Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna of Printed Matter Vancouver
Featuring Luther Allen and J.I. (Judy) Kleinberg

7 pm
Thursday, January 9
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7

$5 Suggested donation
No one turned away for lack of funds

Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660
angstgallery.com

Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street
Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar: http://briz.us/

LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ANTI-FASCIST,
ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Luther Allen writes and designs buildings from Sumas Mountain, Washington. He facilitates SpeakEasy, a community poetry reading series in Bellingham and is co-editor of Noisy Water, an anthology of local poets. His collection of poems, The View from Lummi Island, can be found at http://othermindpress.wordpress.com.  His work is included in the recent anthologies WA 129 (edited by Tod Marshall), Refugium, Poems for the Pacific (edited by Yvonne Blomer), Poets Unite! LitFUSE @10, Weaving the Terrain (Dos Gatos Press) and For Love of Orcas (edited by Jill McCabe Johnson and Andrew Shattuck McBride). His short story, “The Stilled Ring,” was finalist in the annual fiction contest at terrain.org. He views writing as his spiritual practice.

A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, J.I. (Judy) Kleinberg is co-editor of 56 Days of August (Five Oaks Press 2017) and Noisy Water: Poetry from Whatcom County, Washington (Other Mind Press 2015) and co-produces the Bellingham-based SpeakEasy poetry series. Her poetry has appeared in One, Pontoon, Pedestal Magazine, Psaltery & Lyre, December, and elsewhere, and more than 300 of her found-word collage poems have been published in print and online. She lives in Bellingham and posts frequently at chocolateisaverb.wordpress.com and thepoetrydepartment.wordpress.com. Her found poems will be on exhibit at Peter Miller Books, Seattle, in May 2020. Kleinberg’s found poem chapbook entitled Found Love: Wordages will be available for sale at the reading.

winter service on ish river
by Luther Allen

the wet crucifix of rain
has us drenched, dripping.
we kneel, heads covered.
resurrection a lost memory, the prayer.

endless thick fog
from censers of cedar.
the wafers of communion
soggy, oozing apart.

A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, J.I. (Judy) Kleinberg is co-editor of 56 Days of August (Five Oaks Press 2017) and Noisy Water: Poetry from Whatcom County, Washington (Other Mind Press 2015) and co-produces the Bellingham-based SpeakEasy poetry series. Her poetry has appeared in One, Pontoon, Pedestal Magazine, Psaltery & Lyre, December, and elsewhere, and more than 300 of her found-word collage poems have been published in print and online. She lives in Bellingham and posts frequently at chocolateisaverb.wordpress.com and thepoetrydepartment.wordpress.com. Her found poems will be on exhibit at Peter Miller Books, Seattle, in May 2020. Kleinberg’s found poem chapbook entitled Found Love: Wordages will be available for sale at the reading.

Poem for Ocean

Your poems full of dresses,
chiffon-sheer and hypnotic
as flesh, sacred as cathedrals,
as prayers spoken in unknown
tongues, wind-ruffled, silken
on your skin, on hers, his, promises
of places you cannot go, swing
of sleeve and hem in the sails
of ships already departing
from the harbor, where you stand
longing for red, coral, sequins