Remember Pie & Scones from 6:30-7:00. Readings start at 7:00

Bios

Lola E. Peters lives in West Seattle where she writes essays, poems, and short stories that reflect her commitment to justice. She has published two collections of poems and a book of essays. She serves as Editor-at-Large for the SouthSeattleEmerald.com and as a freelance OpEd columnist for Crosscut.com.

 Christopher J. Jarmick was once an L.A. based TV producer/screenwriter. He’s curated/hosted monthly poetry readings and special events since 2001.  In 2016, he became the owner of BookTree, Kirkland, Washington’s only new and gently-used independentookstore. http://www.booktreekirkland.com/  His latest poetry collection, Not Aloud (2015) is from MoonPath Press.

Mary Eliza Crane resides in the Cascade foothills. A regular feature throughout Puget Sound, she has read her poetry from Woodstock to L.A.  She has two poetry volumes published by Gazoobi Tales, as well as work in several poetry anthologies and print journals. Mary is co-curator and co-host of Duvall Poetry.

 John Olson’s work in prose, poetry, and prose poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including Echo Regime, Dada Budapest, Larynx Galaxy, and Backscatter: New and Selected Poems. He has also authored four novels, including Souls of Wind (shortlisted for a Believer Magazine Book Award in 2008), The Seeing Machine, The Nothing That Is, and In Advance of the Broken Justy. A new collection of prose poetry titled Weave of the Dream King is forthcoming in 2020 from Black Widow Press.

David Fewster is a poet, humorist and musician living in Tacoma. His current book is "The Seattle-Tacoma Express: Selected Prose and Poetry 1989-2016" (Couth Buzzard Press, 2016.) Or, as he refers to it, "My posthumous collection before I actually die." His previous book, "Diary of a Homeless Alcoholic Suicidal Maniac & Other Picture Postcards" was paid for by an Artists Initiative Project Grant from the Tacoma Arts Commission in 2003.

Tobin Marsh lives in South Seattle with wife, son, house and a contracting business. He complains about a heavy workload, long hours, and not spending more time in wild places with his son. He complains about not having time to write. He’s working on trying to remember to complain less.

Sierra Golden worked as a commercial fisherman in Southeast Alaska for nearly a decade. Her book The Slow Art was a finalist for the 2019 Washington State Book Award. She now works in nonprofit communications in Seattle.

 Paul E Nelson founded SPLAB (Seattle Poetics LAB) in 1993 & the Cascadia Poetry Festival in 2012, Books: American Sentences, A Time Before Slaughter, American Prophets (Interviews 1994-2012.) 

 Carrie Gilstrap-Nettle writes in many forms, but poetry is the most natural to her. Carrie teaches wreading (reading/writing) to students 2 – 102. She focuses on students with learning disabilities and actively champions for disability education, financial opportunities and protections. Carrie also translates nerd/geek. She's won chapbook contests, published, but dislikes taking time away from writing to play the publishing game.

Jason Kirk reads, writes, edits, hungers, thirsts, strives, plays, performs, eats, drinks, sleeps, and breathes in Seattle.

 For thirty years Pamela Hobart Carter taught science, preschool, and a few other things. Now she teaches on the side, and writes poems, plays, fiction, and non-fiction. Her plays have been read or produced in Seattle (her home), Montreal (her childhood home) and Fort Worth (where she has only visited).  

Lew Jones: I am an English Major and a professional musician who has always written poetry. A song is a poem put to music by definition and much of my poetry is lyrical and comes from writing music and lyrics. I have performed on stage with Ray Manzerak and Michael McClure and Michael C. Ford (Jim Morrison's college room mate) Other poets I like are Dylan Thomas, Shelley, Edna Saint Vincent Millay, W.B Yeats, ee cummings, Auden, Sylvia Beach and Emily Dickenson. I have published some of my works: 100 Poems 4 Poets Vantage Press NYC, Hour of The Poet/Thoughts Upon The Lake Of Time Goldfish Publishing Seattle, The Falling Light of Inspiration Poems Beyond Amazon Publishing. My poems are from moments where I find literature is deeper than song, possibly epic and without commercial restraint.  "The falling light of inspiration beckons a woven lapidary, a vision beyond hauteur refrain, Let us place a chatelaine round these poems of ferrum."-Lewton Jones 2020

 A memoirist and novelist who dabbles in poetry, Arleen Williams explores family dynamics and cross-cultural friendships. When not putting pen to paper, Arleen teaches English as a Second Language at South Seattle College where she has worked with immigrants and refugees for three decades. 

Robert Lashley is a Jack Straw Fellow, Artist Trust Fellow, and nominee for a Stranger Genius Award. His books have been The Homeboy Songs, Up South( Small Doggies Press), and The Green River Valley( Upcoming from Blue Cactus Press, 2021). 

Short Bios

Leopoldo Seguel has hosted monthly readings at PoetryBridge at C&P Coffee in West Seattle for ten years featuring poets, storytellers and a community mic. His creative interest includes poetry, piano, collages, mobiles, small sculptures and co-creating artistic spaces. Leopoldo embraces art as a creative gateway to building robust and healthy communities.

Judy Pigott - I’m a mom, grandmother, author, activist, educator, and community member. Sometimes, for periods of time I don’t understand, I’ve written poems. Those periods seem to come and go. I’ve lived in nine cities and three countries. West Seattle is home. 

Tito Titus: Empty Bowl Press published I can still smile like Errol Flynn by Tito Titus in 2015. Many of the poems in that book were first performed at C&P Coffee as a part of this Poetrybridge series. His new poem compilation will be called So Far, So Good.     

Katherine Grace Bond writes to seek new conversations about the rifts in our psyches and culture. She is the author of The Summer of No Regrets (Sourcebooks) and six other books of poetry and prose. Katherine offers an intensive year-long coaching program to novelists, memoirists and poets.

Theresa McCormick, West Seattle writer, artist, and retired professor of multicultural education, has published a memoir, A Far Cry From Here -- Growing Up and Out of Fundamentalism and exhibited her art in a variety of venues. Currently, she is working on a book, I Was There When ... (combines history and memoir).     

Michael Hickey received a BA in creative writing from the University of Arizona, 1987, and an MFA from the University of Washington, 1992. He has volunteered as a poetry instructor in prisons, juvenile detention centers, and he is a tenured writing instructor at South Seattle College where he started teaching in 1994. n. He was elected as Seattle's eighth "Poet Populist" in 2009 and has written several books including A Dress Walked by with a Woman Inside.      

Benjamin Schmitt is the author of three books, most recently Soundtrack to a Fleeting Masculinity. His poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, Hobart, Worcester Review, Columbia Review, Roanoke Review, and elsewhere. A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he has also written articles for The Seattle Times and At The Inkwell. He lives in Seattle with his wife and children.    

Kerry Cox is a Seattle poet who spent 7 years in New Orleans writing and performing poetry. Her poems have been published in Journeys, online whispers & [Shouts], origami condom, On the Cusp and received Honorable Mention in Anthology magazine's annual poetry contest. An aspiring poetry therapist, she facilitates workshops and writing groups using poetry as a healing tool.        

John Burgess grew up in upstate New York, worked on a survey crew in Montana, taught English in Japan, and since 1985 has lived and worked in Seattle. He has five books of poetry, some with maps and drawings, from Ravenna Press, most recently 1977, a punk history.          

Cheryl Latif: After attending a now defunct poetry convention in Seattle in 2000, Cheryl left San Diego for the Pacific Northwest, arriving in 2001. Her poems have been seen in various public arts exhibits and published in journals and anthologies. A copywriter by trade, she relishes fooling with words.     

Scot Bastian, a retired scientist, haunting local Seattle stages and podiums for twenty years, has published a collection of short plays, “Do Ya Think: Science, Science Fiction and Skepticism” available from Amazon. He also published a thesis entitled “Concerted Stimulation of Transcription by the Hormone Responsive Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus Transcriptional Enhancer and Heterologous Promoter Elements.” But, no one in their right mind would want to read that.    For the last two decades

Roberto Ascalon has taught poetry across Seattle. His poem “The Fire This Time, or, How Come Some Brown Boys Get Blazed Right Before Class And Other Questions Without Marks” won the 2013 Rattle Poetry Prize and a Pushcart nomination. He currently serves as the acting station chief for the Greater Seattle Bureau of Fearless Ideas at Yesler Terrace.  

Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist and writer in Seattle. Her book, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and won the Bisexual Book Award. She co-hosts Word Chaser at Cafe Racer, a new Seattle reading series.     

Koon Woon is all about home. Home for his three-dimensional body and home for his four-dimensional poetry. For him, home is where he likes to be and they are glad he is there. An itinerant from China originally, Koon finds acceptance of his visions and acceptance of his poetic works, right now, right here, with all you folks at the C & P.   

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Lyn Coffin’s latest book, Three Centuries: Three Poets,(her translations of 3 Georgian poets)  was published by Adelaide Books (New York) in October.

She is currently working on a take off of Gogol’s Inspector General. This Green Life, her new and collected poems, was published in Spanish by Pregunta Ediciones (Spain). 

Lyn recently read at the New York Poetry Festival, (to a total of 8 people) and the Toluca and Mexico City International Poetry Festivals.

One of her short fictions was in Best American Short Stories, edited by Joyce Carol Oates (in the last century). She has had 34 books published, by Abattoir Editions, Ithaca House, and many others and has won a few grants and many awards.

See her Poems

Matt Trease is an artist and astrologer living on the Duwamish ancestral homeland in south Seattle, WA, where he serves on the board of the Seattle Poetics Lab (SPLAB), co-curates the Margin Shift reading series, and teaches poetry at Hugo House.

His poems have recently appeared in small po[r]tions, WordLitZine, Phoebe, Fact-Simile, Hotel Amerika, and Juked (among others), and in the anthologies, Shake the Tree Vol 3 (Brightly Press, 2018) and Make It True Meets Medusario (Pleasure Boat Studios, 2019).

He is the author of the chapbook Later Heaven: Production Cycles (busylittle1way designs, 2013).

See his Poems

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Sherri Levine is the author of In These Voices (Poetry Box 2018). She is the recipient of the Lois Cranston Poetry Prize and winner of Poet’s First Choice in the Oregon Poetry Association Contest Fall, 2018.

Her poetry has recently appeared in  the Timberline Review, CALYX, Driftwood Press, Verseweavers, Worcester Review, and the Sun Magazine. 

She lives in Portland, OR where she teaches English at colleges and universities. She hosts Head for the Hills! monthly Poetry Open Mic.

She escaped the harsh weather of upstate New York and has ever since been soaking in the Oregon rain.

See Poems

Dale Champlin, after many years as a graphic designer and artist, now devotes most of her time to writing poetry. She is the editor the Verseweavers poetry collections. and current director of Conversations With Writers, a monthly presentation by accomplished writers leading spirited discussions about the craft of writing.

Dale has published in VoiceCatcher, North Coast Squid, Willawaw Journal, Mojave River Press, The Voices Project and other publications. During the month of January, 2019

She wrote a poem a day as part of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project. Dale has written two chapbooks, Twisted Furniture, and Doggerel, Twelve Dogs and One Cat. 

See Poems

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T. Clear - A co-founder of Floating Bridge Press, T. Clear’s poetry has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, most recently in Bracken, Entropy, Raven Chronicles, Sheila-Na-Gig, The Red Earth Review and Iron Horse Literary Review. 

Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Award and Independent Best American Poetry Award.

She is a lifelong resident of Seattle and facilitates the Easy Speak Seattle critique group Re/Write.

In September of 2020, she and Duvall poet Mary Crane will host Poets at Carrowholly, a 5-day poetry workshop in the West of Ireland, taught by Irish poets Séan Lysaght and Nessa O’Mahony.

See Poems

Paul Nelson founded SPLAB (Seattle Poetics LAB), the Cascadia Poetry Festival, produced hundreds of poetry events and 600+ interviews.

Books include American Prophets (interviews) American Sentences and A Time Before Slaughter.

 Co-Editor of two anthologies, he’s engaged in a 20 year bioregional cultural investigation of Cascadia. 

See Poems

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Susan Rich is the author of Cloud Pharmacy (White Pine Press, 2014).

She teaches at Highline College and lives in Seattle, Washington.

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Katy E. Ellis grew up in, under fir trees and high-voltage power lines, Renton, Washington.

She is the author of three chapbooks: Night Watch—winner of the 2017 Floating Bridge Press chapbook competition—Urban Animal Expeditions and Gravity (a single poem), which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Her poetry appears in a number of literary journals including MAYDAY Magazine, Calyx, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and the Canadian journals PRISM International, Grain and Fiddlehead.  Her fiction has appeared in Burnside Review and won Third Place in the Glimmer Train super-short fiction contest.

She has been awarded grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture and Artist Trust/Centrum.

Click to read Poem.

Jed Myersgrew up in Philadelphia and studied poetry at Tufts University. He then studied medicine at Case Western Reserve, and came to the Northwest to train in psychiatry at the University of Washington. He maintains a therapy practice in Seattle and teaches at UW.

 While reading and writing poems all along, Jed only began seeking publication after the events of September 11th, 2001. He also became involved in Seattle’s open-mic community, hosting NorthEndForum for 9 years until it was absorbed into Easy Speak Seattle. 

 Jed’s first full-length collection, Watching the Perseids, won the Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award. His recent collection, The Marriage of Space and Time, is from MoonPath Press. He’s authored four chapbooks, including Dark’s Channels, chosen by Tyehimba Jess for the IronHorse Literary ReviewChapbook Award, and Love’s Test, winner of the Grayson Books Chapbook Competition. Recent recognitions include the Prime Number Magazine Award, TheSoutheast Review’s Gearhart Prize, and The Tishman Review’sEdna St. Vincent Millay Prize.Recent poems have appeared in Rattle, Poetry Northwest, Southern Poetry Review, Solstice,Terrain.org, and elsewhere. Two essays on poetry and medicine have appeared in JAMA.Jed is Poetry Editor for the journal Bracken.

Click to read Jed’s poems.

Erika Michaelis an art historian and poet who has participated in workshops with Carolyn Forché, Thomas Lux, Linda Gregerson, Laure-Anne Bosselaar,  Washington Poets’ Association , Drash: Northwest Mosaic, Mizmor l’David Anthology, Bracken Magazine, The Winter Anthology, The Institute for Advanced Study Letter,Belletrist Magazine, and elsewhere.

Click to read Erika’s poem.

Elizabeth Coopermanis co-editor (with David Shields) of the anthology Life Is Short—Art is Shorter (Hawthorne Books, 2014) and co-author with Thomas Walton ofThe Last Mosaic, a poetic guidebook to Rome.

Her work has appeared in Writer's Chronicle, Seattle Review, 1913: A Journal of Forms, and other journals. 

She's attended the Ragdale Foundation Residency, as well as 360 Xochi Quetzal Residency Program in Chapala, Mexico as an artist-in-residence.

Elizabeth is Art Director at PageBoy Magazine, and teaches sporadically as an adjunct professor in the University of Washington’s English Department.

Click to read a poem.

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Elizabeth Myhr is a poet, editor and publisher. She holds a BA from the Evergreen State College and an MFA from Seattle Pacific University. She has served as artist-in-residence at Centrum in Port Townsend, Washington, and is a Milotte Foundation scholar for her work promoting nature poetry devoted to the health of the earth.

Her work has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

 In 2010 Myhr co-founded Calypso Editions, a virtual, cooperative press that specializes in literature in translation and emerging writers.

Her poetry has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry International, elephant journal,and other journals.   Elizabeth Myhr lives and works in Seattle.

Click Here to see a couple of poems Beth plans on reading. Scroll to bottom of page.

Raul Sanchez

Raúl’s umbilical cord is still buried in Mexico. Since his retirement he has been enjoying his new occupation as a volunteer for PONGO Teen Writing in the Juvenile Detention Center as well as teacher and mentor for (WITS), Writers In The Schools program organized through Seattle Arts and Lectures and the Jack Straw Cultural Center educational project teaching Poetry in Spanish at Denny International Middle School.

He had a blast during his tenure as the Inaugural Poet in residence for the City of Burien 2018-2019

Click Here to see a couple of Poem’s Raul plans on reading.

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Erika Brumett
Erika’s words appear in numerous publications, including North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and Five Points.

She is the winner of the RHINO 2018 Editor's Prize. Erika’s novel, Scrap Metal Sky, was published in 2016 by Shape&Nature, and her chapbook, bonehouse, was recently released from Green Linden Press. 

Several poems Erika plans on reading

Nadine Antoinette Maestasis a poet's poet and believes that the empire of the sentence is an extremely oppressive totalitarian regime. She prefers the company of poems so much that she would rather read a bad poem than a good novel, but when she is not doing poetry, Nadine loves mountain biking and trail running in dangerous and remote places in the Northwest.

She teaches Creative Writing and Literature in San Francisco and New Hampshire, has facilitated writing workshops through Youthspeaks and has helped to pioneer poetry workshops in several public schools in California and Michigan. Nadine holds an M.F.A. from University of Michigan’s Hellen Zell Writer’s Program where she was awarded the Faraar award for playwriting. Her hybrid poem play “Hellen on Wheels: a Play of Rhyme and Reason” was performed at California College of the Arts.

She is the co-author with Karen Weiser of “Beneath the Bright Discus” (Potes & Poets Press, 2000), and is a co-editor for the poetry anthologyMake It True: Poetry from Cascadia. You can find her poems published in Pageboy Magazine, Lyric &, The Germ, Poor Mojo’s Almana(k), Really Serious Literature, andforthcomingin Make It True Meets Medusario. Her dissertation, Calling out the State: Postmodern American Anthropoetics landed her a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. 

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Judith Roche has won two American Book Awards and has published four collections of poetry. All Fire All Waterfrom Black Heron Press is the most recent.

She has taught at all levels from elementary to university. She has poems installed in several Seattle area public art installations and is widely published in magazines and journals.

She is a Fellow in the Black Earth Institute, an organization dedicated to social justice, environmental issues and spiritual awareness and teaches at Hugo House.  

Several Poems she plans on reading

Peter Munro is a fisheries scientist who works in the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands.  When he is not at sea, his overlords chain him to a computer in Seattle and force him to estimate parameters by the maximum likelihood method.  

Munro’s poems have been published in such journals as Poetry, the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Iowa Review, and the Birmingham Poetry Review.  

Munro is a founding curator of the open mike, Easy Speak, (www.easyspeakseattle.com). Somehow, Munro bamboozled the Jack Straw Writers Program to accept him for a year in 2013 (or 2014, he can’t quite remember).  

Munro has served as the Poet Laureate, Pro Tem, of Kenmore Lanes from 1987 through the present though he bowls quite poorly.  The management of Kenmore Lanes, to this day, remain unaware of having awarded him this great honor.  Listen to more poems at www.munropoetry.com.

Several Poems he plans on reading 

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Shin Yu Pai is the author of AUX ARCS (La Alameda, 2013), Adamantine (White Pine, 2010), Sightings (1913 Press, 2007), and several other books. ENSO —a twenty-year survey of her work in poetry, book arts, visual and public art — is forthcoming from Entre Rios Books in Fall 2019.

She has been an artist in residence for Pacific Science Center, Seattle Art Museum, Jack Straw Cultural Center, and Town Hall Seattle. A former Stranger Genius Nominee in Literature, Shin Yu served from 2015 to 2017 as the fourth Poet Laureate of The City of Redmond.

She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and attended the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute.

See some poems she plans on reading

Jazno Francoeur is a multi-disciplined writer and artist, having published his first volume of poetry, “Fountain Street,” in 2000.  

He worked as a traditional Disney animator from 1992 until 2004, and for the last number of years has been the program director for DigiPen’s BFA programs in Redmond, Spain, and Singapore.  

Jazno is an exhibiting photographer and former recording artist with the music ensemble, “mercymachine.”  
He is currently editing his second volume of formal verse, a collection of sonnets, villanelles, sestinas, and blank verse, entitled “Hallucinations”.  

See some poems he plans on reading

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Hamish Todd started two readings in the early 90s: Primarily Prose at the Ditto Tavern, which ran for a little more than a year;  Primarily Poetry, which ran out of the Crocodile Cafe in Belltown.  

 From 1998 he published The Vashon-Maury Island Ticket, which had a distribution of 10,000 by the third year of operation.  He has a published Behind Bars, a memoir of his 20 years as a bartender; No God to Guide Us is a collection of short prose pieces and poetry.

 A new book, he's shopping around is called, "I Gotta Bone That Digs Things Fine."

Click Here to read a couple of poems Hamish plans to read.

David Fewsteris a poet, humorist and musician living in Tacoma. His current book is "The Seattle-Tacoma Express: Selected Prose and Poetry 1989-2016" (Couth Buzzard Press, 2016.) Or, as he refers to it, "My posthumous collection before I actually die."

His previous book, "Diary of a Homeless Alcoholic Suicidal Maniac & Other Picture Postcards" was paid for by an Artists Initiative Project Grant from the Tacoma Arts Commission in 2003.

Click Here to read a couple of poems David plans to read.

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Claudia Castro Luna is Washington’s State Poet Laureate (2018 – 2020) and served as Seattle’s inaugural Civic Poet (2015-2017).

She is the author the collection Killing Marías (Two Sylvias Press) finalist for the WA State Book Award 2018, and the chapbook This City (Floating Bridge Press).

Born in El Salvador she came to the United States in 1981. She has an MA in Urban Planning, a teaching certificate and an MFA in Poetry.

Her non-fiction has most recently appeared in the anthology This is the Place (Seal Press) Living in English and Spanish,

Claudia writes and teaches in Seattle where she gardens and keeps chickens with her husband and their three children.

See Featured Poems for a poem she plans on reading.

Shankar Narayan explores identity, power, mythology, and technology in a world where the body is flung across borders yet possesses unrivaled power to transcend them.

Shankar is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, winner of the 2017 Flyway Sweet Corn Poetry Prize, and has been a fellow at Kundiman and at Hugo House.

He is a 4Culture grant recipient for Claiming Space, a project to lift the voices of writers of color, and his chapbook, Postcards From the New World, won the Paper Nautilus Debut Series chapbook prize.

Shankar draws strength from his global upbringing and from his work as a civil rights attorney for the ACLU. In Seattle, he awakens to the wonders of Cascadia every day, but his heart yearns east to his other hometown, Delhi. 

Connect with him at shankarnarayan.net.

See Featured Poems for a poem he will read.

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Brandon Pitts is the author of “In the Company of Crows” (Mosaic Press, 2017). A prominent figure in the Ontario and US Pacific Northwest poetry scenes, Brandon has been packing houses with his dynamic readings in multiple cities and countries.  

His work has been widely anthologized. In 2011 he was inducted into the prestigious Diaspora Dialogues as an "Emerging Voice" for fiction. He followed this with his novel, “Puzzle of Murders” (2011) and then a poetry collection, “Pressure to Sing” (2012) and the production of three plays.

His second collection, “Tender in the Age of Fury,” was published by Mosaic Press to wide critical praise and is already in its third printing.

Click Here to read a poem.

A 2016 Jack Straw Fellow, Artist Trust Fellow, and nominee for a Stranger Genius Award, Robert Lashley has had poems published in such journals as Feminete, Seattle Review of Books, NAILED, Gramma, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, and The Cascadia Review.

His work was also featured in Many Trails to the Summit , an anthology of Northwest form and lyric poetry, and It Was Written, an anthology of poetry inspired by hip hop.

His full-length books include THE HOMEBOY SONGS (Small Doggies Press, 2014) and UP SOUTH (Small Doggies Press, 2017).

Click Here to read a poem.

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Benjamin Schmitt is the Best Book Award and Pushcart nominated author of three books, most recently Soundtrack to a Fleeting Masculinity (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, Fall 2018).

His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the Antioch Review, Hobart, Worcester Review, Columbia Review,Roanoke Review, and elsewhere.

A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he has also written articles for The Seattle Times and At The Inkwell. 

He lives in Seattle with his wife and daughter. 

See selected poems by Benjamin

Jason Kirk is the author of A Fabulous Hag in Purple on the Moor, The Other Whites in South Africa, and Reverb, and the composer of "The Mirror of Simple Souls" with poet Anne Carson.

His most recent work appears in WA129 (Sage Hill Press) and Footsteps: Poems for Homeless Veterans (Cave Moon Press).

See selected poems by Jason

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Tobin Marsh is a father and husband living the last 18 years in Rainier Valley and Beacon Hill. Raised in Japan, Connecticut and Seattle, Tobin has traveled widely and resided for 6 years in Mexico and Nicaragua. 

 He earned a Master’s in Theology from Gonzaga. Much of his work has been in homeless services, youth development, human rights, and such. Tobin has also worked in stone masonry and house renovation and is currently owner/operator of Seattle Roof Decks. 

Tobin finds personal freedom in long ventures through forests, mountains and deserts. 

Tobin’s poems have been published in Sojourners Magazine, Soundings, Friends Journal, NW Poetry Connection, and Poetry on the Buses. Some of his Spanish language poems have been published in La Letralia andVox Populí.

Read poems Tobin intends to read in October

When Richard Wells was five years old, he desperately wanted to read. His parents, concerned that he would get too far ahead of his peers, told him that when he started school he would know how to read.  

After the first day of school, Richard came home, grabbed a book, plopped into a chair, opened said book, and burst into tears.  

When asked why he was crying, sobbed, “You said when I went to school I’d know how to read…!”  

 A few years later, at the age of 7, after his first brush with the grim reaper, he sat down to write his autobiography…he hasn’t finished it yet.

Read poems Richard intends to read in October

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Prior to emigrating to live under the skies of the Pacific Northwest in 2001, Cheryl Latifwas host and curator of San Diego’s nationally known reading, Poetic Brew at the Claire de Lune.

She has served as a contest judge for the San Diego Writers Cooperative, (2002); Berkeley’s Bay Area Poets Coalition (2003); and San Diego’s African American Writers and Artists (2003).

Her poems have appeared in local, regional and national publications, including New Millennium Writings, The Comstock Review, Green Hills Literary Review as well as in anthologies ofCalifornia poets, and public art exhibitions. Her columns have run in the Bainbridge Islander and Marketing News. She is the author of two chapbooks, transformations(1999) andrain on my tongue(2000); a limited-edition handmade book of 17 new and selected poems, tears & ash, was produced in 2003. She now resides in West Seattle.

See Poems to read some of Cheryl's work.

John Burgess grew up in upstate New York, worked on a survey crew in Montana, taught English in Japan, and since 1985 has lived in Seattle where he works corporate communications for an insurance company.

Past glories include: 2006 Jack Straw writer; co-founder of the original Burning Word Festival; 2008 Words' Worth curator for the Seattle City Council; and past Board president of Richard Hugo House, Seattle’s creative writing center. He's a co-conspirator with the Band of Poets. 

Ravenna Press publishes his poetry and drawings: Punk Poems (2005), A History of Guns in the Family (2008), Graffito (2011), "by Land…" (2015) a riff on the journals of Lewis & Clark, and 1977(2018). 

See Poems to read some of John's work.

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Jonathan Shipley is a freelance writer living in West Seattle. His poetry has been included in Grilled Cheese, Spent Blossoms, and Convergence, amongst others. 

Click for Poems by Jonathan

Christina Buckmanis a 19-year resident of Seattle, and has called West Seattle her home for a year and a half. She is a UW Alum, and works in HR for the University of Washington and on the days where she isn't at her desk, you can find her on our beautiful PNW hiking trails, or climbing a mountain. She loves good Sci-Fi, maintains a healthy 'has read' list, and devotes the rest of her time to color pencil art, being a horror movie junkie and foreign film buff. She is a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend and closet poet...until now. 

Click for Poems by Christina

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Pamela Hobart Carter is a poet, playwright, teacher, and prose writer who has lived more than half her life in Seattle, Washington. She grew up in Montreal, Quebec, as a landed immigrant.

She has written 6 short books in easy English published by No Talking Dogs Press.  Carter’s work has been published in Barrow Street, The Seattle Star, The Seattle Times, Teaching Young Children, and more. Her plays have been produced and read at various Seattle venues.

See Featured Poems

Stacey Dannerof Hood River, Oregon is a CPA by day and a poet by...well, whenever she gets the time to write. She formerly lived in Seattle, where she met her co-readers tonight, Pam and Sam, at summer camp for poets at the Richard Hugo House in 2007. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, namely Skype, the three poets have continued to meet semi-regularly even after Stacey moved to Oregon.

When not crunching numbers or penning rhymes, Stacey loves spending time with her husband, two stepsons, and fluffy dog; swimming; reading; riding her electric bike; and otherwise enjoying life in the Columbia River Gorge.

See Featured Poems

Born in Venezuela, Samanthe Knight Shefferhas lived half her life along the north Atlantic and half in the Pacific Northwest.  She has read her prose and poetry, as well as exhibited her photography, at venues and galleries on both coasts.  Her undergrad degree from Wellesley was earned while also attending Wesleyan University and the Universidad de Seville.  

Ms. Sheffer has studied writing with various authors, many via the Stonecoast Writer’s Workshop in Maine and Richard Hugo House in Seattle.  Over the years she has collected salaries from Ms.Magazine, Conde Nast Publications, the Audubon and the MS Societies and Goodwill Industries, among other entities, with a paid stint as a cycling vacation tour leader in the mix.  Her primary addictions are to jasmine tea and being out of doors.  She counts causes, culture, day trips, dancing, ocean swimming, trees and other green growing things, gorgeous food, music parties, deep connections and animal affection among her (too) numerous passions. 

See Featured Poems

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Christopher J. Jarmick is a Seattle Area writer and a former Los Angeles TV producer who has curated and hosted monthly poetry readings and special events since 2001.  In November of 2016, he became the owner of BookTree, Kirkland, Washington’s only new and gently-used independent bookstore http://www.booktreekirkland.com/ . Born and raised back East in New Jersey and New York, he lived in Los Angeles for about 19 years before making Seattle his home in 1994 because it was much better place to raise his 3 daughters.  His writings and poetry have been published in several literary presses, newspapers, magazines and online.  His newest collection of poetry, Not Aloud was published in 2015 by MoonPath Press; other books include IGNITION: Poem Starters, Septolets, Statements and Double Dog Dares (2010), The Glass Cocoon – a mystery thriller he cowrote with Serena F. Holder, & Poems for the Middle Class (out of print).  When he has time he still updates his POETRYisEverything blog  (google it as one word).   His poetry, articles, reviews and interviews have appeared in a wide variety of online and print journals, magazines, newspapers and anthologies. 

Born on the East Coast he migrated to Los Angles in 1975 to co-write and contribute to several screenplays and worked in several capacities including editor, producer, writer and director at PBS, Paramount and Fox contributing to award winning documentaries and television shows and creating segments for programs like Hard Copy and Entertainment Tonight.  He relocated to Seattle in 1994 and co-produced a radio talk show and then became a Financial Advisor at Morgan Stanley (later Waddell and Reed) before freelancing as a consultant and technical writer. Then he decided to open a bookstore!  He now lives in Kirkland, Washington.

Read some of Chris's poems.

Mary Eliza Crane is a Pacific Northwest poet who has lived in the Cascade foothills for the past three decades. A regular feature at poetry venues throughout the Puget Sound region, she has read poetry from Woodstock to LA.  Mary has two volumes of poetryWhat I Can Hold In My Hands (2009) and At First Light (2011), both published by Gazoobi Tales Publishing. Her work has also appeared in poetry journals including Raven Chronicles, The Cartier Street Review, Tuesday Poems, Pudding Magazine, Quill and Parchment,The Far Field, Avocet, and several anthologies, including LitFUSE @ 10 Anthology, and most recently,WA 129 Poets of Washington, selected by former state poet laureate Tod Marshall.

Read some of Mary's poems

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Matt Briggs is the author of eight works of fiction including The Remains of River Names and Virility Rituals of North American Teenage Boys. His first novel, Shoot the Buffalo, was a finalist for the 2006 Washington State Book Award and won the 2006 American Book Award.

The Italian edition of The Remains of River Names was released last year by ad est dell’ equator (Napoli), and a new collection of prose is forthcoming from Dr. Cicero Books. His stories have appeared in The Chicago Review, Word Riot, BULL, Opium Magazine, ZYZYYVA, and elsewhere.

He’s online at: http://www.suburgian.com .He lives in Des Moines, WA.

Click to read some of his poems

Willie Smith just learned that the rowan tree, sometimes known in England as the quickbeam, usually known in the USA as the mountain ash, is proof against the evil effects of both witches and fairies. An epiphyte rowan, growing out of a crotch in an oak, a maple or whatever, and known as a "flying rowan," is especially effective against these prowlers of the night. Willie is deeply ashamed of being human. His work celebrates this horror. 

He is the author of Oedipus Cadet (Black Heron) and Nothing Doing (Honest Publishing). His work was a staple of Andrei Codrescu’s Exquisite Corpse, and has appeared in mags such as Thieves Jargon, The American Drivel Review, Cherry Bleeds, Bewildering Stories, Litvision, The Ragged Edge, Lost and Found Times, The Raven Chronicles, Word Riot, and Zygote in my Coffee.

Click to read some of his poems.

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Paul Nelson is the founder of SPLAB (Seattle Poetics LAB) & the Cascadia Poetry Festival.

He wrote American Sentences (2015), A Time Before Slaughter (2010) and Organic in Cascadia: A Sequence of Energies (Lumme Editions, Brazil, 2013).

His 2015 interview with José Kozer was published in 2016 (Ranchos Press) as Tiovivo Tres Amigos. 

Interviewed Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, Robin Blaser, Anne Waldman, Ed Sanders, Diane di Prima, Nate Mackey, George Bowering, Brenda Hillman, among others 

Paul is engaged in a 20 year bioregional cultural investigation of Cascadia, including the festival, a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course - Innovative Cascadia Poetry), interviews with Cascadia poets indigenous elders and activists, and the anthology Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia. Paul is co-editor of that anthology as well as 56 Days of August the poetry postcard anthology and writes an American Sentence daily. 

CLICK HERE for a couple of Paul's poems

John Olson is the author of numerous books of poetry, novels, and essays.

Dada Budapest, his most recent collection of prose poetry, was published in June, 2017. Other collections include Larynx Galaxy (2012) and Backscatter: New and Selected Poetry (2010).

Olson’s first novel, Souls of Wind, about the exploits of poet Arthur Rimbaud in the American West, was shortlisted for a Believer Book Award. Other novels include In Advance of the Broken Justy, The Seeing Machine, and The Nothing That Is.

Olson received the genius award for literature in 2004 from Seattle’s popular weekly The Stranger, and was one of eight finalists for Washington State’s Arts Innovator Award in 2012. 

CLICK HERE for a couple of John's poems.

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We are celebrating our 8th year of PoetryBridge with special prices on drinks and PIE1 Yes you heard it right. PIE! If you like pie, C&P will be the place to be.

Mike Hickey will be one of our featured readers. Mike has been a PoetryBridge favorite over the years and he is bringing as the second featured reader, one of his former students, Michael Butz. 

MICHAEL G. HICKEY was born in southern Illinois and is the oldest of eleven children. He received a BA in creative writing from the University of Arizona, 1987, and an MFA from the University of Washington, 1992. He has written a poetry chapbook, IN DEFENSE OF EVE, and in 2012 published his first novel, COUNTERCLOCKWISE as well as a full-length book of poetry, A DRESS WALKED BY WITH A WOMAN INSIDE. He is a tenured writing professor at South Seattle College where he has been teaching since 1991, and he was elected as Seattle's eighth "Poet Populist" in 2009. He lives in West Seattle with his wife and two sons. His motto is to "work hard and have fun." His life goal is to take over the world 25 students at a time.  Read some of his POEMS

Michael Butz was born on Vashon Island in 1991 and has one older brother. He recently finished his AA degree at South Seattle College and is currently pursuing and Arts, Media and Culture degree at UW Tacoma. While at South Seattle, Michael studied with Mike Hickey on the ways of poetry and a fresh mountain spring of writing, reading, and enjoying poetry was successfully cracked open. While painting has always been Michael's most passioned stream of art, it is now dawning on him that the mysterious, vibrant universe of poetry cannot be left unexplored. Read some of his POEMS.

I am excited to start off the New Year with two very interesting featured readers. Judith Camann had read frequently at Community Mic and this will be her first time reading as a featured reader. Thomas Hubbard has just completed a long trek from Arkansas to Seattle and was recommended by Koon Woon. I am looking forward to hearing both of them read plus our amazing community Micers.

Judith Camann is an MFA candidate at Ashland University in Ashland Ohio.  She has just completed her thesis semester and flew to Ohio for the last time this summer  to defend it before a panel of poets. Here in Seattle she has co-founded 2 writing groups, Parents Are Writer’s Too and Overcoming Oranges. Her poetry has been featured by Eyedrum Periodically, Main Street Rag, Weasel Press, and The Wild Word among other places.

She has been an educator with Seattle Public Schools since 2001 teaching from kindergarten through the age of 21, including poetry, language arts, social skills, and career development.  She currently supports young adults here in West Seattle at South Seattle Community College and The Georgetown Campus. She holds undergraduate degrees in Early Childhood Education, Special Education & Elementary Education as well as an M.Ed. in counseling.  

One of her poetry instructors said of her, "She has an ability to create word portraits of people too seldom acknowledged in mainstream culture (I began to call her "the Diane Arbus of poetry)"

Click Here to Read her Poetry

After co-editing an underground newspaper in the midwest during the late sixties, Thomas Hubbard raised a family and worked at various endeavors.  He is currently a retired writing instructor and freelance feature writer who became active in Seattle's Slam and other venues in 1993, winning Seattle's Grand Slam in 1995. 

He has been published in various poetry anthologies and literary journals, including Red Ink, Yellow Medicine Review, Footsteps,  and others. His first chapbook, Nail and other hardworking poems, was published in 1995 by Year of the Dragon Press.  He has since published Children Remember Their Fathers, an anthology of mostly performance poets from across the country, followed by Junkyard Dogs, and Injunz. 

His most recent collection is Poems for our Peoples, published by Foothills Press. His book reviews have appeared in Square Lake, New Pages, Cartier Street Review and Raven Chronicles, a Pacific Northwest journal for literature and the arts, which has also published several of his essays and articles. The current issue of Raven includes his poem, “The Real Uncle Sam,” and a review of Lenora Good’s historic novel about a tribal woman, Madam Dorion, Her Journey to the Oregon Country.

He runs gazoobi tales publishing, a very small imprint currently offering work by John Kulm, M. Anne Sweet, Dave Caserio, Tiffany Midge, Mary Elizabeth Crane, Margaret Lemberg and Sheryl Sirotnik.  He has served on the board of Washington Poetry Association. 

Click Here to Read His Poetry

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The Featured Readers are YOU!

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The October Community Mic featured Hamish Todd, Dave Fewster, Cheryl Latif, Koon Woon, Pam Carter, Heidi Denkers, Gaylloyd, Jill Hardin and Paul Nelson plus our two featured readers below. Videos of them reading are available here.

Margaret Roncone was born in Rochester, New York. In May 2015 she moved to Vashon Island to ponder and better understand nature's beauty.

She's read her work for the Seattle City Council's Wordsworth Program and had poetry performed as part of the Pierce College 10-minute play festival; published in Chysanthemum, Barnwood Poetry Journal and on-line at Writergirrls, Poets Against War Journal and Rapoetics.

She curated a poetry group at Chief Seattle Club and currently hosts a community poetry reading on Vashon Island.

Sam Roxas-Chua 姚 (Yao) is a poet and multi-disciplinary artist from Eugene, Oregon. He has been described as a man who can seemingly take any kind of physical materials and transform them into art, his writings have been called tidal and full of magical realism. Poet Dorianne Laux says, Like Jack Gilbert before him, Roxas-Chua reaches beyond the imagery and emotions we expect—creating his own universe, logic, and definitions of the beautiful.

His publications include Fawn Language (Tebot Bach, 2013), Saying Your Name Three Times Underwater (Lithic Press, 2017), and Echolalia In Script – A Collection of Asemic Writing (Orison Books, 2017). His poems and visual art folios have appeared in various journals including Narrative, december Magazine, Cream City Review, and basalt Magazine; his collection of poems, Diary of Collected Summers, won the  first-place award in the 7th Annual Missouri Review Audio Competition in poetry. Sam has received four Pushcart nominations and has been invited to read at local government events and for the Oregon State Legislature. In early 2017 he appeared in a live broadcast of Dear Sugar Radio at the Aladdin Theater in support of #writeourdemocracy/ #writersresist. He is the owner of The Poetry Loft, a small business dedicated to community writing workshops. He holds an MFA from Pacific University.

Sherri Levine is a poet and short fiction writer.  She lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches English as a Second Language to adult immigrants and refugees at Portland Community College.

Her work has been published in the Timberline Review, the Hartskill Review, Voice Catcher, and Sun Magazine. She was invited as Poetry Editor of Voice Catcher magazine. She escaped the long harsh winters of upstate New York and has ever since been happily soaking in the Oregon rain.

Click here to open the September poster below.

Cindy M Hutchings, poet and author of Tree Talk

Cindy Hutchings wrote her first poetry chapbook, Tree Talk, to the tall Cedar that lives across the street from her. Each day for a month, she arrived home after work, sat down in the old family rocker, looked out her front window, and wrote poems in the form of letters to the tree. MoonPath Press published them in Tree Talk as they were written day by day. Tree Talk is dedicated to her father, who first listened to the poems as she read them to him. The book was released on his birthday.

Cindy was born in Seattle, grew up in the Shoreline area, and now lives in Auburn, WA. She graduated from Green River Community College with an AA degree and High Honors, and University of Washington with a BA degree in English and Women Studies, and was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa Society.

She is a member of both Northwest Renaissance and Striped Water Poets, and helps organize poetry events in her community. She writes passionately about current events, and local and world-wide social causes. She finds inspiration in the outdoors.

Auburn's Poet Laureate Marjorie Rommel (2015 -2017)
 

Marjorie was appointed as Auburn's Poet Laureate in January 2015, and in this honorary role she represents the poetic heart of our community. She has deep connections with Auburn and is an active participant in many literary groups and non-profit organizations. She supports and mentors local poets and reaches out to student groups.

Marjorie co-founded The Northwest Renaissance coalition of poets in 1975, which is dedicated to promoting the writing and performance of poetry and encouraging an audience for poetry. She is currently the NWR President, and actively guides and encourages new members in the art of organizing community poetry events.

Marjorie is a graduate from Pacific Lutheran University (2007) with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing/Poetry, and she has taught at the college and university level. Her work has appeared in more than a hundred commercial and literary publications.

Selected poems of Marjorie’s are on the City of Auburn Poet Laureate page, at this link: http://www.auburnwa.gov/things_to_do/arts_entertainment/poet_laureate.htm

James Bertolino and Dorothy Lemoult were our featured readers in July along with the amazing Community Micers including Hamish Todd, Laura Allen, David Fewster, Maja Peirce, Cheryl Latif, Moreah Vestan and Hank Hinnant.

James Bertolino’s poetry has received recognition through a Book-of-the-Month Club Poetry Fellowship, the Discovery Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, two Quarterly Review of Literature book publication awards, and the Jeanne Lohmann Poetry Prize for Washington State Poets.

He has had 12 volumes of poetry published, as well as numerous chapbooks. Recent volumes include Every Wound Has A Rhythm, 2012, published by World Enough Writers, and Ravenous Bliss: New and Selected Love Poems, 2014, from MoonPath Press. He received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and his MFA from Cornell University. Since 1965, he has had his poetry reprinted in 57 anthologies, including the WA129 anthology recently published by Sage Hill Press, and edited by Tod Marshall, Washington Poet Laureate.

He taught creative writing for 36 years at Cornell University, University of Cincinnati, Western Washington University and, in 2006, retired from a position as Writer-in-Residence at Willamette University in Oregon. He and his wife, poet and artist Anita Boyle, live on five acres near Bellingham, Washington.

Click Here to read several of James's poems

Dorothy Lemoult is a French American multi-disciplinary artist living in West Seattle. She came to poetry through the theatre. She has a BFA in Original Works from Cornish College of the Arts and an MA in  Drama Therapy from CIIS in San Francisco.

When not writing, she is a poetry therapist in training at the Institute for Poetic Medicine and works as an expressive arts psychotherapist at Shepherd's Counseling Services.

She is also the mother of a 4.5 year-old free spirit named Elliott (after the bay). Her poem, Emergent, was selected for the Poetry on Buses: Body of Water program. 

Click Here to read some of Dorothy's poems.

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