Best of 2019, no. 2

More best-of listings for 2019 books:

• Entropy
• The Guardian
• Library Journal
• The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2019
• Publishers Weekly
• The Times Literary Supplement

it has begun

Best-of Season is here again. Here’s what we have so far for listings of favorite poetry for 2019:

• Financial Times
• Morning Star
• New York Public Library (note the categories: Kids, Los Mejores Libros para Pequeños, Teens, Adults, Poetry)
• Washington Post

orcas in Seattle, tonight!

Hear scientists and writers discuss the fate of the endangered Southern Resident orcas and read from the anthology, For Love of Orcas (Wandering Aengus Press, 2019), tonight, Tuesday, November 12, 2019, at 7:00pm, at Hugo House. Featured readers include Sarah DeWeerdt, Bob Friel, Paula MacKay, Brenda Miller, and Adrienne Ross Scanlon. The reading and talk, which is free and open to the public, will be moderated by anthology co-editor and poet Jill McCabe Johnson. Details and participant bios at Hugo House.

One River, a Thousand Voices

You may not know that in addition to serving as Washington State Poet Laureate (and other concurrent professional and personal responsibilities), Claudia Castro Luna is completing a two-year stint as Designer in Residence at Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts. Her SVC residency culminates with an ambitious project: a poem and illustrated book, One River, a Thousand Voices, that celebrates the Columbia River’s energy, beauty, and power, and honors the resilience of Native peoples who for millennia have lived along its banks.

Claudia’s goal is to place this artist’s book in all 67 Library Districts and all 27 tribal libraries in Washington State. To support that goal, which includes a signed, hardcover, accordion-fold edition as well as paperback and recorded editions, she has initiated a Kickstarter campaign. Read all about it and support it if you can.

Bellingham: Poetry Reading & Book Launch

On Friday, November 15, 2019, 7:00pm, three outstanding poets will share words from their new books at St. Paul’s Old Parish Hall in Bellingham (across the street from the church):

Jory Mickelson (center, above) will read from Wilderness//Kingdom (Floating Bridge, 2019), Dayna Patterson (left) will read from Titania in Yellow (Porkbelly Press, 2019), and Megan Spiegel (right) will read from Luminance (Dancing Girl Press, 2019).

JORY MICKELSON is the author of Wilderness//Kingdom. His poems have appeared in print and online in the US, Canada, and UK. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary Foundation, The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, and Centrum’s Port Townsend Writers’ Conference. Originally from Montana, he now lives in Bellingham.

DAYNA PATTERSON is the author of Titania in Yellow and the forthcoming If Mother Braids a Waterfall (Signature Books, 2020). Her creative work has appeared recently in POETRY, AGNI, and Passages North, among others. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Psaltery & Lyre and a co-editor of Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry.

MEGAN SPIEGEL is the author of Luminance, a graduate of the multi-genre MFA program at Western Washington University, and a hybrid genre editor at Psaltery & Lyre. She blends images and ideas from the sciences, visual arts, and public domain archives into writing that inhabits the space between poetry and prose.

planning waaaaay ahead

Mark your calendar. It’s official: the 11th Biennial Skagit River Poetry Festival will be held October 1-4, 2020, in La Conner, Washington. Watch the website for details and follow on Twitter @PoetrySkagit.

Best-of season

It’s October, which means that the literary media will soon start to weigh in on their choices for best books of the year. But the folks at Literary Hub are a step ahead. They’ve already posted their list of The 10 Best Poetry Collections of the Decade! This may be the list you’ve been waiting for.