenes, Turiya is a positive motivational force. She encourages people to look more critically and lovingly upon the world around them.

Available for sale: the anthology Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution ($15) and a special world premier chapbook of love poems ($5) Turiya is creating just for this reading, a collection so new that the title is a mystery not to be revealed until Thursday night!

Language Acquisition
by Turiya Autry

i chew your language awkwardly in my mouth
without the palate to translate a tongue i never learned
i butcher a short phrase with my serrated attempt
knowing nothing of your lullabies or bedtime stories
my sweet whispers are coated in the syntax of our oppression
semantics of thieves who hijack history

how different it must feel to say “i love you” in Shona

 
*While Cover to Cover Books (http://covertocoverbooks.net/) rebuildsafter a recent fire, Christopher Luna is taking the open mic series he founded in 2004 on tour to various poetry-friendly locations in or near downtown Vancouver

Saturday, December 11, 2010

"The Work" takes place at noon today/ Leah Jackson honors Christopher Luna's sefvice to the poetry community


Please join me at noon today for “The Work,” my monthly poetry workshop at Niche in Vancouver. If you haven’t stopped into Niche yet, you should know that it has quickly become the coolest place to hang out in the ‘Couve. Niche is located at 1013 Main Street, just north of the Kiggins Theater. Today we will use the work of Saul Williams, Grace Paley, William Stafford, Galway Kinnell, and Michael McClure as inspiration for our writing and discussion.


Thanks to everyone who attended Thursday night’s open mic poetry reading at Niche. We are fortunate to have the support of Leah Jackson as the Ghost Town Poetry tour continues. The lineup included a lively mix of old and new friends, including a few first-timers and Kiefer Peh, a rapper who I recently met at the open mic at Barnes and Noble Vancouver. One of the reasons that I am so glad that I met Kiefer is that there are still some out there who don’t believe that rap is poetry. I am grateful to Kiefer for helping us to set them straight.


I was surprised to see Mel Sanders, owner of Cover to Cover Books (http://covertocoverbooks.net/), who came out to support the women of the VoiceCatcher collective. Mel informed the crowd that while the bookstore is being rebuilt after a recent fire, she is taking orders through ABE Books (http://abebooks.com/). You can also send an email to mail@covertocoverbooks.net. So if you’d like to thank Mel for her years of service to the local poetry community, and help her get back on her feet, order your Christmas gifts through her.

Toni Partington did a great job of organizing and hosting the Voice Catcher 5 book launch. It was wonderful to hear from some of the writers and artists who are in the anthology, including a few women for whom Voice Catcher 5 is their first publishing credit. Thanks also to those VoiceCatcher editors and board members who were present.

After the reading, my friend and fellow community organizer Leah Jackson honored me by announcing her decision to name me the poet laureate of her businesses, Angst Gallery and Niche Wine and Art Bar. She made this decision to acknowledge my seven years of service to the local poetry community as a teacher, event organizer, mentor, and the host of the popular open mic reading series at Cover to Cover Books. Leah Jackson and I have organized several events together at both Sixth Street Gallery (where she was the director from October 2004 - October 2007) and Angst Gallery. These included a 50th Anniversary reading of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” which I arranged for 14 voices, July’s exhibit and performances celebrating “To Be Named,” the collaborative travel poem and art book I created with Toni Partington and David Madgalene, and “Words,” an exhibit that showcased text-based art.

Christopher Luna and Leah Jackson
at July's First Friday celebration for
To Be Named and Other Works of Poetic License
an art book by Christopher Luna, David Madgalene, and Toni Partington
http://www.tobenamed-artandpoetry.blogspot.com/

Jackson has charged me with developing several projects, beginning with a contest seeking submissions for lines of poetry to be printed on a limited edition set of coasters for Niche. Please send no more than five lines of poetry to me via christopherjluna@gmail.com no later than February 1. The contest will be judged by Leah Jackson, Toni Partington, and myself. There will be ten winners, each of whom will have their lines printed on a coaster to be used in the bar.

It is my intention to use this opportunity to expand our service to the community, and to help those who are not writers understand why we love poetry so much, and why we find it essential.

Here is Leah Jackson’s statement about why she has decided to honor me in this way: “As the proprietor of Angst and Niche it is my honor to appoint Christopher Luna as poet laureate for my businesses for the year 2011. I have created this position to call attention to the art of poetry, a branch of the arts that can be easy to overlook. Christopher has the skill and the dedication to this art that will allow us to pursue poetry focused projects in Vancouver, the city that I choose to call home. In the following year, Christopher will work on three poetry-based projects. These projects will be funded by Niche. It is my hope that this is just the beginning of the exciting work that will be done. Thank you to Christopher Luna for accepting this position.”

Finally, here is the Vancouver Voice's announcement of my new position, poetically entitled "Laureate Luna:" http://www.vanvoice.com/article?articleTitle=laureate+luna--1291668880--562&ref=RlJPTXtBcnRpY2xlOkNhdGVnb3J5UG9zdEJyb3dzZXJ9VE97QXJ0aWNsZTpDYXRlZ29yeVZpZXdlcn1NRVNTQUdFe2FydGljbGVDYXRlZ29yeT13b3Jkc30=

Friday, September 3, 2010

THE WORK: SEPTEMBER 2010

Friends and poetry lovers,

A new season is nearly upon us. Some will return to the classroom. Some will reassess. I am about to begin my 40th year on the planet. What a marvelous adventure it has been. I want to thank everyone in the arts community who has made my time here in the Vancouver metropolitan area so filled with laughter, learning, words, music, and art. I look forward to the discoveries this next year will bring.

The fall marks the return of my workshop, known, like this newsletter, as “The Work,” after a line in “Memory Gardens,” a poem by Allen Ginsberg: “Well, while I'm here I'll/do the work –/and what's the work?/to ease the pain of living./Everything else, drunken/dumbshow.”

We will listen to spoken word recordings, discuss poetry and the poet’s role in the community, and do some writing together. Let me know if you’d like to speak to a former participant of the workshop to determine whether it would be right for you. I am also excited to announce that the workshop will take place in the newly opened Niche, a wine bar owned and operated by Angst Gallery Director Leah Jackson. Niche is located at 1013 Main, right next door to the gallery. The workshop costs $20 and will take place from noon to 2:30 on Saturday, September 11. Hope to see you there.

Congratulations to Dan Raphael on the publication of his selected poems. Dan is someone for whom I have a deep admiration and respect. I want to thank Dan for his freindship, encouragement, and support, and for all that he does to keep poetry alive in the Pacific Northwest.

Here is Dan's announcment about the new book: "I'm very excited about my new book, Impulse and Warp: The Selected 20th Century Poems; it contains poems from my first 13 books, representing over 26 years of work. More information at the publisher http://www.wordcraftoforegon.com/. First reading for Impulse and Warp will be 9/19, 4, at Hawthorne Powell's. Penelope Scambly Schott will also be reading, from her new book, Crow Mercies."
Would you like to see photos and hear audio from Our July 30 viewing party for "When You're Strange," the new Doors documentary? Thanks to Rich Lindsay for recording, editing, and posting the podcast of our Jim Morrison open mic, and Anni Becker for photographing the proceedings. Also, thanks to Jenney Pauer, Bernadette Barrio, Mokii, Rich and Debra Marshall, Kyle David Congdon, Lori and Jake Loranger, Angelo Luna, and Toni Partington for partying with us. Special thanks to my partner Toni for the delicious snacks and beverages:

http://christopherluna-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/08/photos-and-audio-from-special-viewing.html

Thanks to my old friend Jason Mashak for his kind mention of me in this interview for Black Heart Magazine (http://blackheartmagazine.com/2010/08/18/an-interview-with-jason-mashak/). There is a ridiculously long list of Portland poets whom I might never have met were it not for Jason. Please take a look at this interview and consider buying his book, "Salty As a Lip."

M’s poem “Salt” was recently featured on Rattle’s blog. If you go to the page, you can also hear her reading it: http://rattle.com/blog/page/2/

My friend Matt Meighan’s popular songwriting workshop is starting up again:


I've got a couple of spaces left in my eight-week "Songwriting as Truth-Telling" class that starts Tuesday, Sept 28. (It's limited to 8 or 9 people, and there are two classes: 3:30-5:30 pm and 7 - 9 pm). A description of the class can be found here: http://www.songwritingastruthtelling.com/classes.php.

The classes usually get full well before starting, so if you're interested or would like more information, please let me know. - Matt matt@mattmeighan.com

Ed Sanders performing with the Fugs in New York City, 1967
Ed Sanders recently made his seminal book, “Investigative Poetry,” available for free online: http://woodstockjournal.com/pdf/InvestigativePoetry.pdf. This book, which I first read in the Allen Ginsberg Library at Naropa University, cracked my head open and changed the way I thought about poetry forever. Check it out.

Neeli Cherkovski
Photograph by Jannie Dresser
Jannie Dresser has written a good article about Neeli Cherkovski for the SF Poetry Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/poetry-in-san-francisco/nexus-poet-neeli-cherkovski-walks-the-past-into-the-future

Please join us at Cover to Cover Books on Thursday, September 9,
when our featured reader will be Ed Coletti:

Open Mic Poetry
hosted by Christopher Luna
7:00pm Thursday, September 9, 2010
& every second Thursday
Cover to Cover Books
1817 Main Street, Vancouver
McLoughlin Blvd. & Main Street
“always all ages and uncensored”
For more info call
360-514-0358 or 360-910-1066

Poet, essayist and painter Ed Coletti graduated from Georgetown University and the Creative Writing Masters Program at San Francisco State University (under Robert Creeley). Coletti has published several books of poetry including thawts ($12), Jazz Gods ($9), and Bringing Home the Bones ($9), which will be available at the reading. Recent work has appeared in Big Bridge, divide, Lilliput Review, Italian Americana, Unlikely Stories, Blueline, The New Verse News, Jerry Jazz Musician, poem, and home An Anthology of Ars Poetica (Hill & Waber, 2009 Paper Kite Press). His work also appeared alongside that of Lawrence Ferlighetti and Diane DiPrima in Avanti Popolo, an anthology of Italian-American poets (edited by James Tracy for Manic D Press). Coletti is the publisher of Round Barn Press. He lives with his wife Joyce in Santa Rosa, California where he operates the respected Bay Area-wide Poetry Azul Reading Series. His internet presence includes ″Ed Coletti’s P3” (http://edcolettip3.blogspot.com/) and ″No Money In Poetry” (http://edwardcolettispoetryblog.blogspot.com/).

For more info on Ed, read this recent profile from the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.examiner.com/poetry-in-san-francisco/ed-coletti-s-swan-song-at-poetry-azul-sunday-september-5

blitz chess with eric bourdon & the animals
by Ed Coletti

may need to leave this game before it ends,
nation building is very much like that,
get to know your new-afflicted neighbor
divorce her as you would a coughing pup;

time for sending Christmas cards again arrives
no ritual will ever put the face of god on mystery
political genial jaguars primp and eat the camera
the pump don’t work cause the vandals took the handle

round table pizza prices soar like a rocket through the roof
all the clocks are running backwards once again
martial law about to be declared for the infinite time,
won’t anybody look at me including me?

speed kills, go slowly
Sergeant Pepper’s salt of earth
time hath no fury like a moment cornered
this letter of the law which killeth

let the white space do the talking
martha, mary, joseph,
we gotta get outta this place
before before

or stay awhile longer on the real scene
hoping that your progeny might glean
a bit from such crumbs your nonsense sews
less than a tapestry, more than just clothes.


Onward, instanter,
for there are
no weekends for poets,
Christopher Luna

THE WORK
SEPTEMBER 2010

NEWSLETTER TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. LiTFUSE Launch Party with Susan Rich, Mimi Allin, Elizabeth Austen, and Dan Peters at Hugo House (Seattle, WA) September 7.

2. The Writings on the Wall: Text-Based Interactive Art, Music, Poetry September 10th Launch Pad Gallery (Portland, OR)

3. Karen Tolley, margareta waterman, and David Lloyd Whited at St. Johns Booksellers (Portland) Sept. 11

4. The Studio Series with Barbara Drake and Scot Siegel + open mic at Stonehenge Studios/Ross Island Café Sept. 12 (Portland)

5. Judith Montgomery + open mic at Barnes and Noble Vancouver September 14

6. Figures of Speech: Crystal Williams and BT Shaw + open mic at 100th Monkey Studios September 15

7. Dennis McBride at Paper Tiger open mic September 16 (Vancouver, WA)

8. Spare Room: Jen Currin and Don Mee Choi at Concordia Coffee House (Portland) September 18

9. Paulann Petersen and Paul Merchant at Moonstruck Chocolate Café (Lake Oswego, OR) September 19

10. Two new articles and a publishing opportunity/contest from Sage Cohen

1.
LiTFUSE Launch Party, Sept. 7 @ 7pm @ Hugo House.
Words, music & wonder, featuring Susan Rich, Mimi Allin, Elizabeth Austen, Dan Peters & surprises. $5 donation.

LiTFUSE Poets’ Workshop 10.8.10-10.10.10. LiTFUSE is an annual weekend-long poets’ workshop held in Tieton, WA (near Yakima), for poets of all ages, abilities & styles. LiTFUSE combines writing, performance, meditation, music, camaraderie and natural beauty to IGNiTE your muse. This year’s featured artist, teacher & poet Ingrid Wendt, leads a faculty with deep experience and varied styles. For more information and to register, please visit www.litfuse.us, or email michael@litfuse.us - Northwest Writers, UNiTE!

Michael Schein
LiTFUSE Director
206.714.3178

http://www.litfuse.us/
http://www.michaelschein.com/

2.
The Writings on the Wall
ONE NIGHT ONLY: Text-Based Interactive Art, Music, Poetry
September 10th - 25th, 2010

SECOND FRIDAY
September 10th, 2010
7pm-1am
FREE! ALL AGES!

Northern Soul 45’s lovingly laid down by DJ Asher Loverdi

WHAT IS IT??
Home-made Magnetic Poetry vs. Freestyling vs. Improvisation vs. Live Painting vs. Open Mic

We’re having a happening Happening of sorts, because we believe that YOU, our art-loving public, have something to say, so we’re taking a chance to experiment and providing the tools to make something unique and wonderful! We require YOUR HELP to make the art this month! Bring your FAVORITE WORDS to include in a gigantic text-based experiment in collaborative writing, music and art making.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Come prepared with your thesaurus in tow, ready with ideas and images to share and work into a grand text masterpiece of our collective creation….

We will provide hundreds of blank 3×5 index cards, push pins and markers, along with 40 feet of empty wall and pre-made pronouns, prepositions and nouns- just basics, basically.

YOU and your friends bring ideas along with your favorite adjectives, nouns, verbs. Feel free to bring poems of your own to translate onto the wall, but know that your words will hopefully be cannibalized into other peoples sentences, just like on the fridge.

(you can pre-make 3×5 cards with word on them if you’d like to get extra fancy!)

Over the course of the night, the wall will change and evolve as musicians, artists, DJ’s, MC’s and poets integrate your words and ideas into their flow alongside, as well as performing their own original material.

In between music acts, we will have OPEN MIC opportunities for YOU to share poems, stories and snippets that you have created during the night using the words on the wall.

LIVE PAINTERS
(Artists will sell the work they create through out the night via silent auction)
CHRIS HABERMAN
JENNIFER MERCEDE

LIVE MUSIC, IMPROVISATION & FREE-STYLING

CHILDISH: Poet & songwriter Rob Childish will be bringing original songs as well as lyrics and poems created on the fly

REED WALLSMITH & TIM DuROCHE
Improvisational Jazz

THE WORD ASSOCIATION
Featuring Variant & Pecos B.
Beats, rhymes and stories

NORTH VOID COLLECTIVE & START FIRES:
Featuring: Joe Cyrus, Wellis Fool, Daltonic, DMLH, DJ Shermstixx
Freestyling! Pass the mic….

Launch Pad Gallery - 534 SE Oak Street, Portland, OR 97214 - 971.227.0072

NEW HOURS: Wednesday-Saturday 12 - 4pm, & by appt.

3.
Market Day Poetry Series
Curated by Dan Raphael

*Karen Tolley*
*margareta waterman*
*David Lloyd Whited*

saturday, september 11
12:00 noon
Free admission

St. Johns Booksellers
8622 N. Lombard
503-283-0032
http://www.stjohnsbooks.com/

The Market Day Poetry Series is a collaboration between St. Johns Booksellers and the St. Johns Farmers' Market (located in the nearby plaza), taking place each Saturday at noon during the market season.

About the readers:

*Karen Tolley* announced her love of the written word when she was two years old. she reads and reads and occasionally writes -- as the spirit moves her. her creativity, not limited to words themselves, enhances her environment in many projects of literary focus: a bookstore which is the cultural center of the county; an artisan bookbindery; guiding boards of library and bookfair. local writers value her support and inspiration. she seldom publishes or presents her own writings. this opportunity to hear her read is rare and precious.

*margareta waterman* (author of many books of poetry and fiction, founder of *nine muses books*) is known to most of you. now semi-retired, she reads publically less and less and enjoys it more and more, is very happy to put her voice out into portland air.

*David Lloyd Whited*, currently a planner for the Puyallup Indian Tribe in Tacoma, Washington, lives on Vashon Island with his wife, four cats, a ragged family of raccoons, and various other critters. his reputation as a distinguished poet rests on the integrity of his poetic voice. his recent books include */Shadow Dance/*; */Wet Way Home/*; */The Elevens/*; */3 & 1/*. Now in manuscript, */Olde Man Coyote Goes to Towne/* will be published by nine muses books.

4.
The Studio Series: Poetry Reading and Open Mic will feature Barbara Drake and Scot Siegel on Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010 at Stonehenge Studios/Ross Island Café, 3508 SW Corbett Avenue, Portland 97239 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Free and open to the public, the Studio Series is held monthly on second Sundays. For additional information please contact organizer and host leahstenson@comcast.net.

5.
BARNES & NOBLE VANCOUVER WELCOMES ANOTHER OREGON BOOK AWARD WINNER. Judith Montgomery will read from "Red Jess" and introduce other poems after she drives over from Bend. We are very fortunate to host Judy, our 2nd OR Book Award-winning author in a row and someone who comes highly and widely recommended. The reading, along with an open mic afterwards: Tuesday, Sept. 14th at 7 pm, Barnes & Noble Vancouver, 7700 NE Fourth Plain Blvd., 98662. Order "Red Jess" now and have it come to your home before the event so Judy can sign it! Just click here or paste into address bar: http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=red+jess&box=red%20je&pos=-1 This is a pre-paid title, and one in plentiful supply. Order on or before Sept. 6th! See you soon, Shawn Sorensen, crm2679@bn.com

6.
Figures of Speech: Join hosts Steve Williams and Constance Hall for our next event on September 15th at the 100th Monkey Studios (110 S.E. 16th Ave, Portland) for a reunion of sorts. B.T. Shaw and Crystal Williams will renew their friendship in person. Earlier, B.T. published an interview with Crystal in the Oregonian. Crystal has been out of the state until recently so this is one of your first chances to hear her since her recognition as a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. And as always, open mic, a writing prompt, cookies, and other fun.

Crystal Williams, a native of Detroit, Michigan, is the author of three books of poetry, most recent of which is Troubled Tongues, winner of the Long Madgett Poetry Prize and finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Her work appears or is forth oming in journals and anthologies including, The American Poetry Review, 5AM, Callaloo, Ploughshares, and The Norton Anthology of African American Poetry, among others. She is a MacDowell Fellow and a recipient of a 2009 Oregon Arts Commission fellowship. She is an associate professor at Reed College.

B.T. Shaw lives in Portland, where she edits the Poetry column for The Oregonian and teaches at Portland State University and in the certificate program at the Independent Publishing Resource Center. Her debut collection, This Dirty Little Heart, won the 2007 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry. She is afraid of staplers.

Figures of Speech is sponsored by the Oregon State Poets Association.
Third Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m.
Starting January 2011, we’re moving to the third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.
http://figuresofspeechpdx.wordpress.com/

7.
From Dan Nelson:

Hey there wordsmiths,
Thanks to everyone who attended, read, or publicized August's poetry event at Paper Tiger. It just keeps getting better and better. The variety of subjects and styles and the high quality of the verse make little feet of joy (even the misplaced pride of vicarious identification) go pitter pat through the tunnels of what passes for my mind. We were particularly blessed by the profound words of our featured reader, Kori Sayer, whose honesty is eclipsed only by her talent for creative elucidation of the pains and joys and gray areas of existence. Thank you Kori!

For September I am excited as a vulture over carrion (death smells sweeter to them than lilacs to us) to announce the appearance of Dennis McBride. Dennis is a Portland based free lance loiterer, writer, and part time barfly who barely graduated from Lincoln High School after completing his GED with marginal honors. He received an honorable discharge from the US Air Force after 4 years of service, despite being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital in Texas for 1 month due to a misunderstanding. He later attended Wichita State for 2 consecutive months. He later spent most of his working life as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the medical/industrial complex. His work has appeared in 'The Oregonian', 'The LA Times', 'The Washington Post', 'NBC Radio-Los Angeles', and numerous poetry anthologies and periodicals including the Canadian magazine 'Open Minds' and the California magazine 'Journal'. He has recieved positive notice of his work from Edward Albee and the late, Pulitzer Prize winning author William Styron. He is the author of two works of poetry and satire, "Looking for Peoria" and "Killing the Mockingbird" He was the recipient of the 1996 Andreas Berger Award for Poetry. He is still alive and lusts, lies, cheats and steals--but only when it's the right thing to do.

So do yourself a favor and be at Paper Tiger, 703 Grand Blvd. (between Mill Plain and Evergreen in Vancouver) on September 16th at 7pm . Please bring a poem or 2 to read at our open mic (5 minute max due to the number of readers), and join with some of the best poets in the Northwest declaiming their heartfelt musings. Plus the coffee can't be beat, as well as a host of other hot and cold beverages. Here's a sampler of Dennis's work to spark a flame of desire.

Dan Nelson 360-334-1129 or nelsondaniel59@yahoo.com

Grace by Dennis McBride

What strangeness comes over us.
The things I've done that don't
belong in a poem and the other
things I've wanted to do that
could not be put in one and the
mind that wonders what that
means about the poem and about
me and why it is the poem saves
us from these things and from
the ones yet to come like an
exit door in a bad movie.
We hope there is a God,
silly, and sinful, and wise
who grades on a curve
from an endless blue sky
almost as large as the heart
which keeps hurting and healing us
and ends when it must like the poem.

Mustard by Dennis McBride

The wrists and mind are weak tonight
and there's so much to do.
I think of all the dirty windows of the world,
the lost keys to locked doors,
and I drift toward the longing of
a slightly burnt hot dog with mustard
like a single engine plane on empty
looking for a sure place to land.
My dog Alfie and I are still alive
and I know this is a miracle.
He's 21 years old.
That's a hundred and forty seven
in human years, but sometimes,
when he's chasing a grasshopper,
he forgets that and his arthritis vanishes.
It's good to desire what you don't have,
even lilacs come back again and again.
Suddenly he's four and a half,
following something inside
the dark cave of his mind,
glittering and sparkling.

The Future of Rome by Dennis McBride

Let's say having increases hunger,
that light makes it harder really to see.
Then suppose, like me, you don't have eyes,
suppose you don't have ears to hear
and there is no nose.
Imagine, like me,
you don't even have a mouth
to put the sweet, soft black berry in.
But suppose there are Red and Green and Yellow,
that you feel them.
Then suppose you had a lamp
bigger than you to lean against,
a dark maroon red carpet to sit on
and a blue teacup large as your chest.
Then imagine, like me,
you were made of gold,
that you were willing to be idle
and were the one to come after Man.
Think of having only to sit,
of the heart's thoughts,
of fear leading finally to safety,
speech to silence.
Think of enough.

8.
From David Abel (Spare Room Collective):

[please note that this reading takes place on a Saturday, not our usual Sunday slot]

Spare Room Presents
Jen Currin
Don Mee Choi

Saturday, September 18
7:30 pm

Concordia Coffee House
2909 NE Alberta
$5.00 suggested donation

www.flim.com/spareroom
spareroom@flim.com

Upcoming Readings

October 3 Robert Mittenthal & Standard Schaefer
November 7 Lewis Warsh & Alicia Cohen
November 14 Les Figues press authors
December 12 Kristen Gallagher & Chris Alexander

==================================================

Jen Currin was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and lived in Boston, upstate New York, Denver, and Tempe, Arizona, before settling in Vancouver, B.C. in 2002. Jen teaches writing and literature at Vancouver Community College and Langara College. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English, and has published three books of poetry: The Sleep of Four Cities (2005), Hagiography (2008), and The Inquisition Yours (2010).

Don Mee Choi was born in South Korea and came to the United States via Hong Kong. Her first book of poems, The Morning News Is Exciting, has just been published by Action Books. She lives and works in Seattle and also translates contemporary Korean women's poetry. Her translations include When the Plug Gets Unplugged (Tinfish), Anxiety of Words: Contemporary Poetry by Korean Women (Zephyr), and Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers (Action Books).

Grafitti or You are on Yew Street
by Jen Currin

We have been busy hating
& making home-spun slogans.

Very busy. A canister of you
is a canister of me.

Walls: We can climb them,
knock them down, or dissolve…

Someone wants to respond,
to enter an egoless room.

You are on Yew Street
facing audio charges,
half-stepping, afraid of drama & editing.

But the undo mob isn’t angry.
They’re busy loving everything.

Taking fire-walking classes,
wondering if the compost worms will eat glass.

It’s not just manipulations on a page.

She let the children throw rocks at her.

It’s not just paragraphs someone wants to call emotional.

Every dog must learn repetition:

Hey, let’s go downtown and pick up some costumes.

& unlearn:

My mask—doesn’t quite fit.


To All Boys and Men!
by Don Mee Choi

Dandelions may not be weeds. They are related to chrysanthemums. Girls should.

May all weeds dislocate themselves. Girls should. I clench my fist and watch the morning news. Dandelion leaves are bitter yet tender. Girls should.

Chrysanthemums are admired. Beware. The early morning news is exciting.

9.
From Joan Maiers:

A HARVEST OF POETRY AND MUSIC FOR AUTUMN

Arrive early to order chocolate or beverages and enjoy hearing two local illustrious authors read their work. Featured are: Oregon Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen and Oregon Book Award Nominee, Paul Merchant, as well as guitar music by Casey Killingsworth before and after the reading.

Hosted by Joan Maiers.

Free and open to the public.

$5 suggested donation to assist relief work in Haiti.

Sunday, September 19
6:30 PM

Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe
45 S. State Street in downtown Lake Oswego, OR 97034

Accessible with abundant parking.

503-697-7097

10.
Want to be more productive with your writing process and results than ever before? Two, new articles from Sage Cohen can help!

Check out "10 Ways to Be a Productivity Pro" in the "Big 10" (September) issue of Writer's Digest -- available now in your favorite bookstore. This issue can also be purchased here: http://www.writersdigestshop.com/product/print-issue-writers-digest-september-2010/?r=wdbktw072110WD0910-jenkinspromo

Cohen's companion piece, "Top 10 Productivity Pitfalls For Writers To Avoid" is available for FREE on the Writer's Digest website: http://writersdigest.com/article/productivity-pro

Both pieces offer some of the greatest tips from Sage Cohen's latest book: The Productive Writer: Tips and Tools for Writing More, Stressing Less and Creating Success -- to be released in December of this year.

MAKE YOUR POEM AN iPOEM! DEADLINE IS NOVEMBER 1

Want to see your poetry appear in a poem-a-day iPhone app? Submit up to three, 20-line poems that express the spirit of "the life poetic" to "The Life Poetic iPoem Contest" by November 1.

Sponsored by Sage Cohen, author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry and The Productive Writer: Tips and Tools for Writing More, Stressing Less and Creating Success, the contest offers a range of prizes with a total value of more than $400.

Get all the details here:

http://writingthelifepoetic.typepad.com/writing_the_life_poetic/2010/08/the-life-poetic-ipoem-contest.html

SUBMISSION CALLS AND OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST

1.
From: allenbraden@comcast.net

2010 WABASH PRIZE FOR POETRY
Final Judge: JANE HIRSHFIELD
http://www.sycamorereview.com/contest/

First Prize: $1000 and winning entry published in Winter/Spring 2011 issue

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSIONS
Deadline: October 1, 2010

1. For each submission, send up to three poems.
2. A $15 reading fee (check or money order) payable to Sycamore Review must accompany each submission. The reading fee includes a copy of the prize issue.
3. Additional poems (beyond the initial three) may be included. Increase the reading fee $5 for each additional poem.
4. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable only if Sycamore Review is notified immediately upon acceptance elsewhere.
5. All entries must be typed and must include a cover letter with the author's name and contact information (mailing address, telephone number, and email address) as well as the titles of all poems submitted. Information that identifies the author should NOT appear on the manuscript itself.
6. Manuscript pages should be numbered and should include the title of the piece.
7. Please include a self-addressed, stamped postcard if you wish to be notified upon receipt of your manuscript.
8. Manuscripts will not be returned. Winners will be announced by Dec. 30, 2010. For information on winners and runners-up, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope with entry.
9. All contest submissions will be considered for regular inclusion in Sycamore Review.
10. All poems must be previously unpublished.
11. Questions may be directed to (replace (at) with @)

Send 2010 Wabash Prize for Poetry submissions and reading fee to:

2010 Wabash Prize for Poetry
Sycamore Review
Department of English
500 Oval Drive
Purdue University
West Lafayette , IN 47907

2.
From: allenbraden@comcast.net

CONSEQUENCE Magazine: Call for Submissions

CONSEQUENCE Magazine is the literary, print magazine addressing the culture of war. We are interested in the personal and social consequences of armed conflict worldwide, and seek multi-national perspectives.

CONSEQUENCE is currently accepting submissions of exceptional short fiction, poetry, non-fiction, interviews, and visual art.

Submissions will be accepted until November 1, 2010.

For information about how to submit your work, please visit our website:

http://www.consequencemagazine.org/

3.
http://www.writeonwhidbey.com/Publications/

Soundings is currently reading for the fall issue, including our two contests, Founders' Circle Award and First Publication Contest. Deadline for these for the fall issue is September 15, but any submissions received at that time will be considered for the spring issue. All entries are considered for publication in the magazine.

Founders’ Circle: $300 award, open to all except staff of the magazine.

All genres, prose and poetry

Length: poetry up to two pages; prose (fiction or nonfiction) up to 3,000 words

Entry fee: $5 for WIWA (Whidbey Island Writers Association) members; $7 for nonmembers

Winner receives publication and $300 & publication

Follow standard submission guidelines for magazine: 12 pt. Times Roman font, double space prose, include small SASE for response or larger envelope for return of manuscript.

Write “Founders Circle Contest” on manuscript.

First Publication Contest: $100 award, open to those who have never before published in a book or magazine open to national submissions nor in a publication advertised or circulated nationally.

Entry fee: $5 for WIWA members; $7 for nonmembers

For this contest, if we receive no entries that do not meet the quality standards of Soundings Review; reading fees will not be returned.

Follow standard submission guidelines for magazine: 12 pt. Times Roman font, double space prose, include small SASE for response or larger envelope for return of manuscript.

Write "First Publication Contest " on the manuscript.

All entries will be considered for publication.

Currently, Soundings Review reads all year. Manuscripts received too late for one issue will be considered for the next. Published authors include Kelli Russel Agodon, Marvin Bell, Larry Cheek, Lorraine Healy, Bruce Holland Rogers, and David Wagoner. Full guidelines at our Website. www.writeonwhidbey.org/Publications