Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Featuring Neil Aitken
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington
of Printed Matter Vancouver
7 pm
Thursday, January 11
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

Neil Aitken is the author of Babbage’s Dream (Sundress 2017) and The Lost Country of Sight (Anhinga 2008), which received the Philip Levine Prize, as well as the poetry chapbook, Leviathan. His work has been published in American Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Dialogist, Ninth Letter, The Normal School, The Southern Poetry Review, and many other journals. A former computer programmer and a past Kundiman Poetry Fellow, he is the founding editor of Boxcar Poetry Review, curator of Have Book Will Travel, and co-director of De-Canon: A Visibility Project. He also hosts The Lit Fantastic, a podcast about writers and their obsessions, and works as a creative writing coach and mentor. Visit him online at www.neil-aitken.com
Float
—a fundamental type used to define numbers with fractional parts
Like a bell, or rather the sound of it opening,
a silence that having tolled speaks again
suspended between states of incompleteness—
a point traversing a numbered landscape.
This country of small infinities is what we do
with what remains: bits of window panes,
refracted light, what gathers in the torn leaves
from the dimming edge of the red fields
grown dark. Say what you will, the body is no more
than the moon, a white trouser button in a pool
of gasoline, a halo of ash and flame
ascending the ladder of night.
Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street
Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar
LGBTQIA+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
Listen to a feature on Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on OPB Radio’s State of Wonder