Finishing Line Press Group Reading

Happy Spring Solstice Happy Poetry Month

Please join us at a Finishing Line Press Group Reading

When: Saturday, April 4, 2009,
Time: 2—3 PM
Who: Julene Tripp Weaver, Betsy Aoki, Jane Alynn, and Lana Ayers
Where: Elliott Bay Books, 101 South Main Street, Seattle, WA

The Poetry Playground - Weekly Classes (Tuesdays 7-9pm)

From the crazies who brought you THE POETRY POLAR BEAR CLUB, now offering ongoing, weekly, drop-in classes at The Fremont Abbey Art Center, Tuesday nights from 7-9pm, starting Tuesday, 24 March, 2009. THE POETRY PLAYGROUND is facilitated by A. K. “Mimi” Allin.

THE POETRY PLAYGROUND
A place to stretch your poet and play with words. A place to practice physical poetry. A place to test your tools. This is not a poetry reading, critiquing circle, performance or acting class. This is a playground. We’ll use games, exercises and prompts to free our poet. Intended for artists of all genders, genres and levels, who work (or wish to work) from poetry. Be prepared to move, talk and play, alone and in groups, to create on the page and in the round. We will not sit in seats at tables.

EXERCISE YOUR POET $10
Ongoing, drop-in, weekly sessions, 7-9 pm, Tuesdays. Classes meet at The Fremont Abbey starting on Tuesday, 24 March, 2009. 2 hrs on the playground, pay-as-you-go, $10/session. No stress. Generative play. Just show up. Pay in person, cash or check.

INSTRUCTOR
A. K. “Mimi” Allin, The Poetess at Green Lake, spends her time developing interactive poetry performances. An instigator of social dialog, Allin teaches poetry guerilla poetry to youth and adults. She has been performing, projecting, installing and instigating poetry since 1997. Allin, who earned her MA in Poetry from City University of New York and founded the monthly poetry & performance series Untitled [Intersection], will moderate all playground sessions and performances. Special guest co-instructors will be announced.

INQUIRE
mimiallin@gmail.com

Call for Submissions: Court Green

Dossier: The 1970s

Each issue of COURT GREEN features a dossier on a special topic or theme. For our seventh issue, we will feature a dossier on The 1970s.

We would like to see poems on all that decade entailed, as well as the legacy thereof. We are as interested in poems that invoke the icons of and engage with the stereotypes of the 1970s as we are in poems that explore more tangential or atypical aspects of the decade. Poems of all styles and modes -- historical, personal, political, confessional, formal, experimental, regional, global, nostalgic, critical, hybrid, and especially those styles and modes the editors have not yet foreseen -- are welcome. We are not looking for critical/academic works at this time.

Submissions for dossier and regular sections of the magazine are welcome.

If you would like to submit poems for either or both sections, our submission period is March 1-June 30 of each year.

We do not accept more than one submission per poet during our submission/reading period. Please note that we do not accept more than five pages of poetry.

Email submissions are not accepted. Please supply a SASE for notification only. Submissions will not be returned. Poems submitted outside our reading period will be returned unread.

We will respond by August 31.

Submit to:

Editors
COURT GREEN
English Department
Columbia College Chicago
600 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60605

Please note: Poems sent through submissions services are discouraged and may be returned unread. We strongly encourage anyone interested in submitting to COURT GREEN to read a recent issue of the magazine before submitting. For information about ordering copies of Court Green, please see our contact page:
http://english.colum.edu/courtgreen/contact.html

Raven Chronicles: Food Culture Reading (April 25)

We are inviting all the writers who have work at our Raven Chronicles online magazine (http://www.ravenchronicles.org/FoodCulture/foodcultureindex.html) in the Food & Culture section, to read On April 25th, and other poets who might have work that would contribute to this discussion on the conjunction of food and our different cultures. Our latest writer and addition to the site, Susan J. Erickson, is going to join us from Bellingham. We would love to have you join us. And we will have an open mic at the end for anyone who might like to read a poem. This is in conjunction with National Poetry Month.

We would also like to honor all the editors who have chosen work for this site:

Jeannine Hall Gailey, who is recovering from broken bones!

Elizabeth Myhr, who now edits the Nature Writing section (and we have added a new wonderful photo to the site) http://www.ravenchronicles.org/Nature/natureindex.html

Anne Fraser

If you would like to read poems and can join us, please let us know.

Saturday, April 25, 2009
Poets read works celebrating Food & Culture.
In conjunction with National Poetry Month.
Invited readers and open mic.

April 25, 2009, Saturday, 4:00-5:45 p.m.
University Branch Library, 5009 Roosevelt Way N.E.
Seattle, WA 98105
Free

Translation with Andrea Lingenfelter

As part of the WPA Spring Poetry Festival in late April, Andrea Lingenfelter will offer a 2-hour translation class at Hugo House. Ondi is a Seattle Poet Gathering regular. Support a friend, sign up for her class. Class size limited to 20. SIgn up online at Brown Paper Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/55226. Here's the info.

10am
2-hr Translation Workshop
Andrea Lingenfelter
Meet at Hugo House 9:45am
Pre-Registration required / Register now
$60 workshop


TRANSLATION WORKSHOP DESCRPTION:
There are at least as many ways to translate a poem as there are readers of that poem. Work through a poem from the source language (Chinese) to English with an experienced translator of Chinese poetry. We will look at different aspects of the poem and the discuss some of the problems, both practical and theoretical, that translators encounter in the course of the translation process. No knowledge of a foreign language required. Instructor will bring materials. Supplies: students should bring paper and something to write with. This class will meet at Hugo House at 9:45am on Saturday 25 April. It is the first event of the Spring Poetry Festival. Afterwards, students are welcome return to Hugo House for a welcome message and a social with Sam Green, David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg.

BIO:
Andrea Lingenfelter is a poet and translator of contemporary Chinese poetry, fiction and (on occasion) film subtitles. She has lived and worked in China and travels there regularly to meet with writers and buy books. Her translations of contemporary Chinese poetry have appeared in a number of literary journals and anthologies. She is also the translator of the novels Candy, by Mian Mian (Back Bay Books), and Farewell My Concubine by Lilian Lee (William Morrow and Company). In the spring of 2008 she received a Pen Translation Fund Grant to translate Annie Baobei's 2006 novel, Padma. She is currently working on a collection of translations of poetry by Zhai Yongming for Zephyr Press. Future projects include Wang Anyi's novel Qimeng shidai (The Age of Enlightenment) and a volume of translations of work by Shanghai poet Wang Yin.

ONINE INTERVIEW:
Here's a link to an interview I did with Zhai Yongming, China's leading feminist poet, about a year ago, with a few poems: http://fulltilt.ncu.edu.tw/ The interview is in Issue #3, but I also have work in Issue #1, and I'm planning to have an interview with my friend Wang Yin in Issue #5.

aka reading | performances

SOUL FOOD POETRY
A. K. Allin & Vanessa Dewolf perform/read together on Thursday 19 March, 7pm, at Soul Food Books in Redmond. This will be Allin's first long reading since "Soviet Poetry" at Soho20 in NYC, a slide show of epigrammatic poems over Modern Soviet Art with percussion by Greg Stare of Rare Bird Rumba Ranch. Expect the off kilter.

FREMONT PLACE BOOKS
The very next night, Friday 20 March, 7pm, Allin will perform at Fremont Place Books with the dapper Aaron Silverberg and the therapeutic Laurie Scullin. In typical Allin fashion, this will not be a reading so much as a happening. Bring your witness.

A. K. “MIMI” ALLIN produces poetry on the page and off, by way of public installation, urban maneuver, and collaborative and solo performance. “AKA” has whispered poetry through a 300-pound block of ice, painted it on umbrellas, and put it in the middle of a labyrinth cut into a lawn with hand shears. Allin formed close ties to the Green Lake area of Seattle by sitting at a desk there every Sunday from 9–5 for one full year. Her efforts were quickly returned by an enthusiastic and supportive public. Documentation of “The Poetess at Green Lake” and more recent “aka instigations” can be found online at http://thepoetessatgreenlake.blogspot.com/.

VANESSA DEWOLF creates interdisciplinary poetic works of text-based performance. Her work often combines narrative & poetic language with visual & movement processes. Her training: figure skating, M.A.in Playwriting at Boston University under Nobel Prize Winner Derek Walcott, somatic practices, alternative dance, improvisation, printmaking, and more. She grew up in the mountains and is currently a valley dweller. She runs an artist residency program at Studio Current for performance artists, a unique opportunity to support artists in process & practice via rigorous dialogue with each other. She is a facilitator of Field sessions and has bee the director of The Field-Seattle, an artist driven peer review organization that cultivates reflective feedback with artists from all disciplines. Her work has been seen in Alaska, Boston, Germany, Tacoma and various venues throughout Seattle including: Untitled Intersection, Ten Tiny Dances, Fisher Ensemble, Velocity Dance Center, Freehold Studio Lab Theater, and many more.

AARON SILVERBERG has written 2 books, "Thoreau's Chair" & Diamonds Only Water Can Wear."

LAURIE SCULLIN is a local therapist, who writes because its in his Irish blood and writing is a relatively cheap addiction.

Untitled [Intersection], 27 March 2009

WHAT?? ANOTHER POETRY READING!?
Friday 27 March 2009 @ 7P
The Phinney Center in Greenwood
$5-10 donation

Featuring the incredible, the wonderful, the wildly popular
JEFF ENCKE
PRIYA KEEFE
JACOB JANS
AMANDA LAUGHTLAND
DANAE' CLARK

No podium. No page turning. No hands stabbing the air. Just 4 terrific poets offering 15-minute workshops. And in between classes, you're invited to partake in TRAVELING HEARTBEATS. Let performance artist, Danae' Clark, listen to your heart. Watch her translate your unique beat into a watercolor painting.

All hail podium-free poetry!!!

Red Sky celebrates Irene Drennan

Sunday night's Red Sky reading celebrates the late Irene Drennan, active in It's About Time since its beginnings, 1989

Please join us
Sunday, March 1, 2009

A Tribute to Irene Drennan with Esther Altshul Helfgott, Priscilla Long, Denise Calvetti-Michaels, Anne Sweet and Diane Westergaard


PLUS Open Mic!
Sign up at 6:30
Reading starts at 7:00


Richard Hugo House
1634 11th Street

It's About Time Writers - March 12, 2009

Please join us for our 235th reading
6:00 - 7:45 p.m.

Ballard Branch Seattle Public Library
5614 22nd Ave. N.W.Seattle , WA 98107
206-684-4089
http://itsaboutimewriters.homestead.com/

Darby Ringer, Moreah Vestan, Anne Sweet and Roberta Feins on the Writer's Craft

Roberta Feins lives in Seattle, and works as a computer consultant. She received her MFA in poetry from New England College in 2007. Her poems have been published in Tea Party, Floating Bridge Review, and The Lyric, and are forthcoming in Five AM and Antioch Review. She edits the e-zine Switched On Gutenberg http://www.switched-ongutenberg.org/

Moreah Vestan is a Life Coach, a Compassionate Communication trainer, a landlady, and a grandma. She’s author of Pleasures and Ponderings: From Nun to Nudist to Now, a book of 77 essays, and Diving Right In: Reflecting on Life's Adventures, a book of poetry and vignettes.

Darby Ringer’s poems have appeared in Pontoon #1, switched-ongutenberg.org, Poetry and Art on the Buses, 2001, among others. She has received bachelor’s degrees from the University of Washington in French and Landscape Architecture. She is a landscape designer and lives in Seattle, Washington.

M. Anne Sweet is a poet and artist. She has a full length poetry collection entitled Nailed to the Sky. Her poetry has appeared in many print and online literary journals. She reads and performs throughout the Pacific Northwest and is a past winner of the Bart Baxter Poetry in Performance Award. Please visit www.quillonline.com.

Next meeting, new venue

The next gathering takes place at 2pm on Sunday, February 15 at Grey Gallery & Lounge (www.greygalleryandlounge.com) down the street from Richard Hugo House on Capitol Hill.

We've decided to discontinue use of Feierabend as a meeting place, but we will continue to alternate meetings at Brouwer's. Come check out Grey and let me know what you think -- and thanks to Noel for the suggestion!


Date/time: February 15, 2009, 2:00pm
Place: Grey Gallery & Lounge (1512 11th Avenue, Seattle, WA)

It's About Time Writers Feb 12 '09

Please join us!

Thurs. Feb 12, 2009 # 234 Sherry Reniker, Jack Remick, Elizabeth Austin + Joannie Stangeland on The Writer's Craft
6:00 - 7:45 p.m.
Ballard Branch Seattle Public Library
5614 22nd Ave. N.W.
Seattle , WA 98107
206-684-4089
http://itsaboutimewriters.homestead.com/

Elizabeth Austen was the Washington state “roadshow” poet for 2007. She provides weekly poetry commentary on KUOW, 94.9, public radio, and has poems forthcoming in Bellingham Review and Crab Creek Review. Her audio CD, skin prayers, is available at elizabethausten.org. She makes her living as a communications specialist at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Sherry Reniker is a poet, editor, and college instructor of writing. She spent 15 years in Tokyo where she edited World's Edge, an anthology of poetry and photography, and published her first short collection, Geo Frictions. As a poet, she has been compared to Mina Loy.

Joannie Kervran Stangeland’s chapbook Weathered Steps was published by Rose Alley Press. A Steady Longing for Flight won the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. In 2003, Joannie was a Jack Straw artist-in-residence. More recently, her work has appeared in Illya’s Honey, Pinyon, and Pontoon.

JACK REMICK is a writer, teacher, and editor. His publications include Terminal Weird, short stories; The Stolen House, a novel, and The Seattle Five Plus One, an anthology of poetry. Fction includes three California novels: Pacific Coast Highway; The Deification of Jack Kerouac; and Berkeley ‘71: Book of the Dead.

Canon fodder for thought

You don't like being pigeon-holed as a gay man, Greg? Weird! :P

Can't say I agree with the gist of the article that printed poetry's a dead art form (obviously), but I do agree with your own sentiment that people misconstrue performed poetry as dumbed-down.

It's funny. In academia, literature PhD profs/students (critics) often make the same claim of MFA profs/students -- that they're writing, but it's not the "real thing" like Shakespeare, Keats, Dickinson, etc. -- while MFA profs/students make the corresponding claim -- that literature PhD students are muddling around with dead language. Hell, Socrates (through Plato) was the first to make that claim.

The truth is, we're all in bed together, and the "real" poets know it. I remember meeting Bob Holman at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in the mid-1990s, back when he used to MC. Bob asked me where I was studying at the time; I told him Columbia. He'd spent his undergrad years at Columbia, which is notorious for its bootcamp core courses on classical western topics. His response: "Oh, yeah? I was shot out of that canon!"

Thanks for sharing, Greg!

Spoken Word Poetry article in the Weekly

Hey all,
There’s an article in the Seattle Weekly this week about Spoken Word poetry that I thought I’d share. Two things I’m not wild about in the article:
· Instead of “a 43 year old gay man”, why couldn’t I have been a “43 year old poet”?
· I’m SURE I said “…excluding people from my work” instead of “…secluding people from my work”.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2008-12-31/music/spoken-world/
GregBee

Marick Press Manuscript Competition

Marick Press Poetry Prize

The First Annual Marick Press Poetry Prize Competition


The First Annual Marick Press Poetry Prize competition will open for
submissions on March 1, 2009. The award consists of a $1,000 cash
award and publication by Marick Press.

Manuscripts must be between 48 and 80 pages in length. Poems must be
original, but may have appeared in magazines, anthologies, or chapbooks.
Translations are not eligible for this competition. The competition is
open to all poets writing in English.

Manuscripts must be postmarked by October 15th. They must be typed and
should include a table of contents. The author's name, address, email
address, and telephone number should appear on the cover sheet only.
Manuscripts will not be returned and will be recycled at the end of
the competition. Please include a self-addressed, stamped,
business-size envelope with your submission if you wish to be notified of the
results.

Manuscripts must include a $15 entry, reading, and processing fee.
Checks should be made out to Marick Press. The manuscript, along with
a self-addressed, stamped postcard for notification that it has been
received, if so desired, should be sent to:

Marick Press Poetry Prize
P.O. Box 36253
Grosse Pointe Park, MI 48236

If you send the manuscript via express mail services, the manuscript
should be sent to:
Marick Press Poetry Prize
1342 Three Mile Drive, Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan 48230

Manuscripts are screened by the editorial staff, and the Marick Press
Poetry Prize 2009 will be judged by Alicia Ostriker. The winner of the
Marick Press Poetry Prize will be announced March 15, 2010.

Seattle Poet Populist

Hello all!
Sorry I missed you all for beer today; I hope it was festive. I want to share an article (and reader comments) about the Seattle Poet Populist program. Many interesting viewpoints are shared...

November 25, 2008 Feature: It Gets Verse
Why Does Seattle Promote Dumb, Bad Poetry?
By PAUL CONSTANT
Read the whole article at http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=787677 »

GregBee

Raven Chronicles Announces Submission Deadlines for 2009:

Volume 14. No 2.:
Theme: Architecture In Literature: Doors, Windows & Walls.
Deadline: November 1-January 1, 2009

Volume 15. No 1: Theme: Travel, Wish you were here. The Raven Chronicles wants to hear your travel stories, real and imagined. Fiction, poetry, translations, criticism, poetics, food & culture, reviews.

Deadlines: April 1-July 1, 2009. There will be a cash competition for this issue. Stay tuned for details.

We are always looking for work that fits in these categories (ongoing features in each issue):

Spoken Word; Poetics (essays or interviews); Memorials;
Literary Recipes; Odes to Persons, Places & Things;
Mapping the Terrain/Beyond Borders (essays and translations);
Cultural Geography; Food & Culture;
The Northwest; Nature Writing; Rants, Raves & Reviews.

2009 Editors:
Poetry, Elizabeth Myhr
Fiction: Kathleen Alcala
Non-Fiction: Anna Balint
Food & Culture: Thomas Hubbard
Reviews: Stephanie Lawyer

Call for Submissions: New American Press (chapbook contest)

New American Press is pleased to announce its fall/winter chapbook contest.

Winner receives $250 and 25 copies. Final judge is Crab Orchard Review editor and award-winning poet Allison Joseph. Deadline is January 1, 2009.

To submit, send 20-30 pages of your best writing (poetry or prose) to:

New American Press Chapbook Contest
2707 Trenton Way
Fort Collins, CO 80526

Please include $12 reading fee and SASE for contest results. The
committee reads blind, so restrict your name and other contact
information to a separate cover sheet only.

For further information, please visit http://www.newamericanpress.com.

Best,
David Bowen
Editor/Publisher

newamericanpress@gmail.com

Call for Submissions: Big Bridge

HTTP://BIGBRIDGE.ORG

The online poetry journal Big Bridge seeks essays, poems, visual art, performance documentation, eco-criticism, creative writing pedagogy, and other material that addresses or explores issues generated by conversations initiated last summer over Slow Poetry. Arguments, moreover, that offer critical perspectives on Slow Poetry are welcome.

Since Slow Poetry is strictly a descriptive platform, feel free to contribute new ideas, arguments, and issues that may be useful for the ongoing development of a slow poetics. Some critical reflections on Slow Poetry are available at http://possumego.blogspot.com.

Send work that explores definitions, theories, and practices of Slow Poetry to Big Bridge contributing editor Dale Smith (dmsmith@mail.utexas.edu) in word or pdf files by December 31, 2008.

Reading: Untitled [Intersection] (November 21)

MICKEY OCONNOR reading

BETH GRACZYK dance

ANGELINA BALDOZ trumpet

NICO VASSILAKIS reading

+ + +

UNTITLED [INTERSECTION]
Friday 21 November 2008, 7p
at
Phinney Neighborhood Center in Greenwood
6532 Phinney Ave. N

Call for submissions: CRATE

CRATE the magazine of the MFA department of UCR is sending out a call for submissions of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Maximum 5 poems or 8,000 words depending on the medium. For more information please see the attached link.

Please enclose a SASE a cover letter with a brief bio. All submissions should be 12 pt font, double spaced (poetry excepted) with the author's name on every page. More information can be found at http://crate.ucr.edu/

CRATE will close to submissions MARCH 1, 2009

Sincerely,
Adam Gallari
Editor-in-Chief
CRATE
adam.gallari@email.ucr.edu