Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Julene Tripp Weaver

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

7 pm

Thursday, November 9

Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7

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, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Julene Tripp Weaver lives in Seattle where she is a psychotherapist and a writer; she worked in AIDS services for over 21 years. Her third poetry book, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, was published this spring by Finishing Line Press. Two prior books are No Father Can Save Her, and Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues. She is widely published in journals and anthologies including: Anti-Heroin Chic, Riverbabble, River & South Review, The Seattle Review of Books, HIV Here & Now, and In The Words of Women International 2016 Anthology (creative nonfiction). Find more of her writing at http://www.julenetrippweaver.com.

Julene will also be leading a workshop at Angst Gallery at 6:30pm on Friday, November 10 entitled Poeming Health: Are you or is someone you love living with a chronic illness? Are you a caregiver? This workshop will provide a clearing space to crystallize what is necessary for your survival, no matter the challenges. We will explore our personal experience through writing to our illness, to our loved one, to our pain. Bring a notebook and pens you are comfortable with. Cost: $25.

To register for the workshop, please attend Julene Tripp Weaver’s reading on November 9 or contact Christopher Luna via christopherjluna@gmail.com or 360-910-1066 before Friday, November 10.

 

HIV Today

By Julene Tripp Weaver

We long term survivors

got a lifetime, came through the hard

years still strong. Smart not to trust early.

The only answer at the beginning, AZT,

we found our own box of hope

filled a whole book with reasons

to live, made art, wrote stories, poems,

created family.

 

We felt love for our dying

brothers and sisters, wanted them

to fall well, we held community

created an embrace: Act Up meetings,

coalitions, die-ins. We made history.

Moved science up a notch

like that last lover in our belt,

that quilt panel we’ve all made.

 

Those of us still here with

our endless days to live

take pills daily to hold steady.

Victory survivors

welding a healing path

with our scrapbooks we created, Hope,

it’s title, and for some of us

our hearts melded to welcome this virus

make it feel at home. Give it a long life.

Listen to a feature on Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on OPB Radio’s State of Wonder