Request For Proposals

Proposals Wanted for Poets in the Park

Poets in the Park is back! Mark your calendar for Saturday, July 7, 2018, for another Poets in the Park poetry festival at Anderson Park in Redmond, Washington, featuring Washington State poet laureate Claudia Castro Luna and many others. The Redmond Association of Spokenword, which sponsors the festival with support from the city of Redmond, has a bountiful day of events planned, with workshops, readings, performances, a book fair, open-mic readings, free ice cream, and more. Bring your lunch and join in this FREE event!

Want to participate? RASP is looking for proposals for readings (25-minute or 55-minute slots) and workshops (55-minute slots), plus vendors. Send your proposals as soon as possible to festival director Michael Dylan Welch at WelchM@aol.com, with the following information pasted into your email (no attached files, please):

Reading Proposals

Readings by groups or organizations (if in doubt about what qualifies, just ask — a theme or anthology focus might work). Include this info:

• Title of reading, group, or organization
• Organizer’s name (who should also be willing to MC their reading segment, or let us know who will MC)
• Names of possible readers (at least three)
• Any audio-visual or other stage needs

Workshop Proposals

Workshops should focus on the craft of poetry and include generative and sharing/discussion activities. With your proposal, include a catchy title, the workshop facilitator’s name(s), and a sentence or two describing what participants can expect to learn from the workshop. RASP expects to be able to pay $100 per workshop.

Vendor Proposals

If you’d like to be a vendor or exhibitor with your press or organization (poetry or otherwise), please indicate your interest by sending the name of your organization and a sentence or two describing what you would like to display, sell, or promote. If you have your own vendor tent for outdoor display, please say if you can bring that, and mention any other needs. RASP can supply tables and chairs. It’s FREE to be a vendor.

Please send your proposals as soon as possible, along with any creative or wacky ideas or installations and any questions.

hear that sound?

It’s the clock ticking down to the deadline for submissions to the 2018 Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest. If you’re a Whatcom County resident and you haven’t yet submitted your poem, you have until 6:00pm tomorrow, Saturday, March 31, to deliver it to Mindport Exhibits (note hours: Friday Noon-6pm, Saturday 10am-5pm) OR Terra Organica (note hours: Friday 8am–8pm, Saturday 9am–8pm) OR by email (as a Word attachment) to BoyntonPoetryContest@hotmail.com. Late submissions will be disqualified; all submissions must conform to the guidelines.

Poetry in America on PBS

In time for National Poetry Month, PBS will air Poetry in America, a new series of 30-minute programs hosted and directed by Harvard Professor Elisa New. Each episode will offer “a fully immersive experience in hearing, reading, and interpreting a single American poem.” Trailers for upcoming episodes are posted online. Check your local PBS station for airing schedule.

now hear Rena!

Tonight’s featured poet at Greene’s Corner in Bellingham will be Rena Priest.

Rena Priest is a writer and performer. She is a Lummi tribal member and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is active in efforts to strengthen community through participation in local arts and culture and has taught subjects in comparative cultural studies, the humanities, and Native-American studies at Northwest Indian College, Fairhaven College, and Western Washington University. Her first collection of poetry, Patriarchy Blues, was published by MoonPath Press in 2017. She is presently at work on a new collection titled Sublime Subliminal.

The evening starts at 6:30pm followed by the Musician’s Open Mic at 7:00 with welcome and music by JP Falcon Grady and others. Come join the fun as music and poetry rolls throughout the evening.

Bonus note: you can also hear Rena on Saturday, April 21, 2018, when she is one of the featured poets for SpeakEasy 21.

on poetry

“Real poetry is a party, a wild party, a party where anything might happen. A party from which you may never return home.”
Dorothea Lasky
(b. March 27, 1978)

. . . . .
quote from Poetry Is Not a Project (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2011)
photo by Eileen Myles

Alchemous Resistance: a poetry reading

You’ll need an extra-large calendar for everything that’s going on during National Poetry Month, so we’re getting a head start on some of the don’t-miss events.

On Sunday, April 15, 2018, join authors Jennifer Bullis (Bellingham), Kathryn Smith (Spokane), and Maya Jewell Zeller (Spokane and Ellensburg) for a rousing reading of poetry exploring themes of resistance, solitude, and ecofeminism. “Jennifer’s poems are rich with earth tones and riotous cadences; Smith explores isolation via spare lyrics; and Maya’s work uses a range of caesura to interrogate human-animal relationships and the anxiety of parenting in the Anthropocene.”

The reading will begin at 4:00pm at Village Books in Bellingham. Read the full description on the Village Books event page and mark your calendar!

the latest laureate

Congratulations to Susan Landgraf, who has been named Poet Laureate of Auburn, Washington. Widely published, her most recent book is What We Bury Changes the Ground (Tebot Bach, 2017). A former journalist, Susan was a 2007 Jack Straw Writer, a professor of writing, media, and diversity/globalism classes at Highline College, and has taught hundreds of workshops, including at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference, Centrum, and the Marine and Science Technology Center. Her book of writing exercises is expected later this year from Two Sylvias Press. Susan Landgraf takes over from previous Auburn Poet Laureate Marjorie Rommel and will serve until 2020.

. . . . .
photo

venue change

Bellingham’s every-Monday-night-for-a-really-long-time open mic, poetrynight, has announced the following:

A policy change regarding conference room usage at the library means that as of April 1, poetrynight will no longer be able to meet at the Downtown BPL Monday nights at 8.

Rather than be sad though, we wanted to celebrate the last few years we’ve had here.

We’re doing potluck treats and hosting our usual open mic. So bring a snack and a poem or three.

We’ll also be announcing our plans for relocation during the month of April.

Join the poetrynight crowd for the last library meet on Monday, March 26, 2018 and watch the poetrynight blog for venue updates.

Bellingham reading

Mark your calendar for Wednesday, April 4, 2018, 7:00pm, and join Bruna Press + Archive for the first event in the MUTTER COURAGE program: a book launch for Ely Shipley’s Some Animal and additional readings by Yanara Friedland and Jane Wong.

Planning WAY ahead…

Mark your calendar for March 27–30, 2019, when the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference & Bookfair will be held in Portland, Oregon. The AWP Portland Subcommittee has just issued a call for proposals, which opens today, March 22, and closes May 1, 2018. (Guidelines here.)

The AWP Conference was last in Cascadia in 2014, when some 12,000 attendees thronged the Seattle Convention Center. Prior to that, AWP was held regionally in Vancouver, BC, in 2005, and was last held in Portland in 1998. Early-bird registration typically begins in late July. AWP membership is not required for attendance.