Our heartfelt thanks to Jennifer Pratt-Walter for sending this poem inspired by her experience at Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic at Art At The Cave. Jennifer Pratt-Walter is a talented poet, musician, and photographer who has been a regular presence at our reading series for many years. Jennifer writes, “Thank you for the opportunity give and receive poetry in a supportive and outrageously amazing gathering.”
Jennifer Pratt-Walter reads her poetry at Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on September 8, 2022
Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
This moment is important—
look at you all out there, so beautiful
in your collective radiance, eager constellations of eyes.
You are visionaries; your creativity is so strong
it generates a sound (I am singing it now).
Such words we drink here together, ingesting
each other’s wisdom. Such a painting we make
in colors that have not even been invented yet,
opening barriers for change.
You are breathtaking just as you are right here.
You are breath-making as you move through your days
like oxygen. Look how you live in service to your conscience,
sewing lost edges together, seam-ripping
the world’s ills to let the healing in,
knitting bandages of words
to keep it there.
J. Pratt-Walter, 2024
As of this writing, there are 21 days left to go to fund our 20th Anniversary anthology of poems from Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, the anti-racist, anti-fascist, LGBTQ+ friendly, pro-science, all ages and uncensored reading series founded by Christopher Luna in 2004. Please share the following link and consider contributing today!
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.
Gay Garland Reed, Ph.D. is a professor emerita from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa where she taught for over two decades. She also taught in Korea as a Peace Corps Volunteer back in the 70s, and in China and the Middle East. After many years of academic writing and retirement in 2014, in 2017 she self-published a small chapbook of poems called Dragonfly Spirit. In 2022 she published a second chapbook called Transitory Moments: Poetry That Explores Impermanence. She relocated to Vancouver, Washington from Hawai‘i a decade ago.
November 2024 is the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic. This year’s featured readers will include William Erickson, Bruce Hall, Clark County Poet Laureate Susan Dingle and Debra Elisa.
Send an email to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com 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.
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.
Kevin Sampsell is an editor and publisher (Future Tense Books), bookstore employee (Powell’s Books), collage artist, and author (of the memoir, A Common Pornography, the novel, This Is Between Us, and a forthcoming novel, Baby in the Night). His book of collage art and poems, I Made an Accident, was published by Clash Books in 2022. His newest book, the illustrated story, Sean the Stick (a collaboration with the artist Emma Jon-Michael Frank) came out in January 2024. His stories and essays have appeared in publications and websites such as Southwest Review, Diagram, Salon, The Rumpus, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Paper Darts, Joyland, and Longreads, as well as Best Sex Writing 2012, and Best American Essays 2013. He’s lived in Portland, Oregon since 1992.
November 2024 is the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic. This year’s featured readers will include Gay Garland Reed, William Erickson, Bruce Hall, Clark County Poet Laureate Susan Dingle and Debra Elisa.
Send an email to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com 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.
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 daughter of Cuban refugees, Marialicia González was raised in Miami with a value in the efficiency of love & creativity. Mari started writing as a child as a way to witness herself. Poetry gave rise to her imagination and haiku, in particular, captivated her. She is a grief revolutionary. Using her 30 years of experience as a midwife, RN, social worker, minister, and artist, she has transformed the heartache of deep, personal losses to become a strong voice in the cultural shift to normalize the experience and expression of grief. Marialicia is the founder of DARALUZ WISDOM, where she consults with individuals and groups in bringing clarity to the childbearing years and beyond. While facilitating workshops, rituals, creating courses, and providing one-to-one consulting, she supports people in making informed, wise choices, for themselves and their loved ones, with a focus on holding space for grief and the expansion that our grieving hearts hold. She is a space-holder, leatherworker and hiker, a storyteller and a mother.
Language Has No Words is the poetic journey of one woman’s heart. Written in the classic syllabic composition of 5-7-5, these unconventional haiku accompany you through the nuances of grief, forgiveness, sex, longing, curiosity, joy, and hope. Marialicia González walks with you as you breathe deeply and awaken to the subtleties of life, navigating your deepest fears, satisfactions, and wonders; until eventually you become a poem unto yourself: https://campsite.bio/marigonzalez
November 2024 is the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic. This year’s featured readers include Kevin Sampsell, Gay Garland Reed, William Erickson, Bruce Hall, and Debra Elisa.
Send an email to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com 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.
ANTI-RACIST, LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST, PRO-CHOICE, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
$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.
Ken Yoshikawa likes to write plays and poems and do silly things onstage. Recently he played Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Portland Center Stage, and has had two plays commissioned in Portland, one of which, From a Hole in the Ground, is presently onstage with Corrib Theatre. His first full-length poetry book, Monster Colored Glasses, was published by Lightship Press, and is available to purchase at yoshikawaken.com! In his free time he enjoys video games, hanging with friends, trees, and working as an astrologer.
Igor Brezhnev and Sam Rose Preminger founded Lightship Press “to support living artists with an emphasis on poetry (as this is our field of expertise). This mission will be realized through publishing and promoting high-quality full-length books and chapbooks, recording spoken word performances, and producing community events where contributors can step into the public eye and market their work. Priority, both in who we publish and who we hire onto our team, will be given to authors intending to earn a portion of their income through their literary craft. Our motto is ‘Support Living Artists Cause the Dead Ones Don’t Need It.'”
November 2024 is the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic. This year’s featured readers include Marialicia Gonzalez, Kevin Sampsell, Gay Garland Reed, William Erickson, Bruce Hall, Washington State Poet Laureate Arianne True, and Debra Elisa.
Send an email to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com 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.
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.
Help us celebrate National Poetry Month with our special guest, Lightship Press author Zia Pollis, who is traveling from Massachusetts to be with us.
Zia Pollis is a poet and illustrator from Chamisal, New Mexico. She has a B.A. in English from Reed College and is a Master’s of Divinity student at the Harvard Divinity School. She has organized and participated in numerous poetry communities and festivals, including the Taos Verse Converse festival and the Society of the Muse of the Southwest (SOMOS). She also competed in the national youth poetry slam, Brave New Voices, and has been featured in MassPoetry’s U35 reading series. Her work has appeared in Nailed Magazine, MassPoetry,Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Harvard Magazine, and others.
Her chapbook Labors of Mercy was published by Lightship Press in 2023:
Igor Brezhnev and Sam Rose Preminger founded Lightship Press “to support living artists with an emphasis on poetry (as this is our field of expertise). This mission will be realized through publishing and promoting high-quality full-length books and chapbooks, recording spoken word performances, and producing community events where contributors can step into the public eye and market their work. Priority, both in who we publish and who we hire onto our team, will be given to authors intending to earn a portion of their income through their literary craft. Our motto is ‘Support Living Artists Cause the Dead Ones Don’t Need It.'”
November 2024 is the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic. This year’s featured readers include Ken Yoshikawa, Marialicia Gonzalez, Kevin Sampsell, Gay Garland Reed, William Erickson, Bruce Hall, Washington State Poet Laureate Arianne True, and Debra Elisa.
Send an email to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com 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.
As we prepare to celebrate 20 years of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic in November, Printed Matter Vancouver and Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic emcees Morgan Paige, Christopher Luna, and Toni Lumbrazo Luna are collecting poems for our third anthology. If you have participated in the series, please send two poems that you have read at the open mic to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com for possible inclusion in the book. We are also looking for high-quality photos and brief descriptions of your most memorable experiences at the reading. Deadline is April 1.
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.
Vivian Sapphire is a poet, singer and actor from SW Washington. She is inspired by the stark beauty of life and death, and everything we do in-between. She has written two unpublished manuscripts and will probably finish a third before getting around to publishing the first two.
November 2024 is the twentieth anniversary of the founding of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic. This year’s featured readers include Zia Pollis, Ken Yoshikawa, Marialicia Gonzalez, Kevin Sampsell, Gay Garland Reed, William Erickson, Bruce Hall, Washington State Poet Laureate Arianne True, and Debra Elisa.
Send an email to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com 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.
$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. The suggested donation is five dollars.
Genevieve DeGuzman was a 2022 Oregon Literary Fellow and has received fellowships and grants from the Oregon Arts Commission and Vermont Studio Center. As a poet, Genevieve won the Atticus Review contest and earned several Best New Poets nominations. Most recently, she was a finalist for the Black River Competition by Black Lawrence Press. Her work appears in The Adroit, Bear Review, Nimrod, RHINO, phoebe, and other journals. She lives in Portland, OR.
This year’s featured readers include Bruce Parker & Diane Corson, Zia Pollis, Ken Yoshikawa, Marialicia Gonzalez, Kevin Sampsell, Gay Garland Reed, William Erickson, Bruce Hall, Washington State Poet Laureate Arianne True, and Debra Elisa.
Send an email to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com 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.
PRINTED MATTER VANCOUVER 