more Cirque…tonight!
January 12, 2021
Join in as Cirque Journal #21 celebrates Winter Festival with Fringe this evening, Tuesday, January 12, 2021, at 6:00pm Alaska / 7:00pm Pacific. Readers include Drue Robinson, Don Colburn, Kelly Lenox, Daniel Dagris, Roger Topp, Sherri Levine, Susan Chase-Foster, Karen Tschannen, Sandra Yannone, and Leslie Fried.
Zoom link, with code 1111.
Clover, today!
February 24, 2019
Clover: A Literary Rag celebrates Sweet 16 today as a selection of contributors to volume 16 share their words. Featured authors are Luther Allen, James Bertolino, Jennifer Bullis, Nancy Canyon, Susan Chase-Foster, Michael Daley, Victoria Doerper, Paul Hunter, Andrew Shattuck McBride, C.J. Prince, Betty Scott, Gary Wade, and Bob Zaslow.
Join in the celebration at 4:00pm at Village Books in Bellingham. It’s free, and copies of Clover will be available for purchase and signing.
poems, photos, and moon cakes!
July 3, 2018
Energetic, globe-hopping writer and illustrator of personal travel journals, Bellingham poet Susan Chase-Foster will read poems from her new book, Xiè Xiè Taipei, on Friday, July 6, 2018, 7:00pm in the Readings Gallery at Village Books in Fairhaven.
Accompanying Susan, bearing moon cakes and oolong tea, will be her son and co-adventurer, photographer Moshe Foster, who moved to Taiwan in 2005 and hasn’t looked back. Moshe will share slides of his photos from the book.
winter Clover
January 26, 2018
Mary Gillilan and Norman Green launched Clover, A Literary Rag in the summer of 2010 with the writing of contributors from the Independent Writers’ Studio — 17 in all. Thirteen editions later Clover has published a total of 234 writers — about half from Washington State, around 40 from Whatcom County, and 11 from international locations.
To see and hear what Clover has become, attend the reading for Volume 14 at Village Books in Fairhaven on Sunday, February 11, 2018, at 4:00pm. Featured contributors are Luther Allen, Janet Bergstrom, James Bertolino, Susan Chase-Foster, David Drummond, John Green, Frances Howard-Snyder, Paul Hunter, Andrew Shattuck McBride, Janet Oakley, Raul Sanchez, Harvey Schwartz, Karen VandeBossche, and Betty Scott. The reading is free and copies of Clover will be available for purchase.
(Submissions for Volume 15 are open until April 30, 2018.)
12 for 12 on 12
February 8, 2017
Come celebrate the publication of Volume 12 of Clover: A Literary Rag on Sunday, February 12, 2017, 4:00pm, at Village Books in Fairhaven (Bellingham).
Twelve of the issue’s authors will read: Luther Allen, James Bertolino, Douglas Cole, Victoria Doerper, Susan Chase-Foster, Stephanie Cosky Hopkinson, Paul Hunter, Ramon Ledesma, Laurel Leigh, Jim Milstead, Sara E. Simard, and Harvey Schwartz. The reading is free and copies of Clover will be available for purchase.
Shadow and Light*
September 25, 2016
2016 Walk Award
By Susan Chase-Foster
On the anniversary of your death
I amble along our trail
above the bay where even in rain
we poked stones with our sticks
until one speckled specimen
indistinguishable
from the galaxies of granite
you collected in your lifetime
called to you
and you sniffed its earthiness
touched its coolness to your lips
dropped it into your pocket.
Today sun casts my shadow
upon our trail and flickers
light through bordering cedars
like a cèilidh of Irish angels darting
and dancing and singing and stirring
up such wild wisps of wind
that in the confusion I trip over
the golden heartstone
you’ve embedded
in the earth for me
hold it to my ear
hear it beating.
. . . . .
*Copyright 2016 by Susan Chase-Foster. Broadside illustrated by Christian Smith.
make peace
July 12, 2016
The Whatcom Peace & Justice Center (WPJC) in Bellingham is offering a series of peace arts workshops this summer.
There are currently three available for registration (more will be added):
Songwriting, taught by Geof Morgan – Wednesday, July 20, 2016, 1-3pm.
Writing – all types, taught by Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor, Wednesday, July 27, 10am-Noon.
Poetry, taught by Susan Chase-Foster, Wednesday, August 3, 10am-Noon.
The workshops are free and suitable for ages 10 and up.
For details and to register, see the Peace Arts Workshop page at WPJC.
Reasons to go to…Fairbanks in August
June 17, 2014
Creamer’s Field Migratory Waterfowl Refuge comprises 2000 acres of fields, woods and wetlands in Fairbanks, Alaska. The farmhouse, barns and 12 of the acres are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Each August, the Tanana Valley Crane Festival celebrates the migration with three days of art, seminars, picnics, workshops, contests…and poetry! There’s at least one poetry workshop, plus there’s a poetry walk! The Crane Poetry Trail, along the Farm Road Trail, displays poems by local writers (it’s open year round). Poet (and 2013 Walk Award winner) Susan Chase-Foster says, “you can read poems as the sandhill cranes glide and gurgle overhead.”
This year’s festival is August 22-24, 2014. More from Friends of Creamer’s Field on Facebook and on the Creamer’s Field website.
Poetry Alive!
April 7, 2014
On Saturday, April 26, 2014, the National Poetry Month bonanza continues in Bellingham as five local favorites share the latest inklings of their imaginations with typical aplomb and flair. Poetry Alive, with Kevin Murphy, Jim Bertolino, Nancy Canyon, Susan Chase-Foster and Matthew Brouwer, will pack enough creative juice to power a whole city block and leave you wishing that poetry month could file for an extension.
Proceeds benefit the Whatcom Juvenile Justice Creative Writing Project, which pairs teaching artists with teens in the local juvenile justice system. Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the project has been underway for nearly a year, with a writing club that operates in detention most weeks. Proceeds from the show will ensure that the club continues through 2014 and can be offered to teens outside of detention as well.
Poetry Alive will take place at the Whatcom Museum Rotunda Room, 7:00pm. Suggested donation: $5 students, $10 adults.
new videos uploaded!
August 4, 2013
Nine videos of Sue Boynton Poetry Contest 2013 winners have been uploaded to the “recent uploads” section of the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest YouTube channel. Special thanks to the poets — Bassam Najib Boulos, Colleen Schwartz, Emily Spector-Van Zee, Jim Milstead, Luther Allen, Malcolm H. Kenyon, Mariah Brown-Pounds, Marina Murphy, and Susan Chase-Foster — and to Dal Neitzel and the staff at Bellingham TV10 (BTV10). Be sure to watch for these brief readings, which air between other programming on BTV10.
The Poetry Department . . . aka The Boynton Blog 