especially now

Matthew Zapruder added no question mark to the title of his book, Why Poetry. Perhaps he sees poetry as an answer, not something in need of explanation. This Wednesday, August 16, 2017, Zapruder will read from, discuss, and answer questions about Why Poetry at the Hotel Sorrento in Seattle. The event is free and begins at 7:00pm.

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IMPORTANT notice

Sherman Alexie has cancelled all of the stops on his book tour from August onward.

You can read his open letter here.

Saturday in the Park with poets

Celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Redmond Association of Spokenword (RASP) this Saturday, July 15, 2017, as Anderson Park in Redmond, Washington, is filled with poetry at Poets in the Park.

There will be readings and performances on two stages, workshops in the workshop cabin, and activities, installations, and vendors throughout the park, plus a poetry book fair. The lineup includes Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall, Redmond Poet Laureate Shin Yu Pai, and an illustrious assortment of poetic voices from around the region.

See the complete schedule on the Poets in the Park page, courtesy of Michael Dylan Welch, who founded and coordinates the annual event.

finding by erasing

If you’re interested in found poetry, here’s a project that is generating a lot of buzz: Erasing Infinite, in which poet Jenni B. Baker creates erasure poetry from David Foster Wallace’s 1079-page book Infinite Jest (Little, Brown, 1996), one page at a time.

Learn more by visiting the Erasing Infinite site, reading this article from PBSNewsHour, and liking the Erasing Infinite page on Facebook.

For another page-at-a-time project, see Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page by Matt Kish (Tin House, 2011).

watch for it…

We have it on good authority that Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall is working on a series of readings for Washington 129.

We’ll post them here when dates are confirmed, but meanwhile, check out the review of Washington 129 by Dennis Held in The Spokesman-Review.

poetry in the pipeline

While it hardly seems fair to use the F word (Fall) so early in the summer, Publishers Weekly has just issued its Fall 2017 Announcements: Poetry list and we thought you might be interested. Following PW’s projected Top 10 list is a list of fall titles from many poetry publishers. That leaves you just a few months to clear some space on your poetry shelves — or, better yet, add a new one.

last 7 days

Here’s some poetry history in the making: Copper Canyon Press is running a 10-day Kickstarter campaign, Pablo Neruda: Poetry Lost + Found.

The press’s successful 2015 campaign helped publish a collection of just-discovered, never-before-published poems by Pablo Neruda, Then Come Back: the Lost Neruda Poems.

With this new effort Copper Canyon hopes to fully fund BOOK OF TWILIGHT, Neruda’s first book of poetry, which has never before been published in English in its entirety. Funding from the previous campaign moved this book into production; the current campaign will get it finished and to the printers.

There are juicy inducements for pledges and, very importantly, this is an all-or-nothing campaign: this project will only be funded if it reaches its goal by Friday, June 30, 2017, 5:00 PM PDT.

Visit Pablo Neruda: Poetry Lost + Found and pledge!