Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Raúl Sánchez

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige

7 pm

Thursday, October 14

Art at the Cave

108 E Evergreen Blvd

Vancouver, WA 98660

https://artatthecave.com

$5 Suggested donation

Masks must be worn at all times to participate in this event. Open Mic readers may remove their masks while reading. The microphone will be sanitized after each reader.

Statement on Healthy Spaces from Art at the Cave: We want to provide a healthy space to enjoy art. We are practicing safety precautions such as regular cleaning, social distancing and mask wearing. We kindly request that you wear a mask and practice social distancing while visiting the gallery. If needed, we will limit the number of people in the gallery. Masks and hand sanitizer are available upon entry.

Art At The CAVE was established in 2017. Located at 108 E. Evergreen in downtown Vancouver, the CAVE is free and open to the public Tues-Sat, 10am-4pm, and on First Fridays when it remains open until 8:00pm. The gallery is also available to host events. Visit the website at artatthecave.com or contact gallery@artatthecave.com for more information.

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

Please support Niche Wine Bar, whose owner, Leah Jackson, provided a home for the reading series from 2015-2020: https://nichewinebar.com

Raúl Sánchez is the current City of Redmond Washington’s Poet Laureate. A 2014 Jack Straw Writer. Mentor and judge for the 2014 Poetry on Buses Project and a TEDx participant in Yakima WA. To learn more visit https://www.poetraulsanchez.com/

During the pandemic he put together the manuscript for his 2nd poetry collection “When There Were No Borders” published by Flower Song Press, available now: https://www.flowersongpress.com/books-1/p/when-there-were-no-borders-poems-by-ral-sncheztlatecatl

Advance Praise for When There Were No Borders

Sánchez writes borderless in borderless times. He breaks through the ancient  Mexica figure of death and transformation, Coatlicue, to poems as pyramids,  to the Sea of the Salish in the Pacific Northwest and on to cool-rebel Pachuco  dialect of the US-Mexico borderlands. He cooks on a rotating rainbow colored pan, he spices, he refuses to present his “papers” at the border stop.  There are nectars, harvests, the always-farmworker fields, a detention center  to tend to with resources and a poet. Open this collection — hold on, there  is a “pirinola,” an ever spinning umbrella-shaped candy with a pointed  tip burning colors, lights and stories that will take you to Latinx multidimensional magic. A precise, moving mural, this text of visitations of “life,  precious life!” Sanchez’s delights as he writes, as he tears across those borderlines,  dancing. Magnificent poetics to take home and to take you out.

– Juan Felipe Herrera

Poet Laureate of the United States Emeritus

Raúl Sánchez is also a translator who currently teaches bilingual poetry at Denny International Middle School through the Jack Straw Cultural Center. He translated Ellen Ziegler’s book for the Museum of Antique Mexican Toys in Mexico City, Mexico. Sánchez is a member of Writers in the Schools through Seattle Arts and Lectures (WITS), teaching bilingual poetry at Evergreen High School. This is his fourth year volunteering for PONGO Teen Writing in the Juvenile Detention Center. In 2019 he was one of the eleven speakers at the Ignite Education Lab storytelling event at Seattle University. He was commissioned by the Ballard Civic Orchestra to write the libretto for the “The Other Conquest” A Opera ensemble in response to Vivaldi’s Motezuma, which included the Score written by Hector Armienta.

NOTE: Art at the Cave co-founder Kathi Rick has graciously offered to help us to continue to include our new friends from around the country in the open mic. Email katecrackernuts@comcast.net by no later than midnight on October 13 to indicate your interest in participating. In the subject line, let us know if you are “Reading” or “Just Listening.” You will receive instructions for how to join the meeting.

Zoom open mic readers are invited to share one poem for three minutes or less. 

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. The suggested donation is five dollars.