Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna of Printed Matter Vancouver
Featuring Mindy Nettifee
7 pm
Thursday, March 12
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
MINDY NETTIFEE is a poet, storyteller, trauma researcher, and psychonaut. She is the director of the creative and story services agency Free Delivery LLC; teaches writing and performance workshops for Literary Arts; and produces stories for radio and stage with Back Fence PDX and The Moth. She is also an MA and doctoral candidate in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she is currently completing her doctoral research into the role of voice and language in trauma healing. She has published three full-length collections of poetry and a how-to book on writing, Glitter in The Blood (Write Bloody Press), a Powell’s Indie Press Best Seller. She also co-edited Courage, an anthology of poems for teenage girls. Nettifee’s latest collection, Open Your Mouth Like a Bell, was hailed by BUST Magazine as “one of the best poetry books of 2018.” Find out more at thecultofmindy.com.
OH, GINKGO By Mindy Nettifee
A 49-million-year-old fossil was found / with leaves of Gingko biloba pressed into it / like small perfect fans or bells, finely veined / so that they photograph like the undersides of mushrooms, / like the ancestors of lungs and accordions. / Why we aren’t building temples to Gingko trees /in every place, everywhere, I’m not clear on. / The genome of the Ginkgo tree is three times / as complex as the human genome. / I am mostly a stranger to genomes, but no more than / I can be to anything that is at my center. / Ginkgo has defense mechanisms for its defense mechanisms: / while synthesizing chemicals to fight off insects / it is also synthesizing chemicals to attract that insect’s enemies / and also probably adding especially spiritual chapters / to The Art of War. It withstands pollution, disease, salt, drought; / can spontaneously change sex; all while announcing autumn / with this elegant golding, this egg yolk butter sun golding, / so bright and gentle you might think you are hallucinating spring. When the atom bomb detonated, / annihilating and incinerating, charring even the air, / the roots of the Gingkos of Hiroshima remained unscathed. / In only a few days, they sprouted new growth above ground. / Let us pray. Oh, Gingko. Teach us, great tree, / how to be complex enough to be this complex. / How to be vast enough to grow beyond our history / while not denying our history. Teach us how / to survive ourselves.
PRINTED MATTER VANCOUVER 