Printed Matter Vancouver co-founders Christopher Luna and Toni Partington would like to thank everyone who attended our five year anniversary open mic and potluck. You truly make putting on these events a pleasure. It is a great privilege to provide a safe space in which everyone can express themselves. We would also like to thank Cover to Cover owner Mel Sanders for staying open extra late, and for her continuing support of local writers, editors, publishers, and booklovers. We’d also like to thank our musical guests, Jennifer-Pratt Walter, Bret Jorgensen, and Lincoln’s Beard for their beautiful contributions. Finally, thank you to each and every person who attended for your energy, your participation, and your words.

Lincoln’s Beard will be playing a show at the Secret Society Ballroom, 116 NE Russell, Portland tomorrow night at 6pm. The show is free and all ages. For more info: http://www.concertcoop.com/portland/secretsociety/s/88154/Lincoln%27s+Beard#http://secretsociety.net/live-music/

On Saturday at 4pm, April Bullard and Dennis McBride will be the featured readers for a William Stafford birthday celebration at Cover to Cover Books. Bring a Stafford poem to share if you’d like to participate.

Thanks to Rob Gourley and April and Dan Bullard for the following photos of the Ghost Town Poetry Five Year Anniversary party. If you would rather not have your picture included here, please contact me at christopherjluna@gmail.com and i will happily remove it.

Thank you for five years of poetry, community, love, and laughter.

Christopher Luna

for Printed Matter Vancouver

Join us on February 9 when our featured reader will be John Sibley Williams.

CELEBRATE FIVE YEARS OF GHOST TOWN POETRY

OPEN MIC AT COVER TO COVER BOOKS

with Christopher Luna, Toni Partington, and musical guests

Jennifer Pratt-Walter, Bret Jorgensen, and Lincoln’s Beard!

Bring a dish to share and arrive early at 6pm (open mic begins at 7):

Thursday, January 12, 2012

COVER TO COVER BOOKS

6300 NE St. James Rd., Suite 104B

(St. James & Minnehaha)

Vancouver, WA

360-993-7777

mail@covertocoverbooks.net

http://christopherluna-poetry.blogspot.com

christopherjluna@gmail.com

all ages & uncensored since 2004

 

Printed Matter Vancouver would like to thank the following businesses and individuals for making 2011 another great year for poetry in the ‘Couve: John Barber, The Catalyst, Clark County Historical Museum, Everybody’s Music, Gallery 360, Leah Jackson (Angst Gallery and Niche Wine and Art Bar), Marci McReynolds, Mint Tea, Moe’s, One World Merchants, Paper Tiger Coffee, Pop Culture, Susan Tissot, and Urban Eccentric. We would also like to thank the featured readers who shared their work with our community in 2011: John Amen, Judith Arcana, Turiya Autry, John Barber, April Bullard, Michael Daley, Tommy Gaffney, Brad Garber, Alice Hardesty, M, Eliel Lucero, Peter Ludwin, Dennis McBride, Dan Nelson, Jane Ormerod (Uphook Press), Deb Scott, Mary Slocum, Leah Stenson, Meredith Stewart, Dawn Thompson, and Carolyne Wright. In addition, we owe a debt of gratitude to the many poets who have moved and entertained us at the open mic—without your continued participation and support, we would have nothing to celebrate. Finally, our thanks to Mel Sanders for staying open late once a month and demonstrating her undying commitment to local writers.

Performer Bios:

Jennifer Pratt-Walter is a former RN and freelance musician. She lives in Vancouver, WA with husband Craig, children, and farm animals. She sings in a women’s trio, “Circle Round.”  Jennifer also teaches harp, with emphasis on the beginning adult.

Jennifer communicates her reverence for her instrument and music with her hands, searching to define and transcend human experience. Her musical background includes band, choir, and madrigal performance, and she has studied piano and fretted dulcimer. Her true love for the past 27 years has been the Celtic harp.

“Celtic Muse” came into being in 1995, when Jennifer and Valerie Blessley started performing together for weddings. There has been no stopping them since, and they have been privileged to play in a variety of settings throughout the Northwest.

Jennifer’s recordings include “Ancient Realms” (1998), “Wind and Wood: A Sylvan Dance” (1998 with Celtic Muse), “Merry & Bright” (2000, with Celtic Muse), “Ancient Muse: Celtic Harp and Friends,” and “Crossroads,” 2009, with Celtic Muse). Jennifer is a Certified Healing Musician, playing at the bedside of the dying.  Her most recent recording, “Ancient Slumbers,” is representative of mastery of creating a feeling of reverence and peace with pure solo harp played in a rich improvisatory style.

Bret Jorgensen is a kid who likes to write and sing songs. He likes to sing songs about love. He also likes to sing about the sad parts of life using simple chords and simple words. Bret Jorgensen sings songs to sing songs. He can be seen about riding his bike and singing at the top of his lungs while doing so.

Kris Chrisopulos, Tyler Morgan and Dwayne Spence formed Lincoln’s Beard during the summer of 2006. Playing as a trio (and without a drummer) Lincoln’s Beard charged ahead, writing, recording, and gigging as a three piece. After the release of Our American Cousin, well-known local percussionist Eddie Esparza joined the band. Lincoln’s Beard began playing longer, heavier sets, developing a unique sound which ultimately led to the follow up album Brothers Grace. Lincoln’s Beard’s sound continues to evolve with the attributed guitar work of Ross Morgan and Conner Ghormely on the group’s latest album, entitled Lincoln’s Beard, and the recent addition of Aram Arslanian on lead guitar and lapsteel.

Ghost Town Poetry, the recent anthology of poetry from the series edited by Toni Partington and Christopher Luna, is available for purchase at Cover to Cover Books.

On December 8, we hosted the VoiceCatcher 6 launch at the Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, which takes place every second Thursday at Cover to Cover Books in Vancouver, WA. One of the participants was Vancouver’s own April Bullard, who has recently enjoyed success as a visual artist and a poet. April’s photographs are included in the latest edition of the anthology, co-edited by Printed Matter Vancouver co-founder Toni Partington.

April Bullard at Cover to Cover Books

I was very moved and inspired by what April had to say that evening. She had some very kind things to say about the Ghost Town poetry Open Mic and the work that Toni and I have been doing in the community. So I asked April if I could post her speech here. She informed me that VoiceCatcher already had plans to feature it on their website, but that Printed Matter Vancouver could repost it.

April also asked me to include the following as an introduction to the repost:

“My most sincere thanks to Christopher Luna and Toni Partington for hosting the Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, and to Mel Sanders of Cover to Cover Books & Espresso for housing this collection of written word dreamers, observers, movers and shakers. I also want to thank the Ghost Town Poetry community and the Vancouver Arts community for their encouragement and support, for what I hope will be a successful, multi-faceted career in the arts. ”

Here is what April had to say. Please also visit the VoiceCatcher website, which features other material not included in the text below: http://voicecatcher.org/2011/12/25/meet-april-bullard-the-magician-of-the-columbia-river/

April Bullard’s remarks at Cover to Cover Books, December 8, 2011

Thanks to Voicecatcher.org for this opportunity to submit work for publication, Toni Partington for organizing this Voicecatcher 6 reading and presentation, Christopher Luna for hosting the Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, and Mel Sanders for housing this collection of written word – dreamers, observers, movers and shakers.

Talk about your artwork in VC6. Hmm… where to begin? How about keeping it simple, what do I do, and why do I do it?

My photography tends to be abstract. A visual display of colors that create shapes that trigger an emotional response. That sounds pretty high falootin’ , but it all comes down to taking a photograph that makes you see what I see, feel what I feel, and makes unusual ideas cross your mind the way they crossed mine. I am one of those people that never grew out of finding pictures in the clouds, monsters in shadows, and the mythical in the mundane. I turned my eyes and camera to the river that I live on, and found a whole new magical world. Water is  always moving, and always changing, by definition – fluid. It is a fun challenge to find sharp, distinct pictures in the water that strike a primal, instinctive chord, that hopefully, forces you to stop and take another look.

Random Thoughts by April Bullard

“Random Thoughts” is a photo of a micro moment of water reflections.  The human-like profile spewing random bits and pieces from its mouth, tickled me. How much talk, talk, talk is constantly ‘streaming’ around us (all puns intended!), and  yet, you still don’t get a clear picture of the speaker. There is an ‘undercurrent’ that suggests the speaker has opposite, more, and stronger thoughts and intentions. How much of what we say is a true ‘reflection’ of what we mean? If a few of those and other ideas, swirl around and gather ‘eddies’ of thought in your mind, or pluck a heart string that sends a tiny ‘ripple’ through your soul, I feel the work has been successful.

Water Angel 5 by April Bullard

“Water Angel 5” is a split second that captured an angel in the trailing wake from my boat. Can you see the angel silhouetted in the emerging sun, rising from the whirling darkness? Can you see the angel’s shadow or counterpart? Are the bubble rings prayers sent into the ether? Why are they dark? Is the angel helping or escaping the chaos? Is the chaos the angel’s own duality of thought and desires or the earthly chaos of humanity?  Once you get started, there are many possible interpretations. if I made you find something near any of these ideas, the art worked.

These pieces are for sale, and I have a portfolio of work available for browsing. I have photography in rotation with Drew-Jones Studio Art, 4 pieces in the current show at Starting Grounds Church Gallery in Battleground. I’m one of the 100 artists in Gallery 360’s January show “The Collective.” I’ll be part of more Voicecatcher 6 presentations in January and into 2012.

My paintings have a wonderful home, here, at Cover to Cover Books & Espresso. My thanks to Mel! Three of the pieces are now book covers, check out the original paintings, and the paperbacks. “The Witch of Gator-Tail Slough” is the cover of “Aoife’s Kiss Dec 2011” a sci-fi/fantasy magazine from Sam’s Dot Publishing. Mel will have a few copies available, and she can order them online for you as well, or you can order them directly from the publisher through my website as paperbacks or e-books.

My third published poem, “River Fog”, is in “Shelter of Daylight Autumn 2011” a softer sided fantasy/horror anthology from Sam’s Dot Publishing. Again, Cover to Cover will have a few copies available, or it can be ordered online.

I have more cover art coming out in January, gallery showings, and poetry contracted for publication in 2012.

I want to thank the Ghost Town Poetry community, the Vancouver Art community, and Voicatcher.org for the start of what I hope will be a successful, multi-faceted career in the arts.

April Bullard will be a featured reader at the Coaster Poetry Contest Winners reading at Niche Wine and Art Bar (1013 Main Street, Vancouver) on January 18 at 7pm and at the William Stafford Reading at Cover to Cover Books (6300 NE St. James Rd., Suite 104B) on January 21 at 4pm.