Tag: LGBTQ-friendly

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Brianna Renae at Art At The Cave January 11, 2024

December 28, 2023

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Brianna Renae

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige

7 pm

Thursday, January 11

Art At The Cave

108 E Evergreen Blvd

Vancouver, WA 98660

https://artatthecave.com

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. The suggested donation is five dollars.

Brianna Renae is a spoken word poet & public speaker born and raised in Portland Oregon. She is the author of her debut poetry collection Her Way with Words and the founder of The People’s Poets which is a BIPOC open mic created to amplify marginalized voices. She had the pleasure of opening for bestselling author Rupi Kaur in 2022. This year Brianna Renae was crowned Portland Poetry Slam’s 2023 Grand Slam Champion. She writes in hopes to inspire people to recognize the power in their stories.

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.

Celebrate 15 Years of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic with Rod “Kenny” Nelson and your hosts Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna at Angst Gallery on November 14, 2019

October 18, 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Flyer November 14 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna​ and Toni Lumbrazo Luna​ of Printed Matter Vancouver​
Featuring Rod Nelson​

7 pm
Thursday, November 14
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
$5 Suggested donation

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

Rod Nelson

Rod Nelson is a spoken word poet in Central Washington. Rod Nelson’s work focuses on modern day social issues and addresses the divide between rural and urban America. He was born in Kansas but grew up in Selah, a small town in Central Washington. After completing his education in Seattle, he returned to the Yakima Valley and has lived and worked here since 1979. He was the first- place finisher in the YVCC Black Box Poetry Slam in 2017, and finished second in that contest in 2016 and 2018. He was the first- place finisher in the Litfuse Poetry Slam in 2018 and 2019, and finished second in that contest in 2017. He was a presenting poet at the Ellensburg Poetry Prowl in 2018. His poem “ A Note From Mallory’s Progeny” was one of the winners in the Yakima Coffee House Poet’s Poetry Contest in 2017 and was published in its chapbook that year.

A Failing Grade in Right and Wrong 101

Fifty-eight dead in Vegas
the Dow gains a hundred -fifty
bump-stock sales soar
Senators send thoughts and prayers.

Fifty-eight glass-eyed corpses,
on blood-soaked pavement.
the Hobbesian contract broken again
interview the girlfriend
talk with the brother
autopsy the brain
dissect for answers
but no lobe of morality
no Center for Right and Wrong
just indifferent gray matter
upon indifferent gray matter.

500 years after the birth of the church of reason
evil fairies gone from the town well
demons removed from the plague
but where is our heart?

Our ministers recite Psalms:
Lean not on your own understanding,
but trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Ancient rules,
conceived in mysticism,
chipped in stone,
gave the world faggots for the bonfires of medieval Christendom.
An eye for an eye,
a lie for a lie,
and soon the whole world was ignorant.

Seventeen dead in Parkland
Ten dead in Santa Fe
the sabbath brings eleven dead in Pittsburg.
Our leaders serve lukewarm soup to the survivors,
mirroring our lack of empathy.
And when you stare into the abyss,
the abyss stares back.

But, hey, the bulls are running hard down on Wall Street.
Adam Smith rolls in his grave,
Kant’s categorical imperative rolls its eyes at charitable deductions,
and Jesus asks, where is the love brother?

In an affluent society,
goodness only comes baked in a Sarah Lee Pound cake.
Perhaps Vonnegut was right,
it’s all about moiling for more money,
lusting for better copulation.
Reason,
harnessed by the Id,
to gang-rape the Ego,
outfox the Superego.
Mill’s Utilitarianism blushes.

Gin and tonic golfing
and Wimbledon watching
on the working man’s dime.
College admission bribing
Watergate
deflate-gate
blood-doping
pussy grabbing
gas lighting cover-ups,
cram the victims face in the vomit of her own sorrow,
drag the spouse on Oprah’s stage,
blinking in the glare of the apologetic melodrama.

Born-again sinners!
Just like the johnnies-come-late -to -Jesus
in the God squad pod at the County jail.

Lost in the wilderness,
where is our compass?

Another head -chopping video on the ‘net,
our politicians promise revenge.
An eye for an eye,
and soon the whole world is blind.
In heaven, Jesus and his faithful scribe Mathew shake their heads,
the Dalai Lama grimaces,
and Gandhi’s ghost cries in the night.

500 years after the birth of the church of reason,
the boy who paints rainbows,
the girl who tends her own garden,
still live with the stink of burning flesh.

Our nation,
blessed
with Mr. Smith’s prophesized wealth
but this pearl
as cold and hard as a bullet.
Where has our heart gone?

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Jonathan Oak at Angst Gallery on October 10, 2019

September 15, 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic flyer October 10 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna of Printed Matter Vancouver
Featuring Jonathan Oak

7 pm
Thursday, October 10
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7

$5 Suggested donation (for featured poet)

Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street
Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar
LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Jonathan Oak is the author of two poetry books, Sutly fucked ↑ and Things I Forgot To Say, as well as the upcoming novel Jerry. He has lived and performed in Portland for the last six years. He was part of the VAMP reading series in San Diego and a fixture in the Phoenix poetry and music scene. He was on three Slam Nationals teams, hosted a poetry radio show, worked underground theater in San Francisco, and ran writing workshops for 15 years.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Joannie Stangeland at Angst Gallery on September 12, 2019

August 11, 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic flyer September 12 2019 edit

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna of Printed Matter Vancouver
Featuring Joannie Stangeland

7 pm
Thursday, August 8
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
$5 Suggested donation

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

Stangeland_ROlsonPhoto
Photo of Joannie Stangeland by Roseanne Olson

Joannie Stangeland is the author of The Scene You See, In Both Hands, and Into the Rumored Spring. She received the 2019 Crosswinds Poetry Journal grand prize, and her poems have also appeared in Boulevard, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, and other journals.

Self-Portrait with an Aubade
By Joannie Stangeland

The light must be sheer—Vermeer’s camera obscura
draws early sun, gauze filtered
through green. Leaving shadows’ blue pools,
night’s voices vanish.

Water jug, leaded glass, and ultramarine,
morning streams a sacrament—thin blessing
melts before you swallow. Tension subtle,
serene across the canvas.

Look to the window when day brushes your face,
clean strokes—the care, translucent.
Step into this skin like an artist, a flautist,
a muse. A yellow cup.

Place your eye in the middle.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring John Burgess at Angst Gallery on May 9, 2019

April 14, 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Flyer May 9 2019 cropped

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna of Printed Matter Vancouver
Featuring John Burgess

7 pm
Thursday, May 9, 2019
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
FREE

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

JB_60

John Burgess grew up in upstate New York, worked on a survey crew in Montana, taught English in Japan, and since 1985 has lived in Seattle, where he works for an insurance company. Past glories include: 2006 Jack Straw writer; co-founder of the original Burning Word Festival; 2008 Words’ Worth curator for the Seattle City Council; and past Board president at Hugo House, Seattle’s creative writing center. He’s a co-instigator with the Band of Poets. He has five books of poetry, some with maps and drawings, from Ravenna Press: Punk Poems (2005), A History of Guns in the Family (2008), Graffito (2011), “by Land…” (2015), and 1977 (2018).

1977 Cover

From 1977:

SPLEEN

I sing in praise of destitute dogs,
for days of melancholy rut
snouts bowed subservient
dissonance from the gut—

of strays, bile and vile
ion charged connected
for scent of beaten,
canine teeth retracted

a pack under attack—
ah, ill-humored howl

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Nastashia Minto at Angst Gallery March 14, 2019

February 16, 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Flyer March 14 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna
of Printed Matter Vancouver

Featuring Nastashia Minto

7 pm
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
FREE

Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street
Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar

LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Nastashia Minto Head Shot

A Georgia native who currently lives in Portland, OR, Nastashia Minto has performed at the Unchaste Readers Series, Neon Dream, Incite and various other reading series in the metro area. She has also appeared on KBOO Radio’s Talking Earth. Her writing has been published in SUSAN and in the forthcoming Unchaste Anthology Volume III. Nastashia’s first book, Naked, was published by Eldredge Books in February 2019.

Note: Nastashia and Eldredge Books will launch Naked with a reading at Another Read Through (3932 N Mississippi Ave. Portland, OR 97227) on February 28.

Nastashia Minto Naked Cover

Ask Me …

Ask me of the mistakes I’ve made, and let me pull back the layers to my truth. Many false narratives, but I’m the original carbon proof. DNA soaked in cocaine and booze — don’t know how my genes survived, but ask me of the mistakes I’ve made. I still hold her truths, although she tells many lies. I cry, we cry, she cried, but she said we were all a mistake. Maybe after one, but after three, take responsibility for their place, your place, our place in this world. Forgiveness seems to fall off trees like leaves in the fall, but even in some regions the leaves will stay on the trees, so I guess forgiveness will never fall. Ask me of the mistakes I’ve made. I’ll be the first in line, raised hands to account for all the shit I’ve put you through. Ask me of the mistakes I’ve made. You preached forgiveness but forgot I came from you

Nastashia Minto

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Tim Whitsel at Angst Gallery February 14, 2019

January 13, 2019

ghost town poetry open mic flyer february 14 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna of Printed Matter Vancouver
Featuring Tim Whitsel

7 pm
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
FREE

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

img_3191

Tim Whitsel believes in the power of dogwood blossoms. He may have migrated west on a solitary bicycle at the age of nineteen. He remembers the cheekbones of the first girl he kissed. He studied with David Waggoner, James Welch and Stanley Plumly at the University of Washington. For six years he curated the Windfall Reading Series at the Eugene Public Library. His poem “Mudflat Allure” won first prize at the 2013 Northwest Poets’ Concord. We Say Ourselves appeared in 2012 from Traprock Books and Airlie Press published his full-length collection Wish Meal in 2016.

GRIMACE

A cabin on a snowy river made
lonelier by threadbare conifers.

French doors, three glass teeth
facing the direction of the storm.
Everyone is away for the day.

Cinching their ballcaps snug
for a comfort they don’t feel.

Blowing on their hands one at a
time so their placards don’t fall.
Follow the Money, Hear ME

unwilling to be fenced like cattle
or fly south like trumpeter swans.
Tim Whitsel
May 10, 2018

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring VoiceCatcher poets Claudia F. Savage and Deborah Brink Wöhrmann at Angst Gallery on January 10, 2019

December 18, 2018

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Flyer January 10 2019 edit

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna of Printed Matter Vancouver
Featuring VoiceCatcher poets Claudia F. Savage and Deborah Brink Wöhrmann

7 pm
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
FREE

Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street
Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar
LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Savage headshot August

Claudia F. Saleeby Savage is part of the performance duo Thick in the Throat, Honey and co-runs a parent-artist podcast of the same name. Her most recent book of poetry is Bruising Continents. Other recent work appears in BOMB, Denver Quarterly, Columbia, Nimrod, Water-Stone Review, and Anomaly (the interview series “Witness the Hour: Arab American Poets Across the Diaspora”). She is a 2018-2021 Black Earth Institute Fellow, a progressive think tank. Her collaboration, reductions, about motherhood and ephemerality with visual artist Jacklyn Brickman, is forthcoming in 2020. She teaches privately and as a Writer in the Schools and lives with her husband and daughter in Portland.

My Daughter Discovers Synchronicity
Claudia F. Saleeby Savage

If you cannot keep that smell of rosemary on your palms, tea warm in your

morning mug, or stop your daughter’s howl when the soup bowl tips, swallow

this sorrow and spit out birds. My daughter gulps air to better voice her throat’s

vibration. Her belly’s taut drum. The contours of my face mountain under

her gaze. Outside a woodpecker searches for rot in a telephone pole. Her

fingers enter the belly button. A world tucked in worlds tucked in worlds.

In mine there are borders of guns. Refusals. A veil could mean your children

starve…

Deborah headshot

Deborah Brink Wöhrmann marvels at the body’s way of responding to thought and word and the mind’s way of speaking what the body feels and says. After years of teaching writing and such, she now weaves bodywork, nutritional studies and small-group creative workshops into her North Portland life. She loves to wander in the woods and along beaches, to garden, cook and to explore.

Excerpt from “Sunset”
for M.E.W.

You taught me the art
of opening windows
at just the right hour
closing them again
before heat
swept in.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring LA Poet Genève/Geneva Chao, Author of émigré, at Angst Gallery on October 11, 2018

September 16, 2018

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic flyer October 11 2018 cropped

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

Featuring Genève/Geneva Chao

Author of émigré

7 pm

Thursday, October 11

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

FREE

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

IMG_1396
LA poet Geneva Chao

Genève/Geneva Chao is the author of three books of poetry and several translations. Chao lives in Los Angeles. Her books include one of us is wave one of us is shore (French/English), Hillary Is Dreaming (English), and émigré (English/French/guernesiais/pidgin).

Screenshot 2018-08-27 at 7.40.12 AM

Hoku
with winds
comme des
through channels
fourmis on
sifting sand
grimpe les uns
into glass, every
sur les autres
chamber packed
se hissent
tight with bodies
jusqu’aux toits
in boxes in alleys
afin de voir
finally to climb
enfin la lueur
to see stars
des étoiles

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Reggie Marra September 13 / Narrative Healing Workshop September 14

August 12, 2018

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic flyer September 13 2018 cropped

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

Featuring Reggie Marra, Connecticut Poet and author of Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed

7 pm

Thursday, September 13

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

FREE

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

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

Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar

LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

head shot

Reggie Marra is the author of four books of poetry and four of nonfiction, including And Now, Still: Grave & Goofy Poems and Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed. He has conducted poetry-writing and adult development and healing workshops since 1997, including work with the NEA’s Poetry Out Loud program, the National Association for Poetry Therapy, the Connecticut Higher Order Thinking (HOT) Schools program, the Transformative Language Arts Network, Teleosis Institute, the Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire, HealingNewtown, the National Speakers Association and in schools throughout the northeastern United States. Reggie is an Integral Master Coach,™ a Voice Dialogue practitioner through Bridgit Dengel Gaspard, and Nature Based Soulcraft® practitioner, through Bill Plotkin and Animas Valley Institute. Prior to 1997 he spent 21 years as a teacher, basketball coach and administrator in secondary and higher education. Learn more at www.reggiemarra.com.

EARLY AUTUMN SOUTHWEST EVENING

The music stops.
The young women holding hands,
their tank tops, shorts, boots, long
flowing brown hair, and the young
man in a black tee, blue jeans and
boots to their right, capture a neon-
backlit American summer evening.
They run, semi-crouched, amid
food and beverage containers
strewn across the open space while
those behind them kneel, crawl,
crouch and cower along the fence,
unsure where the shooter is and
when the shooting will stop.
If ever.

From Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed.

Killing America Cover

Killing America: Our United States of Ignorance, Fear, Bigotry, Violence and Greed is Reggie Marra’s fourth book of poems. As with his This Open Eye: Seeing What We Do (2006), Marra unflinchingly sees, writes and shares with the reader verbal snapshots of his country’s late 20th- and early 21st-century culture of violence as it manifests at home and abroad. His poems both grieve slaughtered school children, unarmed black men, ambushed law enforcement officers, church-, concert- and movie-goers, military veterans and victims of American foreign policy violence in the Middle East, and indict the leaders who refuse to act amid, or implicitly condone, the ongoing slaughter.

ISBN: 978-0-9627828-8-6

135 pages | 6×9 paper

Cover Art: Whose Heaven? by Ray DiCapua Charcoal and ink on paper | 48” x 72” Copyright © 2003 by Ray DiCapua

Go to Amazon in September: https://www.amazon.com/Reggie-Marra/e/B00AECM6OM

Approximately 546 copies of this book will be sent to the September 2018 occupants of the United States Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court and White House. We’ll be raising money to do that: https://www. gofundme.com/poems-for- politicians-in-dc

Ongoing updates and poem excerpts at: https://killing-america.com/

Narrative Healing: Transcending the Illness Narrative Workshop with Reggie Marra

6:30 – 9:00pm

Friday, September 14

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

Cost: $35

RSVP to christopherjluna@gmail.com by Thursday, September 13

Narrative Healing: Transcending the Illness Narrative

“It is true that the mind is restless and difficult to control, but it can be conquered… through regular practice and detachment” (6.35)  – The Bhagavad Gita, c. 500-200 BCE.

The power of story to heal was understood 2,000 years ago. We now have over 30 years of research that confirms this philosophical, intuitive understanding. This workshop will engage you in your own narrative healing process, introduce the salient history, philosophy and research, and prepare you to write and revise your story from a salutogenic, rather than pathogenic, perspective. Deepen your abilities to embrace your own healing and nurture that of your clients, patients, students or loved ones. Find out: do you have your story – or does your story have you?

Whether you are navigating your own personal healing, coming to terms with the ongoing cultural and societal healing that is necessary to address American violence at home and abroad, or the larger global issues of pain and suffering, story matters. Your narrative impacts what you see, how you see and what you can do next. Join us on ….. for an experiential introduction to narrative healing.