tree poetry

In the projects-we-love file: Ariel Gordon’s TreeTalk in Winnipeg. The poet, who is currently artist-in-residence at the Tallest Poppy restaurant (a project organized by Synonym Art Consultation), conducted a tree-appreciation workshop and then invited the public to “write a short poem, message or secret” on a tag and attach it to the large elm right outside. Read the story in CBCNews Manitoba.

From the Facebook event page:
About Ariel Gordon
Ariel Gordon is a Winnipeg writer. Both her books of poetry, Stowaways (2014) and Hump (2010) won the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry at the Manitoba Book Awards. She is currently working on two books, GUSH, a collection of literary work on menstruation for Calgary’s Frontenac House, edited with Tanis MacDonald and Rosanna Deerchild, and Treed, a book of creative non-fiction about Winnipeg’s urban forest for Hamilton’s Wolsak & Wynn. Other recent projects include curating the National Poetry Month in the Winnipeg Free Press project two years running.

. . . . .
photo: Cliff Simpson/CBC

Possession*

2017 Merit Award
By Marlene Chasson

Tall, gaunt, sharp shouldered
She stood there on the porch.
Her face mirrored her years
And her hands made it plain
That those years had not been easy.
They gripped the porch railing
Once freshly painted
It was old and chipped
Like the house itself.
But it was her house now
And she would tend it like a child
There was plenty of time
With him gone.

. . . . .
At age 85, I am one of the oldest poets in the Sue Boynton Poetry Contest. As an amateur poet I have been writing poetry since I was in grade school. Over the years, a number of my poems have been published in a poetry anthologies, school and college newsletters, and a some contests. My husband and I moved to Bellingham four years ago from Raleigh, North Carolina. Before I retired I was a teacher and social worker and from 1989 until 2001 I served as the executive director of a state advocacy organization for older adults in long term care.

The poem “Possession” was written about my father’s stepmother. She raised my father and three of his brothers and was also the caretaker for his father when he became sick in his later years.

. . . . .
*Copyright 2016 by Marlene Chasson. Broadside illustrated by Megan Carroll.

on poetry

“There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.”
John Ashbery
(b. July 28, 1927)

In honor of John Ashbery’s 90th birthday, we offer this link to a 2008 edition of Rain Taxi Review of Books, which features “A DREAM OF THIS ROOM, A Created Spaces Portfolio of Works on John Ashbery’s Textual and Domestic Environments,” and a link to Karin Roffman’s brand new comprehensive biography of the early life of John Ashbery, The Songs We Know Best (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
. . . . .
David Shankbone photo

Looking ahead

If an autumn 2017 writing retreat or conference strikes your fancy, here are a number of events coming up in Cascadia and beyond.

• September 8-10 – Cumberland, BC, Canada – Cumberland Poetry Festival
• September 8-10 – La Conner, WA – Poets on the Coast
• September 13-17 – Santa Fe, NM – Haiku North America Conference
• September 14-17 – Newport, OR – Oregon Coast Guided Writing Retreat
• September 15-16 – Anchorage, AK – Fall 2017 SCBWI Writers and Illustrators Conference
• September 22-23 — Bellingham, WA — Bellingham SeaFeast presents the 2nd Annual FisherPoets on Bellingham Bay
• September 22-23 – Crescent City, CA – North Coast Redwoods Writers’ Conference
• September 22-24 – Tieton, WA – LiTFUSE
• September 23-24 — Kalispell, MT — Flathead River Writers’ Conference
• October 5-8 – Nampa, ID – Death Rattle Writers Festival
• October 6-8 — Edmonds, WA – Write on the Sound Writers’ Conference
• October 6-8 – Oceanside, OR – PDX Writers Autumn Retreat
• October 12-15 — Tacoma, WA — Cascadia Poetry Festival
• October 13-15 — Bellevue, WA — Emerald City Writers’ Conference
• October 13-15 — Portland, OR — The Oregon Poetry Association Annual Conference 2017
• October 19-22 — Sublimity, OR — Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Annual Fall Retreat
• October 19-22 — Surrey, BC, Canada — 25th annual Surrey International Writers’ Conference
• October 20-22 – Lummi Island, WA – TLC Women’s Writing Retreat
• October 26-29 2017 — Seabeck, WA — Haiku Northwest’s Seabeck Haiku Getaway
• November 3-5 — Port Orchard, WA — Northwest Writers’ Weekend
• November 11 — Portland, OR — Wordstock: Portland’s Book Festival

signs of poetry

Australian poet and artist Richard Tipping makes artworks that incorporate his own poetic texts — cryptic, subversive, humorous, and often public. His “Signed Signs,” including Private Poetry, are road sign lookalikes. Fun.

At Akumal: What Have I Asked For?*

2017 Walk Award
By Richard Widerkehr

Yesterday, the water tossed me on the reef,
jarring my back, scraping my right wrist.

Don’t fall out of the ocean, says Linda.
I line up a break in the coral

with the fifth thatched shed.
Lying on my back, held by waves,

sea held by blue sky, sky held by the earth,
and the universe — it’s held by what?

*

I’m standing in the green shallows.
Whomp. Something hits the water

hard like prop wash. Wings thrash.
A brown pelican’s next to me.

The thing has a bill, big as a thigh bone,
that opens and closes.

. . . . .
“In the last five years, I’ve submitted and published widely. I like to sing and play music at a bar called the Green Frog. I used to be a teacher and a case manager with the mentally ill. I’m retired now. My Boynton poem was written at a resort called Akumal in Mexico and worked on later back in B’ham. My third book of poems, In The Presence Of Absence, will come out from MoonPath Press this fall.”

. . . . .
*Copyright 2017 by Richard Widerkehr. Broadside illustrated by Kim Wulfestieg.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Western Washington University and the Whatcom County Library System, which have been selected to serve as the host site for the 2018 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture featuring Naomi Shihab Nye.

May Hill Arbuthnot (1884-1969) was born in Mason City, Iowa, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1922, receiving her master’s degree in 1924 from Columbia University. Along with educator William Scott Gray, she created and wrote the Curriculum Foundation Readers for children — better known as the “Dick and Jane” series. The annual lecture series was created in her honor.

The lecture will be held in the spring of 2018 and will be announced here as soon as a date is confirmed.

Read the announcement here.

action poetry

Meanwhile, in the world of advertising, poetry takes the stage with some remarkable athletes in a series of ads for Under Armour, the performance apparel gear company. The “Unlike Any” ads feature athletes Misty Copeland, Natasha Hastings, Jessie Graff, Alison Désir, and Zoe Zhang, with poets Saul Williams, Dominique Christina, Kojey Radical, Aja Monet, and Aristophanes, respectively. Read the story in Adweek and watch/listen.

Elsewhere in healthcare headlines…

We are happy to see that in the UK, “The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Arts, Health and Wellbeing said doctors should be encouraged to refer patients to art classes and poetry workshops.”

Read the article in The Telegraph and this testimonial about the health benefits of poetry, in The Guardian.

Click to see more poetry prescription stories in The Poetry Department.

Ready…set…Marathon!

If you are planning to participate in the 2017 Poetry Marathon or half-marathon, signups begin tomorrow, Thursday, July 20 at Noon Eastern Time, and continue through July 27. The full marathon will take place on Saturday, August 5, starting at 9:00 a.m. ET, and it will conclude at 9:00 a.m. ET on Sunday the 6th. The half marathon will run from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on August 5. Each poet must write and publish on the blog one poem per hour. To register, go to The Poetry Marathon website or watch for the link on the Poetry Marathon Facebook page.