Tag: Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Celeste Gurevich August 11, 2016

July 19, 2016

Ghost Town Poetry Flyer August 11 2016

GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna

 7 pm

Thursday, August 11

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

 Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

 LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

angstgallery.com

 Featuring Celeste Gurevich

 Celeste Gurevich

Celeste Gurevich is a Portland writer who grew up on the Oregon Coast. Her work has been published in Perceptions: A Magazine for the Arts, the Manifest-Station, and elsewhere. She is a proud mother and grandmother, flower tender and Crazy Bird Lady. If you need regular doses of her words, you can hit Celeste up on all the usual social medias.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Tessara Dudley July 14, 2016

July 8, 2016

Ghost Town Flyer July 14 2016

GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna

 7 pm

Thursday, July 14

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

 Food and libation provided by

Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

 LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

angstgallery.com

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Featuring Tessara Dudley

 Tessara Dudley is a poet-publisher-educator-activist living in Portland, OR, where she crafts poetry and personal essay from the intersection of working class Black queer femme disabled life. Her hobbies include studying history, fighting oppression, building safer communities, and knitting. She’s the author of Fallen/Forever Rising (2015), a tribute to victims of police violence. Tessara Dudley

 

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Poet & Artist John Kay June 9, 2016

June 5, 2016

Ghost Town Poetry Flyer June 9 2016

GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna

7 pm

Thursday, June 9

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

 Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

angstgallery.com

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Featuring Poet and Artist John Kay

John Kay is a widely published poet and visual artist who lives in Camas, WA. He grew up as a poet in Los Angeles, where he got to know Charles Bukowski, whose work continues to be an influence. Kay has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. He taught writing courses for the University of Maryland for 20 years, and lived in Germany for 31 years. His most recent book, This Particular Kiss, was published this year by Pearl Editions in Long Beach, CA.

John Kay was profiled in the Columbian in February.

Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall to Visit Vancouver in May

April 22, 2016

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic and a Free Workshop

Featuring Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall

at Angst Gallery May 12

Ghost Town Flyer May 2016

 GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna

Workshop with

Washington State Poet Laureate and

Clark County Poet Laureate Christopher Luna

3-5pm

Thursday, May 12

Workshop is limited to 28 people; pre-registration is recommended.

Pre-register by contacting Christopher Luna at christopherjluna@gmail.com

Open Mic

7 pm

Thursday, May 12

Both events located at

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

Food and libation provided by

Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

angstgallery.com

 Marshall,Tod-6

Featuring Washington State Poet Laureate Tod Marshall

Tod Marshall was born in Buffalo, NY. He earned his PhD from the University of Kansas in 1996. His first collection of poetry, Dare Say, was the 2002 winner of the University of Georgia’s Contemporary Poetry Series. He has also published a collection of his interviews with contemporary poets, Range of the Possible (EWU Press, 2002), and an accompanying anthology of the interviewed poets’ work, Range of Voices (2005). These volumes include interviews with and poems by Robert Hass, Li-Young Lee, Robert Wrigley, Brenda Hillman, Dorianne Laux, Kim Addonizio, Ed Hirsch, Dave Smith, Yusef Komunyakaa, and others. In 2005, he was awarded a Washington Artists Trust Fellowship. His second collection, The Tangled Line (Canarium Books, 2009) was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Bugle (Canarium, 2014), was the winner of the 2015 Washington State Book Award. Marshall was also awarded the Humanities Washington Award in 2015 for creativity and service. He lives in Spokane, Washington, and teaches creative writing and literature at Gonzaga University where he is the Robert and Ann Powers Chair in the Humanities.

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Workshop Description

If You Ain’t No Place You Can’t Go Nowhere

My title is from Richard Hugo’s The Triggering Town. In his book, Hugo reminds poets of the importance of identifying the “where” of a poem and how rooting creativity to place can allow the imagination to grow in unexpected ways. In this workshop, we will explore ways to connect our imagination to the real and imagined landscapes of Washington.

There are many ways, of course, that we can think about “place.” Perhaps specific flora and fauna conjure up place for us (salmon and Arrowleaf Balsamroot, delicious huckleberries). Perhaps titles of towns or geological phenomena do the same (Anacortes, Mt. Rainier, and Twisp; The Columbia, The Palouse, and sharp columns of basalt, to name only a few). Perhaps people—individuals or groups—make a “where” vivid in our minds (Chief Seattle or Ken Griffey Junior, Kurt Cobain and Colonel George Wright, Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp or Bing Crosby and Cathy McMorris Rodgers).

Using a controlled range of diction, we will work from freewriting to drafting a poem that might reveal something about where we are and where we’ve been, and perhaps such knowledge will tell us a little bit about who we are, were, and might be.

 

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Joseph Green March 10, 2016

February 28, 2016

Ghost Town Flyer March 10 2016

GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna

7 pm
Thursday, March 10
Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

Food and libation provided by
Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
printedmattervancouver.com
angstgallery.com

9781936657179-cov-FINAL.indd

Featuring Joseph Green: Joseph Green’s most recent collection of poems is What Water Does at a Time Like This (MoonPath Press 2015), following That Thread Still Connecting Us (MoonPath 2012), The End of Forgiveness (Floating Bridge, 2001), Greatest Hits: 1975—2000 (Pudding House, 2001), Deluxe Motel (Signpost Press, 1991), and His Inadequate Vocabulary (Signpost, 1986). Through the Peasandcues Press, Green and his wife, Marquita, produce limited-edition, letterpress-printed poetry broadsides using hand-set metal type; and at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry & Museum of Metal Typography, in Portland, he works to preserve the craft of casting the type itself.

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What You Can Say to Me When I’m Dead
by Joseph Green

I won’t want to talk about the war,
so don’t start. I won’t say anything at all
about politics. I’ve already had it

up to here with gossip.
And God is no good, either,
as a conversational topic. I’ll be finished,

too, with gnawing on the dry bones
of art, of accomplishment.
You can put them into your own

soup if you feel like it. I’ll be lying
down for a while. Just fill me in
on what you’ve been up to.

Please join us on March 10 for Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic featuring Joseph Green, poet, letterpress printer, and author of What Water Does at a Time Like This.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1555212558124357/

 

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Steve Williams at Angst Gallery, February 11, 2016

January 18, 2016

Ghost Town Flyer February 2016

GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna

7 pm
Thursday, February 11
Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

Food and libation provided by
Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
angstgallery.com

Featuring Steve Williams

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Steve Williams is the author of a new chapbook entitled Thirteen, a poem. He works in Portland, helping those who have barriers to employment find jobs. He lives with a lovely woman who writes and edits much better than he but refuses to admit it.

ThirteenFrontCover

Shades
by Steve Williams

One grandfather’s shadow is fresh tar
on the roof outside my window.
The other grandfather’s shadow –
a wind-up Indian with broken hands.

My grandmothers are whiskey radio baseball
and a garden full of curio cabinets and canning jars.

Corky, Blackie and Sam are dog shadows
warm under my blanket. My cat shadows
all ran away.

My father’s shadow is the Wichita Lineman
belted to every creosoted pole, spurs buried
in the wood listening to his own static.

My streetlight shadows are Spirographed
around my shoes, each a different shade
of black. These are my mother.

As the sun falls into drowned ash,
these shades fade into twilight.
This is where we all used to hide.

When my face rises in your bright hands,
I hold your kiss
long enough for each of them
to have their turn.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Kristin Roedell at Angst Gallery November 12, 2015

October 23, 2015

Cover to Cover Flyer November 12 2015GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington

7pm
Thursday, November 12
Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
angstgallery.com

With our featured reader, Kristin Roedell

Kristin RoedellKristin Roedell is a Northwest poet and retired attorney. Her work has appeared in over 50 journals and anthologies, including The Journal of the American Medical Association, Switched on Gutenberg, and CHEST. She is the author of Girls with Gardenias (Flutter Press) and Down River (Aldrich Press), a finalist for the Quercus Review Press poetry prize. She has twice been nominated for Best of the Web and once for the Pushcart Prize. She was the 2013 winner of NISA’s 11th Annual Brainstorm Poetry Contest and a finalist in the 2013 Crab Creek Review poetry contest.

Kristin Roedell in Poets & Writers

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic at Angst Gallery Featuring Sarah Webb October 8, 2015

September 14, 2015

Ghost Town Poetry Flyer October 8 2015GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington

7pm
Thursday, October 8

Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

in the Vancouver Arts District

LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
christopherjluna@gmail.com
angstgallery.com

With our featured reader, Sarah Webb: A former Vancouverite, Sarah Webb now lives in the Texas Hill Country with her hound dog Rex, and reads frequently in Oklahoma and Texas. Her poetry collection Black (Virtual Artists Collective, 2013) was selected as a finalist for the 2014 Oklahoma Book Award and the 2014 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award. She served as Poetry Editor for the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma’s interdisciplinary journal Crosstimbers for many years, and is presently a member of the editorial committee for All Roads Will Lead You Home and a co-editor of Just This, a magazine of the Zen arts.

black by sarah webbTwo poems by Sarah Webb:

The Altruism of Birds
By Sarah Webb

Ravens clamor the flock to a hidden feast
hark and hoot to show the way.
They share.
We’ll assume it’s for the usual reasons–
courting or potlatch
or the bullying strength of numbers.

Why are we surprised?
After all, people share
and often for no reason we can name.
Men share, and wolves share.
A raven may tip his wing to a hunter.
A badger may shelter a boy in his den.
A roadrunner adopted a man I knew.
The bird would bring him lizards
and grasshoppers,
lay them at his door as a cat might.

Once she brought the egg of a wren.

Once she came right up to the man
as he sat in the shade of his patio,
and she looked at him.

Her eye had that bird glint
that might mean anything–
pride in her prowess,
yearning for the touch of his beak
or delight in the glare of the sun
and the taste of snake
before it is given away.

Empty
By Sarah Webb

We start from the place that is empty.
Even in a mass of clay
there is that empty spot.

The thumb finds it
and follows its prompting,
presses out from it
and feels its yes
to widening.

From it bowls form
and rattles.

And in my chest
there is that empty spot
that widens with each breath
in a sweet yes.

I feel it press, press out,
but how to name what it forms?

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen/ Free Poetry Workshop at Vancouver Community Library September 10, 2015

August 14, 2015

GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington

7pm
Thursday, September 10
Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

Food and libation provided by Niche Wine and Art Bar, 1013 Main Street

LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
printedmattervancouver.com
angstgallery.com

With our featured reader, Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen

Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen Photo by John Ulman
Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen Photo by John Ulman

Elizabeth Austen is the Washington State Poet Laureate for 2014-16. Her collection Every Dress a Decision (Blue Begonia Press, 2011) was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. Her work is also available on the CD Skin Prayers and in two chapbooks. Elizabeth spent her teens and twenties working in the theatre and writing poems. A six-month solo walkabout in the Andes region of South America led her to focus exclusively on poetry. She earned an MFA in Poetry at Antioch University Los Angeles, and is the poetry commentator for NPR-affiliate KUOW 94.9. She makes her living at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where she also offers poetry and reflective writing workshops for the staff. For more information please visit http://wapoetlaureate.org/

Elizabeth Austen will also be teaching a generative writing workshop at the Vancouver Library the same afternoon:

Poetry for All
Thursday, September 10, 2015
2 – 4pm
Vancouver Community Library
Klickitat Room, Level 4

901 C St
Vancouver, WA 98660

Join Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen for a free, hands-on poetry workshop designed to engage participants’ imaginations, life histories and sense of empathy through language. The class includes close reading of a few contemporary poems, then using one as a model for writing our own first draft. No previous writing experience needed.

Library events and programs are free and although everyone is welcome, space is limited. Preregistration is required and closes Sept 9 at 5pm. Maximum 25 participants.

Poetry for All Workshop

Christopher Luna and Toni Partington’s Honeymoon Reading Tour of California (August 26, 27, 30)

August 8, 2015

Toni hand on Chris bw by Colin

Toni Partington and Christopher Luna

Photo by Colin Poellot

Clark County, WA Poet Laureate Christopher Luna and Toni Partington, co-hosts of the popular Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic in Vancouver, WA and co-founders of Printed Matter Vancouver, are celebrating their recent marriage with a honeymoon road trip and reading tour of California that will bring them to Monterey, San Francisco, and Berkeley. Christopher and Toni are very grateful to each of the event organizers for hosting them. They look forward to reading for old friends and making some new friends as they pass through. Each will have copies of their books and chapbooks for sale at the readings listed below.

Monterey

Rubber Chicken Poetry Slam and Open Mic
Featuring Newlyweds
Clark County Poet Laureate Christopher Luna
& Printed Matter Vancouver publisher Toni Partington
On their Honeymoon Tour of California

7:30 pm
Wednesday, August 26
East Village Coffee Lounge
498 Washington St
Monterey, CA 93940
831-373-5601

Hosted by Garland Thompson Jr.

East Village Coffee Lounge

Facebook Event Page for Monterey Reading

San Francisco

Bird and Beckett four shot

Two-Tone Poetry & Jazz
CD LAUNCH PARTY!

David Meltzer & Julie Rogers
with Zan Stewart on Saxophone
and Clark County, Washington Poet Laureate Christopher Luna
& Printed Matter Vancouver Publisher Toni Partington

CD’s & books will be available!

Thurs., August 27 2015
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

BIRD & BECKETT BOOKS AND RECORDS
653 Chenery St., San Francisco, CA in the Glen Park area
415-586-3733

Bird & Beckett Books and Records

Facebook Event Page for San Francisco Reading

MELTZER & ROGERS PR PHOTODavid Meltzer, celebrated SF Renaissance/Beat poet is a teacher & has published over forty books of poetry, fiction, and anthologies. This is his second poetry CD in 58 years. Meltzerville

Julie Rogers, northwest poet, is a writing coach & has published several chapbooks, a hospice manual & a selected, ‘House of the Unexpected’. This is her first poetry CD. Julie Rogers

Zan Stewart, tenor saxophonist & teacher, won the celebrated ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award. His band’s debut CD, ‘The Street Is Making Music’, is on Mobo Dog Records. Zan Stewart

Christopher Luna by Julian Nelson 2 November 2013

Christopher Luna is Clark County’s Poet Laureate, a teacher, co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, and co-hosts Vancouver’s Ghost Town Poetry series. Poetry: Christopher Luna in Ghost Town, USA

Toni-Partington2009

Toni Partington is co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, co-host of Ghost Town Poetry, and is an author, editor, writing coach, and artist.

Berkeley

California poets Neeli Cherkovski and Richard Loranger
join Christopher Luna and Toni Partington for their Honeymoon Reading Tour

Neeli Cherkovski
Richard Loranger
Christopher Luna
Toni Partington
+ a brief open mic

Hosted by Richard Loranger

Clark County, WA Poet Laureate Christopher Luna and Toni Partington, co-hosts of the popular Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic in Vancouver, WA are celebrating their recent marriage with a honeymoon road trip and reading tour of California that will bring them to Berkeley, Monterey, and San Francisco.

The late spoken word legend Jack McCarthy called Ghost Town Poetry “the best open mic between Tacoma and Berkeley.”

Sunday, August 30, 2015
Art House Gallery
2905 Shattuck Ave.
(one block north of Ashby, and close to Ashby BART)
Berkeley, CA

signup 5 pm
start 5:15
$5-10 donation requested, no one turned away for lack of funds

Art House Gallery & Cultural Center
Neeli Cherkovski’s Facebook Page
Richard Loranger

Facebook Event Page for Berkeley Reading

PERFORMER BIOS

Neeli

Neeli Cherkovski has written biographies of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bob Kaufman, and Charles Bukowski, with whom he co-edited the Los Angeles zine Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns. Cherkovski produced the first San Francisco Poetry Festival, and in the early-1990s helped to found Café Arts Month, a yearly event celebrating San Francisco’s cafe culture. Cherkovski is the author of Whitman’s Wild Children, a collection of essays about twelve poets he has known: Michael McClure, Charles Bukowski, John Wieners, James Broughton, Philip Lamantia, Bob Kaufman, Allen Ginsberg, William Everson, Gregory Corso, Harold Norse, Jack Micheline, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Cherkovski was a writer-in-residence at the New College of California in San Francisco. He taught literature and philosophy there until the school closed in 2008. His body of poetry includes Animal, Elegy for Bob Kaufman and Leaning Against Time, for which he was awarded the 15th Annual PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award in 2005. Cherkovski’s papers are housed at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Richard Loranger and Christopher Luna by Jane Ormerod November 17 2012

Richard Loranger and Christopher Luna in November 2012

Richard Loranger is a writer, performer, visual artist, and all around squeaky wheel, currently residing in Oakland, CA. He is the author of Poems for Teeth, as well as The Orange Book and nine chapbooks, including Hello Poems and the recent 6 Questions (Exot Books). Recent work can be found in Out of Our #17, in the anthology I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand (great weather for MEDIA), and in the online journals London Grip New Poetry (www.londongrip.co.uk) and The Marsh Hawk Review (www.marshhawkpress.org). You can find more about his work and scandals at http://www.richardloranger.com.

Clark County, WA Poet Laureate Christopher Luna is the co-founder, with Toni Partington, of Printed Matter Vancouver, an editing service and small press that serves Northwest writers. Together Luna and Partington edited Ghost Town Poetry volumes one and two, featuring poems from the popular open mic poetry reading series that Luna established in 2004. Luna’s books include Brutal Glints of Moonlight, GHOST TOWN, USA and The Flame Is Ours: The Letters of Stan Brakhage and Michael McClure 1961-1978. Recent publications include Bombay Gin, Unshod Quills, It’s Animal But Merciful, gape-seed, Take Out, Chiron Review, and Soundings Review. To learn more about Christopher Luna, please visit http://christopherluna-poetry.blogspot.com.

Toni Partington lives and works as a poet, editor, publisher, visual artist, and writing coach in Vancouver, Washington. Toni has a B.A. in Social Work and an M.A. in Humanities with a focus on literature and literary editing. She is the author of two books of poetry, Jesus Is A Gas (2009), and Wind Wing (2010). Her poetry has been published in numerous journals including The Cascade Journal, VoiceCatcher (editions 3 and 4), OutwardLink.net, and Perceptions. She was Co-Editor for the 2011/2012 VoiceCatcher anthology of Pacific NW women writers. Toni is co-founder and editor of Printed Matter Vancouver, an editing and small press imprint (www.printedmattervancouver.com). Toni co-hosts the Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, a popular poetry reading series in Vancouver, WA founded by her husband Christopher Luna.