Day of Remembrance
February 15, 2019
Award winning poet Mia Ayumi Malhotra will be a special guest at Western Washington University in Bellingham on the Day of Remembrance. She will read from her new book, Isako Isako (Alice James, 2018), which speaks to the generational impact of the Japanese American internment.
“Isako Isako is a powerful testament to poetry’s capacity for alchemizing history, memoir, and the lyric: the poems here intimately address the landscapes of war and the reverberations of violence through bodies and bloodlines. Malhotra’s visionary debut collection spans generations, countries, and loves, weaving the story of a mother survivor with reflections on the limits and reaches of memory. Sandalwood cities, desert gardens, dragon skin, and peach pits emerge from a shadowed past, details that ‘elude / even as they’re remembered.’” Brynn Saito, author of Power Made Us Swoon
This special event is free and will be held at 4:30pm on campus in Old Main 483.
found Valentine
February 14, 2019
found Valentine © j.i. kleinberg
attention Seattle poets
February 13, 2019
The City of Seattle has opened applications for the city’s 2019-2021 Civic Poet. That person will follow multi-genre writer, interdisciplinary artist, and creative writing and poetry workshop facilitator, Anastacia-Renee, who has held the position since 2017, and Claudia Castro Luna, who served as the first Civic Poet, 2015-2017, and is currently the Washington State Poet Laureate and a Distinguished Writer In Residence at Seattle University.
The position is open to Seattle-based poets who have an established body of work, including published works, reading/spoken word, and project planning experience with skills in racial equity practices.
Find further details from the Office of Arts & Culture and apply on CaFÉ (login required) by the deadline, Wednesday, April 24, 2019; 10:59pm Pacific.
weather permitting…
February 12, 2019
With so much surprising winter weather and so many cancellations, plans for Sunday in Bellingham has to carry a caveat: weather permitting.
Should the season allow, Bruna Press & Archive, in Bellingham, will offer an afternoon session on Sunday, February 17, 2019, Noon to 3:30pm. DO IT YOURSELF: Zines + Artist Made Publications is a series of workshops and conversations by four local artists, publishers, and community organizers centered around their methods and practices of independent publishing. Each participant — Rosie Lockie, Andrew Molitor, Cullen Beckhorn, and Bailey Cheney — will speak for 30 minutes, sharing their work and perspectives with attendees.
The same evening, Bruna will also host Coast Salish Concepts of Time + Space, the next in its ongoing series of monthly full moon gatherings that explore and introduce seasonal moons, the gathering of foods, and some of the ideas and values that sustain First Nations Coast Salish peoples. The gathering is led by Lummi Elder, William John, X’welwelat’se.
Keep an eye on the website or Facebook page, or follow Bruna Press on Twitter for updates on events… and weather.
poetry, film, and hockey
February 11, 2019
Because we are interested in the places where poetry and film intersect, here’s an addition to your watch-for list. “Goalie” is an independent film about hockey legend Terry Sawchuk, scheduled for release on March 1, 2019, in Vancouver and Toronto. Co-written by sisters Adriana Maggs and Jane Maggs and directed by Adriana Maggs, the film was inspired in large part by a book of poetry written by their father, Randall Maggs.
Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems (Brick Books, 2008; 10th Anniversary edition 2018) “follows the tragic trajectory of the life and work of Terry Sawchuk, dark driven genius of a goalie who survived twenty tough seasons in an era of inadequate upper-body equipment and no player representation.” You can hear Randall Maggs reading from the book on YouTube. Read the poems; watch for the film.
See poets! Hear poets!
February 10, 2019
In April 2018, at the wonderful Inland Poetry Prowl in Ellensburg, Washington, the photographer Dean Davis quietly set up shop and proceeded to photograph and record many of the poets in attendance. Now you can see the results of this ambitious, unheralded, and unpaid project at Pictures of Poets. Click on ALL POETS and you will see many familiar faces. Mouse over the photos to see the poets’ names. Click on a poet’s photo and you will be taken to a page with a short bio and Davis’s recording of the poet.
A selection of 12 large-scale prints from this collection will be exhibited at the Burgin Center for the Arts in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, from March 21 through April 14, 2019, and selection of 25 of them will be exhibited at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture in Spokane, Washington, in fall 2019, dates TBA.
Joshua Beckman at WWU
February 9, 2019
Poet Joshua Beckman will discuss two of his two recent books, Three Talks and The Lives of the Poems (Wave Books, 2018), on Wednesday, February 13, 2019, at 6:00pm, at Western Washington University (Bond Hall, room 105), as part of the Bagley Wright Lecture Series on Poetry. The event is free.
Joshua Beckman is the author of many other books, including The Inside of an Apple, Take It, Shake, Your Time Has Come, and two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer: Nice Hat. Thanks. and Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He is editor-in-chief at Wave Books and has translated numerous works of poetry and prose, including Micrograms, by Jorge Carrera Andrade, 5 Meters of Poems (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010) by Carlos Oquendo de Amat, and Poker (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2008) by Tomaž Šalamun, which was a finalist for the PEN America Poetry
in Translation Award. He also co-edited Supplication: Selected Poems of John Wieners (Wave Books, 2015). He lives in Seattle and New York.
