strong voices

You’re invited to look and listen as a group of poets offer their words to accompany the Women Empowering Women exhibit at Allied Arts in Bellingham on Sunday, January 6, 2019, at 4:00pm. Featured poets include Nancy Canyon, Lois Holub, Jessica Lee, Maria McLeod, Rainbow Medicine-Walker, Dayna Patterson, Carla Shafer, Kami Westhoff, and Leslie Wharton.

The opening reception for the exhibit will be held during Gallery Walk, Friday, January 4, 6:00-8:00pm. The participating artists (Francie Allen, Mary Jane Davis, Patti Fairbanks, LaVera Langeman, Erin Libby, and Leslie Wharton) will also host a film and fundraiser for the Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival on Thursday, January 17, 6:00-8:00pm, and a Tea Party in honor of the Women’s March on Saturday, January 19, at 2:00pm. The exhibit will remain on view through Saturday, January 26, 2019.

Poetry-About-Movies

And as long as we’re talking about the intersection of poetry and film, we should mention Poetry-About-Movies: a celebration of Film Is Truth happening at Honey Moon in Bellingham on Tuesday, April 17, 2018. The evening will feature poetry about movies by Dee Dee Chapman, Rena Priest, Susan J. Erickson, and Jessica Lee.

Film is Truth 24 Times a Second is a beloved, locally owned and operated DVD, Blu-ray, and VHS rental store in Bellingham with a little bit of everything and a lot of foreign films, independent movies, arthouse films, and documentaries.

here they come!

Get ready. The Nasty Women Poets are headed your way. Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse (Lost Horse Press) is a timely collection of poems that speaks not just to the current political climate and the man who is responsible for its title, but to the stereotypes and expectations women have faced dating back to Eve, and to the long history of women resisting those limitations.

In BELLINGHAM, four of these nasty women — Bellingham poets Jennifer Bullis, Susan J. Erickson, and Jessica Lee, and Seattle poet Carolyne Wright — will present a lively array of poems from Nasty Women Poets at Village Books in Fairhaven on Sunday, January 14, 2018, at 4:00pm.

In SEATTLE, contributors Kelli Russell Agodon, Jennifer Bullis, Susan J. Erickson, Susan Rich, Martha Silano, Judith Skillman, and Carolyne Wright will share some nastiness at Open Books on Friday, February 2, 2018, at 7:00pm.

In REDMOND, poets Jennifer Bullis, Martha Silano, Judith Skillman, and Carolyne Wright will be featured at SoulFood Poetry Night on Thursday, February 15, 2018, at 7:00pm.

The nasty women poets included here talk back to the men who created those limitations, honor foremothers who offered models of resistance and survival, rewrite myths, celebrate their own sexuality and bodies, and the girlhoods they survived. They sing, swear, swagger, and celebrate, and stake claim to life and art on their own terms.

The anthology, edited by Grace Bauer and Julie Kane, includes work from Kim Addonizio, Jan Beatty, Kelly Cherry, Annie Finch, Alice Friman, Allison Joseph, Marilyn Kallet, Melissa Kwasny, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Jessica Mehta, Lesléa Newman, Nuala O’Connor, Alicia Suskin Ostriker, Melinda Palacio, Jennifer Perrine, Marge Piercy, Lucinda Roy, Maureen Seaton, Rochelle Spencer, A.E. Stallings, Stacey Waite, Diane Wakoski, Müesser Yeniay, and a fabulous coven of other women’s voices.

Other readings are scheduled nationwide (there are nasty women everywhere!) including Baltimore, Cambridge, Kalamazoo, San Francisco, and elsewhere. Watch for them — better yet, ask for them — at a bookstore near you.

the coolest cats

You are most cordially invited to a reading and release party for Nine Lives Later: a Dead Cat Anthology. Writer/editor Dee Dee Chapman presents this unique collection of poetry and fiction that embraces the unusual motif with sincerity, honest grief, humor, and love. The evening features readings by Jessica Lee, Rena Priest, Duncan Shields, Luther Allen, Malcolm Kenyon, Nancy Canyon, and Dee Dee Chapman.

Let the fur fly. Join the hep cats at Honey Moon in Bellingham, on Thursday, November 30, 2017, at 8:30pm.

Ars Poetica*

By Jessica Lee
2016 Merit Award

Boil beets to see their seams.
Drop three in a pot
skin and all — let them
simmer in their juices.
This stage is crucial: practice
patience. Watch them bleed,
then walk away. Scrub your toilet,
write a note. Distract yourself.
Once what seems like
too much time has passed,
prod one with a fork.
If it’s ready, it will yield.
Snatch it up by long-rat tail,
run it under cold water.
Be forewarned: when blade meets breast
you’ve bound yourself to bulb.
If you prick a finger, you will not
distinguish between beet’s blood
and your own.

. . . . .
*Copyright 2016 by Jessica Lee. Broadside illustration by Christian Smith