6:30-8:30pm

Monday, July 9

Director Park

SW Park & Yamhill

Portland, OR

David Abel presents

Poetry on the Piazza

Featuring poetry by Christopher Luna, Toni Partington,

Jenney Pauer, and Kori Sayer

Live painting by DaBat

Music by Tyler Morgan

This outdoor poetry public reading series provides a glimpse into some of the fertile and diverse literary communities that contribute to Portland’s reputation as a literary mecca. Coordinated by PP&R’s Multnomah Arts Center.

For more info: http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/index.cfm?c=52454

Christopher Luna reads at Cover to Cover Books in Vancouver, WA

Photo by Jim Martin

Christopher Luna is the co-founder, with Toni Partington, of Printed Matter Vancouver, whose books include Ghost Town Poetry, an anthology of poems from the popular Vancouver, WA open mic reading he founded in 2004, and Serenity in the Brutal Garden, the debut collection by Vancouver poet Jenney Pauer. His books include GHOST TOWN, USA and The Flame Is Ours: The Letters of Stan Brakhage and Michael McClure 1961-1978, an important piece of film and literary history that Luna edited at Brakhage’s request, available on Michael Rothenberg’s Big Bridge.org.

Toni Partington at Cover to Cover by Jim Martin

Toni Partington: I’m a poet intrigued by the investigative process. I work with the narrative form to explore social commentary. I’m always looking for the “sweet” spot between poetry and art where collaborations find a common voice. Vancouver, Washington is my town and visual, literary, musical, and performance arts are my mission.

Jenney Pauer by Anna Shogren

Jenney Pauer is a graduate of Southern Methodist University, where she studied theater and English literature. After serving four years in the United States Army as a Korean linguist, she obtained a Secondary English Education degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before moving to the Pacific Northwest with her dog and cat in 2008, she taught high school English along the border of Arizona and Mexico. Recently, Jenney co-wrote a short film, Nico’s Sampaguita, accepted into the 27th Annual Asian Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles, and soon to be released by Sacred Fire Films in San Francisco, California. Serenity in the Brutal Garden (Printed Matter Vancouver, 2012) is her first book.

Kori Sayer and her daughter, Blu

Kori Sayer is a northwest native and a lover of words, wine, friends, kids, art and social justice. She’s worked on a few self-published collaborations with friends and has been featured at a few local readings here and there including at the Cover to Cover series, which is the birth place of her imagination and the place that serves her soul’s favorite comfort food. Her most recent chapbook, Dr. Turpentine, was published all the way back in 2009, she’s been working on small projects and raising her daughter since then, but hopes to have a new book out this fall.

DaBat’s notions of the universe are wildly abstract and difficult to envision. His nature is to show the viewer that within the darkside of light, there is always hope. His influences can be found in the indirect light of love, rage, randomness, the need for non-conformity, the dream of a different reality.

For the last six years Tyler Morgan has jammed with Lincoln’s Beard, playing several instruments. Right now he is taking a sabbatical working on a few new things and recharging his batteries.  Feel free to check out a few of his ideas at www.jvvawa.com . He is mostly playing acoustic covers with a smattering of originals.