Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

Featuring Reggie Marra, Connecticut Poet and author of Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed

7 pm

Thursday, September 13

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

FREE

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

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

Reggie Marra is the author of four books of poetry and four of nonfiction, including And Now, Still: Grave & Goofy Poems and Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed. He has conducted poetry-writing and adult development and healing workshops since 1997, including work with the NEA’s Poetry Out Loud program, the National Association for Poetry Therapy, the Connecticut Higher Order Thinking (HOT) Schools program, the Transformative Language Arts Network, Teleosis Institute, the Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire, HealingNewtown, the National Speakers Association and in schools throughout the northeastern United States. Reggie is an Integral Master Coach,™ a Voice Dialogue practitioner through Bridgit Dengel Gaspard, and Nature Based Soulcraft® practitioner, through Bill Plotkin and Animas Valley Institute. Prior to 1997 he spent 21 years as a teacher, basketball coach and administrator in secondary and higher education. Learn more at www.reggiemarra.com.

EARLY AUTUMN SOUTHWEST EVENING

The music stops.
The young women holding hands,
their tank tops, shorts, boots, long
flowing brown hair, and the young
man in a black tee, blue jeans and
boots to their right, capture a neon-
backlit American summer evening.
They run, semi-crouched, amid
food and beverage containers
strewn across the open space while
those behind them kneel, crawl,
crouch and cower along the fence,
unsure where the shooter is and
when the shooting will stop.
If ever.

From Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed.

Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed is Reggie Marra’s fourth book of poems. As with his This Open Eye: Seeing What We Do (2006), Marra unflinchingly sees, writes and shares with the reader verbal snapshots of his country’s late 20th- and early 21st-century culture of violence as it manifests at home and abroad. His poems both grieve slaughtered school children, unarmed black men, ambushed law enforcement officers, church-, concert- and movie-goers, military veterans and victims of American foreign policy violence in the Middle East, and indict the leaders who refuse to act amid, or implicitly condone, the ongoing slaughter.

ISBN: 978-0-9627828-8-6

135 pages | 6×9 paper

Cover Art: Whose Heaven? by Ray DiCapua Charcoal and ink on paper | 48” x 72” Copyright © 2003 by Ray DiCapua

Go to Amazon in September: https://www.amazon.com/Reggie-Marra/e/B00AECM6OM

Approximately 546 copies of this book will be sent to the September 2018 occupants of the United States Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court and White House. We’ll be raising money to do that: https://www. gofundme.com/poems-for- politicians-in-dc

Ongoing updates and poem excerpts at: https://killing-america.com/

Narrative Healing: Transcending the Illness Narrative Workshop with Reggie Marra

6:30 – 9:00pm

Friday, September 14

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

Cost: $35

RSVP to christopherjluna@gmail.com by Thursday, September 13

Narrative Healing: Transcending the Illness Narrative

“It is true that the mind is restless and difficult to control, but it can be conquered… through regular practice and detachment” (6.35)  – The Bhagavad Gita, c. 500-200 BCE.

The power of story to heal was understood 2,000 years ago. We now have over 30 years of research that confirms this philosophical, intuitive understanding. This workshop will engage you in your own narrative healing process, introduce the salient history, philosophy and research, and prepare you to write and revise your story from a salutogenic, rather than pathogenic, perspective. Deepen your abilities to embrace your own healing and nurture that of your clients, patients, students or loved ones. Find out: do you have your story – or does your story have you?

Whether you are navigating your own personal healing, coming to terms with the ongoing cultural and societal healing that is necessary to address American violence at home and abroad, or the larger global issues of pain and suffering, story matters. Your narrative impacts what you see, how you see and what you can do next. Join us on ….. for an experiential introduction to narrative healing.