PRINTED MATTER VANCOUVER

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Featuring Jan Harrington and Victor Griggs

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige

7 pm
Thursday, May 8

Art At The Cave
108 E Evergreen Blvd
Vancouver, WA 98660
https://artatthecave.com

ANTI-RACIST, LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST,
PRO-CHOICE, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

https://printedmattervancouver.com/

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

Donations can be made in person or through Christopher Luna’s PayPal account (christopherjluna@gmail.com). Include a memo stating that the money is for Ghost Town Poetry.

Janis Harrington is a poet living in North Carolina. Her poetry collection, How to Cut a Woman in Half, written as a novel in verse, was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Award. Her first book, Waiting for the Hurricane, is a collection of narrative poems about three generations of a family and the dark secrets they keep. It won the 2017 Lena Shull Book Award, given by the North Carolina Poetry Society. Her work has appeared in anthologies and literary journals, including Tar River Poetry, Journal of the American Medical Association, and North Carolina Literary Review. She won the 2023 James Applewhite Poetry Contest sponsored by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. She co-hosts a monthly poetry reading series at an independent bookstore.

According to Victor Griggs, “I am from the Pacific Northwest. I always love writing but I really started taking seriously during The pandemic. Never give up on your dreams. For more information about me and my work please visit futurelegs.net.”

Book description from Victor’s website: Rolling Through Life chronicles Victor Griggs’ reflections from 2019-2021, set against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the solitude of quarantine, intensified by his personal challenges with cerebral palsy, Victor immersed himself in the details, stories, and thoughts he lived with each day. This short collection of poetry and prose is a tribute to his resilience and introspection during those times of isolation.

Send an email to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com or visit
https://christopherlunapoetry.substack.com/

to register to receive The Work, Christopher Luna’s monthly newsletter featuring news and events for poets in Vancouver, WA, Portland, OR and surrounding areas.

The Ghost Town Poetry community respectfully encourages you to support Niche Wine Bar, whose owner, Leah Jackson, provided a home for the reading series from 2015-2020. Stop by their new location at 900 Washington, Suite 130 Vancouver, WA 98660: https://nichewinebar.com.

UPDATED Statement on Healthy Spaces from Art at the Cave: We want to provide a healthy space to enjoy art. We have been practicing safety precautions such as regular cleaning, social distancing and mask wearing. As a result of the removal of the mask mandate effective March 12, 2022, we will no longer require the wearing of masks. We encourage you to continue to wear a mask if it makes you feel more comfortable, and we will supply masks and hand sanitizer at the door. As social distancing has become a norm, please be mindful some will still need a bit of personal space while inside the gallery.

Local poets Christopher Luna, Eric Fair-Layman, Debra Elisa, Elmo Shade, and Clark County Poet Laureate Susan Dingle shared their work with thousands of fellow Americans who filled Esther Short Park in Vancouver, WA on April 5 to express their displeasure with the Trump administration’s fascist policies and agenda. Similar events happened in cities across the country that day.

HANDS OFF! Vancouver Protest / Evergreen Resistance / 50501 / Indivisible

HANDS OFF! Vancouver Protest

Join us! Saturday, April 5, 2025 12-3pm at Esther Short Park.

605 Esther St, Vancouver, WA

Learn more at EvergreenResistance.org or FiftyFifty.one

https://events.pol-rev.com/events/48ed63de-ceee-488a-bbf3-702298177ec5

50 protests.

50 states.

1 movement.

Join us in the fight to uphold the Constitution and end executive overreach.

On February 5th, #50501 raised our voices. The first #50501 protests were a decentralized rapid response to the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies. The idea—50 protests in 50 states on 1 day—was born on r/50501 and spread rapidly on social media.

In just days, grassroots organizers—without any budget, centralized structure, or official backing—pulled off over 80 peaceful protests in all 50 states. Twelve days later, tens of thousands of Americans declared “No Kings Day” and protested once more. On March 4th, a call to stand up for democracy was answered with another wave of protests.

Our movement shows the world that the American working class will not sit idly by as plutocrats rip apart their democratic institutions and civil liberties while undermining the rule of law.

50 protests. 50 states. 1 day.

https://events.pol-rev.com/events/48ed63de-ceee-488a-bbf3-702298177ec5

Here are the poems shared by Christopher Luna that afternoon:

May All Goodness Arise

By Christopher Luna

https://youtu.be/oOB4hglssvg

let us not be scared of the work

because it’s hard

let us move the mountain

because the mountain must move

Danez Smith, “principles”

CHAOS: a gang

of small-minded bigots

misogynist freedom haters

who desire control and destruction

and who believe only in greed

they who seek power

and care not who or what

is obliterated in the process

they do not love their country

they are not here to help

they are counting on

our ignorance, our complacency

betting that we’ll look the other way

as they tear it all down

            but we shall not

concede nor comply

            it is time for all good people

to rise               stand                fight    

Brittany Mishra’s poem from last week’s Tuesday Zoom edition of the Work is so important that I have decided to share it here. Brittany writes, Please share widely. The more people that know this, maybe the sooner we can make this place better.​”

United States of—

While the West was burning—
while tall, white orders were being signed—
a child was married to a man.

Sometimes, modern still has the same m sound as medieval.
All this time, I’ve believed in possibility—
I’ve lived in possibility. But this— this is really where we are—

***Unchained At Last, an organization dedicated to ending forced and child marriage in the United States, found marriage licenses for 232,474 children between 2000 and 2018. Learn more here: https://www.unchainedatlast.org/

Poem by Brittany Mishra

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, Printed Matter Vancouver founders Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna co-edited a third anthology of poems from the series with series co-host Morgan Paige.

Ghost Town Poetry Volume Three features poems, memories, and photographs from throughout our two-decade history.

You can order the book directly from us by sending $20 via CashApp (ChristopherLuna9), PayPal (search for me via christopherjluna@gmail.com), or Venmo (username @Christopher-Luna-66).

Many thanks to Morgan Paige for handling our Kickstarter campaign and for designing the book.

We are very grateful to all of our contributors and to all the peopl in our community and across the country who donated to our Kickstarter. We are especially thankful to Art At The Cave owner Anne John for her generous donation which made the book possible.

You can purchase the book locally at Vintage Books, Art At The Cave, or Powell’s Books.