Visible Poetry Project

National Poetry Month 2019 presents a third year of daily postings for the Visible Poetry Project, which brings together a collective of filmmakers to create a series of videos that present poems as short films. Meet the filmmakers and poets, read the poems, and watch the VPP films for April 2019.

Postcard Fest news!

For the last several years, the launch of the August Poetry Postcard Fest has come as a surprise to many people who missed the short sign-up period. No more. Paul Nelson heard the complaints and has greatly expanded the signup time for APPF 13, which will begin this Wednesday, May 1, and remain open through July 14, 2019. There is a small fee for participation in addition to the cost of stamps (and postcards, if you choose to buy them).

Learn more about the August Poetry Postcard Fest on the official APPF page, go directly to the sign-up page at Brown Paper Tickets, or click to see previous posts on this challenging and engaging project.

go, Claudia!

We recently mentioned Washington Poetic Routes, a new poetry mapping project by Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna. Now we have further reason to salute Claudia: she has been named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, an honor which comes with significant funding for a new project, One River, A Thousand Names. Read all about it in Crosscut.

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this evening in Bellingham

This evening, Saturday, April 27, 2019, Village Books will host two stellar poets, Elaina Ellis and Sierra Golden, reading from their books, Write About an Empty Birdcage and The Slow Art. The reading begins at 7:00pm. Go.

P.S.: Today is also Independent Bookstore Day, celebrated at your favorite bookstores around the country with readings, signings, and other festivities.

hear the whales singing

Next Friday, May 3, 2019, Bellingham’s Mount Baker Theatre Encore Room will host a chorus of poetry in tribute to whales as SpeakEasy 24: For Love of Orcas celebrates the publication of a new anthology edited by Andrew Shattuck McBride and Jill McCabe Johnson to address the plight of the southern resident orcas, chinook salmon, and their extended ecosystem.

The evening’s readers/contributors include Luther Allen, James Bertolino, Anita K. Boyle, Nancy Canyon, Susan Chase-Foster, Seren Fargo, Jessica Gigot, Mary Elizabeth Gillilan, Carol Guess, Julie B. Hunter, Jill McCabe Johnson, J.I. Kleinberg, David M. Laws, Rob Lewis, Carole MacRury, Christen Mattix, Andrew Shattuck McBride, JS Nahani, Cynthia Neely, Paul E. Nelson, Sheila Nickerson, Nancy Pagh, Betty Scott, Carla Shafer, and Sheila Sondik,
with additional work by Ronda Piszk Broatch, Sam Hamill, Jim Milstead, and Alina Stefanescu

The event, which starts at 7:00pm, is free and copies of For Love of Orcas, as well as other books by participating poets, will be available for purchase and signing.

on poetry

“Windbags can be right. Aphorists can be wrong. It is a tough world.”
James Fenton
(b. April 25, 1949)

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photo by Gerrit Serné

April in Anacortes

The April poetry reading at Pelican Bay Books will feature Jourdan Imani Keith and Larry Laurence, with music by Brad Killion. Join them for an evening of words on Friday, April 26, 2019, at 7:00pm.

still there

It has been five years since we mentioned Renée Adams and her Alexandria, Virginia, Poetry Fence of Del Ray. In fact, Adams has been “posting poetry, comic strips, and interesting news stories” on her fence for ten years now, and has added a poetry mailbox (above), which she keeps supplied with copies of poems for passersby to take. This year, she also “poem-bombed” 57 businesses in downtown Alexandria and invited the public to a poetry walk and reading for National Poetry Month. Read more in The Zebra.

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photo by Amanda Socci

Pulitzer

“For a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author,” Be With by Forrest Gander is The 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Poetry.

letterpress

Wayzgoose is an annual community letterpress and book arts extravaganza. Meet local printers and view their wares, print your own keepsakes, make paper and bind books. A highlight of the weekend is steamroller printing, where local artists carve 3 x 3 foot sheets of linoleum and print on giant paper. It’s all happening at King’s Books in Tacoma next weekend, Saturday and Sunday, April 27 and 28, 2019, 11:00am to 4:00pm.