Month: December 2016

Poetry Moves Launch Party at Vancouver Community Library January 15, 2017

December 19, 2016

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Poetry Moves Launch Party

1-4pm

Sunday, January 15

Vancouver Community Library

901 C. Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

Light refreshments will be served.

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Please join us as we launch the third season of Poetry Moves with a reading featuring some of the poets whose work will appear on C-Tran buses beginning in January, as well as Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall and Clark County Poet Laureate Christopher Luna. This family-friendly event includes readings by the winners of this season’s contest.

Poem bus cards from all three seasons of Poetry Moves will be available for sale for $20 each. All proceeds will go toward funding the program.

Printed Matter Vancouver Publishers Christopher Luna and Toni Partington congratulate the winners of the contest for the third season of Poetry Moves, sponsored by Printed Matter Vancouver, Clark County Poet Laureate Christopher Luna, Arts of Clark County, and C-Tran.  The following poems will appear on C-Tran buses from January-June 2017:

“Joy” by Cherish DesRochers-Vafeados

“A Long Ago Memory of Calmer Times” by Bruce Hall

“Subsequent Layers of Existence” by Bill Lucking

“Why We Don’t Belong Here (excerpt)” by Livia Montana

“Hope, embossed” by Gwendolyn Morgan

“Eulogies Are for the Living” by Angeline Nguyen
“Just Breathe” by Bridget Nutting
“Calling” by Jennifer Pratt-Walter
“Camilla” by Alex Vigue

“how to love (excerpt)” by Desiree Wright

Clark County Poet Laureate Christopher Luna and Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall will also have one poem each on the buses. Luna’s poem is entitled “pavement pastoral” and Marshall’s poem is entitled from “With Apologies to Andre Breton.” Christopher is the first poet laureate for Clark County; the Clark County Arts Commission recently extended his term through the end of 2019.

Unfortunately, Bridget Nutting passed away before we could inform her that her poem had been chosen. We dedicate phase three of Poetry Moves to her memory, and share our deepest condolences with her family. We have also invited Bridget’s family to be with us at the launch, where her poem will be read aloud. Please visit her family’s GoFundMe page to donate to a special fund to help her husband Dave cover the cost of the funeral, medical bills, and lost wages during her long illness: https://www.gofundme.com/2t8ccc3c

Poetry Moves judges Partington and Luna would like to thank everyone who submitted to the contest. We are also very grateful to Karen Madsen of Arts of Clark County, Graphic Designer Cameron Suttles, and C-Tran for their hard work and support.

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[JANUARY 19: New Date for] Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Jen Coleman & Mike G

December 17, 2016

[IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to icy conditions, this month’s Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic has been postponed until January 19. Please help us share this news, and stay safe.]

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington

Featuring Jen Coleman and Mike G

 7 pm

Thursday, January 19

 Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

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Food and libation provided by

Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

 Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar: http://briz.us/

LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

https://www.facebook.com/events/1353896004672477/

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Jen Coleman is the author of Psalms for Dogs and Sorcerers from Trembling Pillow Press, winner of the 2013 Bob Kaufman Book Prize selected by poet Dara Wier, and We Denizens from Furniture Press in 2016. Originally from Minnesota, Jen received her BA from Beloit College and MFA from George Mason University in Virginia. She spent eight years in New York, where she co-edited the journal POM2. She now lives in Portland, OR. Coleman’s set will include one poem accompanied by drummer and songwriter Cat Minor.

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Let’s Be Tarsiers by Jen Coleman

It’s too cruel to be a bloody human.

Let’s be a boom-slang, viper or hippo.

Let’s be tarsiers born with fur and eyeballs

big as our brains. Let’s have the long, long feet.

Let me call you tarsier like the long long

bones in your feet. Let me be a tarsier

and balance eye with eye and stay silent.

Take your third tarsier finger and touch my

third finger as long as your upper arm.

Touch your two tarsier toes to my two toes.

Eat bugs and lizards and know me, tarsier

As I know you, tarsier, feasting on bats.

Be awake in the night with me, tarsier,

and leap, and be quite quiet and quite shy.

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Mike G: I’ve been writing for my sanity for quite some time now. It’s the most fun, and the most serious thing I do. For me, performing is the public celebration of this sanity. Now and then I’ve read my poems on KBOO radio. Now and then my poems get published. To say it another way: I oozed from the womb in Michigan with hardly more life than a manikin, then the Muse infused me with madness, inspired my wordplay of  rage and sadness, or sometimes funny, so it’s said; I’ll clown and rant until i’m dead.

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Mike G reads at Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic (photo by Tiffany Burba)

After the plague of boils Job scalded his secret patience formula upon my soul. That’s me lounging on the rotting log spitting a protest melody into the unwashed harmonica. The cold sun is a kind of food. I watch the leaves eat. Eyes fierce and blue in the whiteout blizzard. That’s me, the keeper of memory, not buried yet, heart still beating.