Seattle’s own A.K. “Mimi” Allin, the Poetess at Green Lake, is curating another amazing poetry event this Thursday, June 11, in the Seattle Art Museum’s downtown galleries. What will you see this time around? How does 100 poets on escalators, in galleries, atop balconies, draped over the grand staircase whispering poems and creating impasses sound? To me it sounds like Mimi’s doing her magic again.

When: June 11, 8-9 p.m.
Where: Seattle Art Museum
Why: Because you love poetry, you love Mimi, and it’s FREE (with museum admission)

You can learn more about the event here. To find out more about Mimi’s work and words, visit her site.

Thanks –

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Check out Declaration’s Super-Short Summer Serial Challenge (S4C), which will be rocking through the month of July. I’ll be posting my story here during the month. Keep and eye out and write one of your own.

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What? Who?

Here’s more.

ReadWritePoem’s prompt #71 asks to dig on a solid first line, either yours or someone else’s, in order to generate some new work. I offer the following, which is courtesy of me whyfe:

“Can you start early? I have to leave for the funeral soon.”

Granted, that’s two lines, but still it leads to one thought. Of course, she’d originally written it as:

“Can you start early, I have to leave for the funeral soon?”

Which is probably closer to how it would read if you could read words in the moment they flung from a mouth.

This all leads to an April project, in honor what some call “National Poetry Month”. Taking lines that Courtney (the whyfe in question) wrote out this morning, starting with the above “Can you start early…”, I’ll be writing and posting a new short piece every day through the month.

The rules:

1. Must have something new every day
2. Pieces must be at least 30 words (but not necessarily 30 lines)
3. I can deviate from the original line itself, as long as it serves as a prompt for what becomes the final piece.

Feel free to play along, offer feedback, and submit your own work. After all – when a month dedicated to poetry begins with a day dedicated to fools, what could be better than a little foolish work?

I’m delighted to have a small poem featured in the March issue of 4&20 Poetry, a wonderful online journal that Declaration Editing puts out each month to celebrate the smallest of verse. They’ll also be featuring another poem of mine as an upcoming “4&20 of the week” on their blog.

Have a good quick read.

In between family life, including the duties of raising a six-month old, Portland’s Gabe Barber is keeping one heck of a blog over at Reading Local.

If you’re not familiar yet, do yourself a favor and check out the man’s ongoing rundown of all things literary. The fact that he’s doing it in a place like Portland, a town teeming with writers, bookstores, author visits, workshops, readings and gatherings of the word, makes it that much more impressive. He has a great passion for reading, talking writing, and being part of the community, all of which comes through on his site.

Check readinglocal.com the next time you head out to soak up some good words.

It’s worth mentioning that we’re heading to the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, not as a political statement, but mostly as a historical one. I don’t have much else to say about it (actually I do, but since all writing is political, whether it is or isn’t, I’ll let the idea of writing be my statement, and invite you to read between the lines) – and don’t have all that much to say about the fact that public interest, in the U.S. at least, seems to have tapered, what with so many minds turned to all things economic (which, when you think about it, is tied into the costliness of the Iraq intrusion anyway…).

This post is about art and story. After all, the war may end in 2010, but it will last in our consciousness for years afterwards, especially as it begins to inform the work of writers, poets and filmmakers, the way Vietnam informed and continues to inform the work of people like Tim O’Brien, Bruce Weigl and Oliver Stone, to name a well entrenched few.

With this notion I openly pose the questions, “Where are the stories of this war, and when will they find us?” Of course, one need only linger in the halls of VA offices, stand in line outside of job placement agencies, talk to a recent returnee on the streets, or saddle up next to a local guardsman or woman in the nearest watering hole or church to hear, see and learn. Our vets are everywhere, but if you’re anything like me, you’re wondering where you can find their stories, and when will they become readily accessible for public consumption, conversation and discourse.

Which leads me to the true nature of this post: Brian Turner. Poet. Graduate of the University of Oregon’s MFA program. Soldier. In 2005, Turner’s first full-length collection, Here, Bullet won critical acclaim from places like the New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, the New Yorker, Salon Magazine and The Military Review. His work was featured all over the place, and the book continues to serve as a beautiful and gritty first-hand account of a soldier’s life in a war zone. (Turner also spent time in Bosnia during the U.S.’s intervention.)

This week, as we roll and blow into the war’s sixth year, we’ll be featuring a selection of poems from Here, Bullet (Tuesday on the Guest Writer page) as well as an interview with Brian (Friday, Interviews). Brian kindly gave his permission to feature the work and share some good words about a lot more than writing.

Keep an eye out.

Dave

The good folks at Meow Poetry are looking for poems about cats, involving cats, or that are cat-like in their nature, for a poetry anthology to be published in Fall 2009. Take the cat theme as far and wide as you want – they’ll consider poems about Catwoman and the Broadway musical Cats if that’s where the words go.

All genre of poetry will be considered from haiku to sonnets to limericks to free verse.

Here are some specs:

Poems should be 50 lines or less. Original, unpublished work is preferred. Previously-published exceptional work will be considered. Include full citation. No reader or submission fees. No remuneration for accepted work. A portion of any profits will be donated to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the first humane society to be established in North America — an excellent organization dedicated to the care of cats, dogs and all non-human friends.

How/where to submit:

Email poems and a brief three- to five-sentence bio to meow.poetry@yahoo.com . Submissions can be either in the body of the email or as an attached Word.doc. Email subject line should read: Meow Submission: Your Name.

Deadline: July 1, 2009

Poets will receive emails of acceptance / rejection and notification when the published book is available.

Get to it.

One of the Pacific Northwest’s leading voices, Paulann Petersen, will be sharing her love for poetry this Saturday, March 14th, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Multnomah County Central Library, with a free workshop is entitled ANYONE’S DOMAIN: A BASIC POETRY WRITING WORKSHOP.

While it’s listed as a workshop for beginning writers, the two-hour gathering will be devoted to creating and generating poems, and is open to anyone who wants to write in a supportive, congenial group.

From Paulann: “Poetry is not the domain of just a few. It’s as natural and accessible as heartbeat and breath. Writing poetry requires nothing more than a love of words and a willingness to let your pen move across a page, following language wherever it takes you.”

Read more, and register here.

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The next installment of Back Fence PDX, Portland’s righteous, riotous and raucous storytelling event is set for this Wednesday, Feb 18th, at the Mission Theater on NW 16th. Doors open at 6 and the show starts at 7.

Be there and listen in as local luminaries Vanessa Veselka, Ezra Caraeff, Jeff Baker, Jordi Barnes, Anis Mojgani, Heather Strang and Brad Fortier wax and wane on “The Moment After”, the evening’s theme. 

Not yet familiar with Back Fence? Check ‘em out. 

Need tickets? Go here. 

See you then.