Month: June 2018

How I Found Myself in Clark County: Discovering the Self Through Poems of Place with Christopher Luna at Clark County Historical Museum July 28, 2018

June 29, 2018
Clark County Stories
 
How I Found Myself in Clark County:
Discovering the Self Through Poems of Place
with Christopher Luna
1-2:30pm
 
Clark County Historical Museum
1511 Main St
Vancouver, Washington
98660-2945
(360) 993-5679
Please contact us to hold your seat! More info below.
 
In 2003, New Yorker Christopher Luna found himself on the other side of the country, uncertain how to navigate the strange new culture of the Pacific Northwest. He spent the next decade writing poems and observations of Vancouver, WA (a place he nicknamed Ghost Town, USA) and building the local literary community through the popular Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic.
 
Join Luna, the first Poet Laureate of Clark County (2013-2017) in a discussion about making peace with unfamiliar surroundings and the power of writing poems of place. This 90-minute workshop will include a short writing exercise as well as ideas for writing poetry that begins where you are.
Christopher looking sideways at Julian Nelson December 2016
Christopher Luna by Julian Nelson
Christopher Luna served as Clark County, WA’s first Poet Laureate from 2013-2017. He has an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and is the co-founder (with Toni Partington) of Printed Matter Vancouver, an editing service and small press for Northwest writers. He has hosted the popular Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic in Vancouver, WA since 2004. Luna’s books include Brutal Glints of Moonlight, GHOST TOWN, USA and The Flame Is Ours: The Letters of Stan Brakhage and Michael McClure 1961-1978.
 
This event is FREE for everyone. Please register for this workshop at 360-993-5679 or by email at events@cchmuseum.org (include your name, phone number, and how many in your group).
 
Sponsored by: Clark County Historical Museum, Fort Vancouver Regional Library District, Humanities Washington “Washington Stories” Grant, Peabody’s College of Arts and Sciences Meyer Distinguished Professor Fellowship, Washington State University Vancouver, and Washington State University History Department’s Pettyjohn Fund.
 
 

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Risa Denenberg at Angst Gallery July 12, 2018

June 22, 2018

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic flyer July 12 2018 cropped

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Risa Denenberg

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

7 pm

Thursday, July 12

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

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

Risa 38

Risa Denenberg lives on the Olympic peninsula in Washington state where she works as a nurse practitioner. She reviews poetry for the American Journal of Nursing and is a co-founder and editor at Headmistress Press, publisher of LBT poetry. She has published three chapbooks and three full length collections of poetry, including Whirlwind @ Lesbos (Headmistress Press, 2016) and  slight faith (MoonPath Press, 2018).

 

slightfiath-frontcov-withbleed

Abiding Winter 

by Risa Denenberg

How we made it through another winter’s

not the question. Nor is it an answer

since one of us was left behind in winter.

 

In Spring, in buoyancy, you asked a question.

Cups stood their ground between us, tea and coffee.

You wished to be the answer to your question.

 

Then winter comes again and yet another,

a darkling season full of melancholy. The yanking

of my soul back to the gutter, that other

 

place where questions have no answers,

and answers only placate. It takes rafters

of steadfast faith, or mettle, to seek answers.

 

Truth is brutal. So much we can’t recover,

years I’ve begged for you to wait for Spring to bloom

again, living in despair beside each other, and another

 

stormy season while we tussle for an answer

or a coda to the sum of all of life’s bother.

I’ve learned to hold my tongue, to question

nothing. Questions are another sort of winter.

 

Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar

LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Listen to a feature on Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on OPB Radio’s State of Wonder