contest closed

Submissions to the 2019 Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest are now closed. If you submitted a poem, thank you! Winners will be notified by phone or e-mail by April 30, 2019.

Whether you submitted a poem or not, you are invited to the awards ceremony on Thursday, May 16, 2019, 7:00pm, at the Bellingham Cruise Terminal.

poetry podcast

Portland, Oregon, community radio station KBOO airs Talking Earth, interviews on poetry, spoken arts, and prose, on the second and third Monday of every month from 10:00 to 11:00pm Pacific. Programs are archived back to 2015. Have a listen.

on poetry

“A poem erases and rewrites its poet.”
Milton Acorn
(March 30, 1923 – August 20, 1986)

. . . . .
quote from Dig Up My Heart: Selected Poems 1952-83
photo

sidewalk poetry

We’ve had plenty of posts on sidewalk poetry: stenciled, stamped, chalked, engraved on metal plaques, etc. In Mill Valley, California, they’ve come up with yet another way to get poetry onto the sidewalk: project it. Poetry Illuminated will be on view in the downtown area each night through the end of April 2019. Read the article in the Marin Independent Journal and stop to read the poems if you’re in the neighborhood.

. . . . .
photo: James Cacciatore/Marin Independent Journal

get ready

With National Poetry Month right around the corner, this is a good time to get your ducks, or at least your prompts, in a row. Two Sylvias Press is offering an all-new batch of 30 Prompts for National Poetry Month, delivered fresh to your email box each day of April. There’s a small fee (less than 50 cents a prompt!) or, if you’d like to have one of your poems critiqued, you can pay a little extra and get a line-by-line critique by one of the editors of Two Sylvias Press.

tomorrow in Portland

As if you didn’t have enough to choose from, Mountain Writers Series will host an off-site event, free and open to the public, during the AWP Conference in Portland. This event will celebrate 45 years of programming and serving the literary community in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

Tomorrow, Thursday, March 28, 2019, from 11:00am until 10:00pm at the Hotel Rose in downtown Portland, dozens of Mountain Writers Series alumni poets and writers will pay tribute to poets past and share some of their own work.

You’re also invited to join Mountain Writers Series poets and writers during a wine-and-appetizers reception, 5:00-7:00pm at Hotel Rose. Many of the authors will have their books for sale and will sign copies for guests. Mountain Writers Series will also be giving away dozens of books, broadsides and flyers from the archives of its 45-year history.

See the complete program.

Cascadia Poetry Festival

Registration is now open for Cascadia Poetry Festival – Anacortes 2019: A Tribute to Sam Hamill. Held May 9-12, the Festival will include readings, music, book launches, panel discussions, and workshops. The event celebrates poet/editor/translator and founder of Copper Canyon Press, Sam Hamill, who lived in Anacortes the last eight years of his life.

Gold Passes ($25) are on sale now at Brown Paper Tickets and admit the holder to all events except Steve Kuusisto’s master workshop.

island time

National Poetry Month is almost here, and so is the Orcas Island Lit Fest. OILF will begin the evening of Friday, April 5, and continue until mid-day on Sunday, April 7, 2019. The program features “panels, readings and events that highlight the vibrant literary culture of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.” See more, including panel descriptions and presenter profiles, on the OILF website and on Facebook.

at one hundred

Today, March 24, is the one hundredth birthday of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Co-founder of City Lights, prolific poet, playwright, publisher, painter, and activist, Ferlinghetti is being celebrated in San Francisco and elsewhere. The New York Times offers a Ferlinghetti-inspired tour of The City, while the poet speaks for himself in this article and interview in SFGate. As if a hundred years on the planet is not enough to celebrate, Ferlinghetti’s first collection of poems, A Coney Island of the Mind, has recorded sales of more than one million copies.
Happy Birthday, Mr. F!

. . . . .
photo Stacey Lewis

Poetry & Democracy on Vashon

On Thursday, March 27, 2019, the Vashon Bookshop will host an evening of poetry on the subject of Poetry and Democracy, in keeping with national programming presented by the Poetry Coalition. The reading begins at 6:00pm with a number of featured poets, followed by an open mic.