LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
Photo by Friderike Heuer
Judith Arcana writes poems, stories, essays and books, publishing online and on paper. Her work has, naturally, been influenced by the times and places of her life: A high school English teacher in the 1960’s, Judith was fired, as many were in those years, considered dangerously radical by the school board. She’s written poems and stories rooted in her commitment to reproductive justice, which began with her work in the pre-Roe abortion underground in Chicago.
Judith’s new poetry collection, Announcements from the Planetarium, was published by Flowstone Press in 2017; its poems examine memory, consider the nature of wisdom, and reflect on the experience of aging into new consciousness. Judith hosts a poetry show on KBOO community radio in Oregon and online.
The Woman Who Hands You A Gun
Don’t think because I’m old
I’m not learning anymore. No.
That’s not how it goes. Right
now I’m on my way, leaving
town to be a carny, a barker
at the tattooed lady’s tent flap
or the woman who hands you a gun
at the shooting gallery or hoops
to toss over baby dolls. It’s got
to be something I don’t have
to study or practice, something
I can slip right into, on-the-job
training. Because I don’t have
that kind of time anymore.
I’m saying I’ll be an intern
an apprentice – not a student.
I don’t have time for that.
…….. Judith Arcana (First published in CIRQUE – Winter Solstice issue, 2012)
LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
christopherjluna@gmail.com
Peter Ludwin is the recipient of a Literary Fellowship from Artist Trust and the W.D. Snodgrass Award for Endeavor and Excellence in Poetry. His first book, A Guest in All Your Houses, was published in 2009 by Word Walker Press. His second collection is Rumors of Fallible Gods, a two-time finalist for the Gival Press Poetry Award that was published in 2013 by Presa Press.
His new book, Gone to Gold Mountain, was published in 2016 by MoonPath Press and subsequently nominated for a Washington State Book Award. In May, 2017 the Before Columbus Foundation nominated it for an American Book Award.
A fourteen-year participant in Mexico’s San Miguel Poetry Week, where he has studied under such noted poets as Mark Doty, Tony Hoagland, Joseph Stroud and Robert Wrigley, Ludwin was the Second Prize winner of the 2007-2008 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Awards. In 2010 Soundings Review named him its Reader’s Choice winner in the spring/summer issue.
Most recently, he was the 2016 First Prize winner of The Comstock Review’s Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award, the Second Place winner of the 2016 Paulann Petersen Poetry Award, and a finalist in poetry for both the 2016 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards and the Pangaea Poetry Prize. A multiple Pushcart Prize nominee, he received nominations in 2016 from MoonPath Press and Connecticut River Review.
His work has appeared in many journals, including Atlanta Review, The Bitter Oleander, The Comstock Review, Crab Orchard Review, Nimrod, North American Review and Prairie Schooner, to name a few. A world traveler who has journeyed by canoe to visit remote Indian families in the Amazon Basin of Ecuador, hiked in the Peruvian Andes, thumbed for rides in Greece, bargained for goods in the markets of Marrakech and Istanbul and survived debilitating illness in China and Tibet, he is also accomplished on acoustic guitar and autoharp. He lives in Kent, Washington, where he works for the Parks Department.
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver
Dane DeLloyd by Tiffany Burba
7 pm
Thursday, February 8
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660
angstgallery.com
Dane DeLloyd is an actor/poet/pianist/artist extraordinaire who has performed coast to coast in many different venue’s and formats. On the East Coast he has opened up for acts such as The Roots, The Pharcyde, Faith Evans, and the Last Poets. On the West Coast he has played every tall monster (i.e. Frankenstein, Shrek, Zombie, Ghostface Killer and others) at Universal Studios Hollywood four out of the last five years. He also custom designed T-shirts for several mazes at Hollywood Horror Nights in Los Angeles. Dane has self-published multiple chap books as well as two musical CD’s: 100% Organic Music and Serumade Adabeigio. 100% Organic Music includes over twenty years of original material. Serumade Adabeigio (literally translated as “the healing kiss”) is his debut classical/jazz solo piano recording. He has also promoted diversity in the community working with organizations such as the University of Pittsburgh and the Heinz Foundation. His works have been performed in the Andy Warhol Museum as well as the National Poetry Slam competition. His photography is currently on display at the Waddell & Reed building in downtown Vancouver, and in limited edition photography books such as N.Y.C. (2010).
Serumade
by Dane DeLloyd
Number one. water tension: the last drop to dissipate and splash
or encircle meniscus or slide down the side of a glass
aside doing dishes after grits and bacon
lovemaking that we choose not to mention.
Number two. Total stranger love: it was totally strange love,
only strangers could share the unfamiliarity of compartmentalized air
as out of the corner of side ways you stare
Not accidentally that you were looking at their love.
Looking at their love there. It’s like
Number three. Grits and bacon.
Number four. Habitdashedbaby: she drew in close to cuddle
through inspiration she never knew
about the places she will grow
or how much she grew… has grown… is growing…
Number five: gelatinous (dispeller)
she didn’t understand daddy’s self-doubt that he had
left her the genes to stand out
and now we only cradle her until she goes forward
to educate the labelers
she’s not of mixed blood
only mixed love… loving her always… loving them always… just because.
Number six: tomato blossoms: who transplanted buds immune
to the gloom. They love the rain and gave yellow blossoms in turn that smelled fertility fuzzy fragrant and sweet fruit to turn into sauces.
Number seven: Burning bush: it started between the behemoth desert sanders and the sawdust encircling the wind to show gust and test your faith sho-nuff’ it’s the wilderness against your nature… you pushed until the words were given back the water tension from the burning bush
Number eight: already here: The road was winding up to the mountain tops,
the van was packed out so there was no time to stop and see where the sludge stopped, and the clouds met the steep. I had love for the dregs where the industry seeps but now I live here with the rivers run deep.
Number nine: invisible tank : Two waterfalls folded in the pond the landscape the culture the knowledge the genre’ routed genes rooted in between the know-how of how unknown we are.
Items numbered of human SKU. Skewn into too soon
being again residue
pledging on cue. All that you have left… patience.
Number 10: patience for Dane: I felt the loss of innocence, a child punished for being beautiful and talented. Could I take those scars away for you
…only if I could… now we both heal together and apart
we always took beach strolls when you couldn’t walk
and now we pick up phones and don’t have time to talk about Love.
And the way in the life we may have just missed.
Life could be gone quick in a wind gust, a heart lust or a trip.
Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Neil Aitken Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver 7 pm Thursday, January 11 Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7 Angst Gallery 1015 Main Street Vancouver, WA 98660
Neil Aitken, author of Babbage’s Dream
Neil Aitken is the author of Babbage’s Dream (Sundress 2017) and The Lost Country of Sight (Anhinga 2008), which received the Philip Levine Prize, as well as the poetry chapbook, Leviathan. His work has been published in American Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, The Dialogist, Ninth Letter, The Normal School, The Southern Poetry Review, and many other journals. A former computer programmer and a past Kundiman Poetry Fellow, he is the founding editor of Boxcar Poetry Review, curator of Have Book Will Travel, and co-director of De-Canon: A Visibility Project. He also hosts The Lit Fantastic, a podcast about writers and their obsessions, and works as a creative writing coach and mentor. Visit him online at www.neil-aitken.com
Float
—a fundamental type used to define numbers with fractional parts
Like a bell, or rather the sound of it opening,
a silence that having tolled speaks again
suspended between states of incompleteness—
a point traversing a numbered landscape.
This country of small infinities is what we do
with what remains: bits of window panes,
refracted light, what gathers in the torn leaves
from the dimming edge of the red fields
grown dark. Say what you will, the body is no more
than the moon, a white trouser button in a pool
of gasoline, a halo of ash and flame
ascending the ladder of night.
Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street
Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar
LGBTQIA+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
Listen to a feature on Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on OPB Radio’s State of Wonder
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver
7 pm
Thursday, December 14
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660
angstgallery.com
Jamie Houghton is a poet, musician and teaching artist. Her poetry chapbook, Burn Site in Bloom, was released by Musehick Publications in 2017. Her secret talents include making the best Key Lime Pie in town and looking weirdly good in fur hats. You can read her personal essays on her blog.
THE MOWER TO THE GLOWWORMS
(After Andrew Marvell)
by Jamie Houghton
Think of it as just a haircut through your heart which is your whole
body glowing because that’s what a pulse does and your heart is electric
Think of your heart as mud struck by lightning in the womb some where
you cannot dive for or become small enough to see
Think of it as a slight shock combing up your spine or your skin
changing like the surface of water
Think of it as division think
of me as a witness think
of clinging to the rain or pouring
down the grate think
of it as the last
whisper before being extinguished
Think of it as sinking just
to rest in the dark wet think
of it as a buffet and you
are sunlight’s last snack think
of the shining blades as music think
of your tailbone as a mouse
and you will be fed to the peonies
and the dogs and the dawn think
of me as next
Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street, Vancouver.
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.
Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic featuring Coleman Stevenson
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver
7 pm
Thursday, September 14
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660
angstgallery.com
Coleman Stevenson is the author of two collections of poems, Breakfast (Reprobate/GobQ Books, 2015) and The Accidental Rarefication of Pattern #5609 (bedouin books, 2012). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of publications such as The Portable Boog Reader, Gramma, Paper Darts, Seattle Review, E-ratio, Osiris, Louisiana Literature, Mid-American Review, and the anthology Motionless from the Iron Bridge. She has been a guest curator for various gallery spaces in the Portland, OR, area, and has also taught poetry, design theory, and cultural studies at a number of different institutions there including Portland State University, Mountain Writers Center, The Art Institute of Portland, and Columbia River Correctional Institution. She created and has taught the Image+Text track in the Certificate Program at the Independent Publishing Resource Center since 2015. She creates tarot cards and other divination products through her business The Dark Exact. A collaborative text and image project with artist Aspen Farer, The Doppelgänger Museum, is ongoing.
Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street
LGBTQIA+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
Sean Aaron Bowers is a Portland native. His first collection of poetry, We Were Warriors (University of Hell Press, 2012), was published under the pseudonym Johnny No Bueno. His upcoming book, Concrete & Juniper is due to be released by University of Hell in late 2017 to mid 2018. His work has appeared in Criminal Class Review, Present Tense, and Nailed Magazine. You can find out more about him at seanaaronbowers.com once he gets it up and running again.
LGBTQIA+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004
printedmattervancouver.com
Tongo Eisen-Martin
Tongo Eisen-Martin is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry book, someone’s dead already (Bootstrap Press, 2015), and his poetry has been featured in Harper’s Magazine. He is also a movement worker and educator whose work in Rikers Island was featured in the New York Times. He has been a faculty member at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, and his curriculum on the extrajudicial killing of Black people, “We Charge Genocide Again!” has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. His next book, Heaven is All Goodbyes, will be the 61st Pocket Poets book published by City Lights.
Derek Fenner is an artist, educator, and researcher living in Oakland, California. He completed a BFA in painting and photography from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA in writing and poetics from Naropa University. After a decade of experience as an art educator in the juvenile justice system, he is completing a Doctorate in education at Mills College. His research interests include youth justice, youth participatory action research, decolonizing methodologies, and art-centered learning. He co-founded Bootstrap Press in 2000, which has published over 40 books. His latest book of poems is Hermeticities & Others, published in 2016.
Our thanks to Multnomah Arts Center writer Jan Stewart, who shared her impressions of her first time at Ghost Town and her time in Christopher Luna’s Multnomah Arts Center poetry writing class:
“My hat is off to you. A bright and multicolored hat of deep significance is lifted to you for your work in building a vibrant, inspiring, and supportive community of poets. At one point last night you said something like, ‘you guys are cracking my head wide open.’ Mine too. Along with the assembly of poets, a group diverse in race, experience, sexual orientation, gender, and perspective, I was impressed by the core values palpably present. Everyone felt safe to let their voice be heard. The power of that mix cracked my head wide open and knocked my socks off. I have been impressed by what you do for us at MAC and last night saw it is a drop in the bucket in what you do for poets, and even more importantly for the community, for the world, for life on this plane. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Featured Reader Dan Raphael performs at Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on June 8, 2017
Recently, Portland poet Micah David-Cole Fletcher was the only survivor among three heroes who were stabbed while defending a Muslim woman and her friend from a racist terrorist on the MAX in Portland. In gratitude for their bravery and their willingness to stand up to hate, we dedicated this month’s Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic to Micah, Ricky Best, and Taliesin Namkai-Meche.
I was moved to tears by Ghost Town regular Lori Loranger, who has been attending the series since it was founded in November 2004, when she shared the following poem:
“Tell everyone on this train that I love them”
remembering Rick Best and Taliesin Namkai-Meche
So many ways to propagate hate
speak it and spout it and live it
until you believe it’s true
you can teach it to your children,
feed it with your angry thoughts
and stories
keep it on the fire
where it simmers and steams
until it explodes in violence.
So many ways to propagate hate,
while those of us who don’t believe,
who won’t give energy to hating,
pour reason and truth and love on the heat of it
with just the one way to not hate:
to NOT HATE
To not hate people who aren’t like us
or don’t think the same
To not hate even the haters
to just not hate.
It’s the duty of those of us who can
to speak up, when hate is spoken
taught, displayed
acted on
It’s our privilege to do the right thing,
a privilege not everyone can afford.
We’re all on this train
traveling together, to wherever we’re going,
going our own ways, we’re on this train together
packed in tight
with no room for hate
Tell everyone on this train that I love them.
-Lori Loranger
Micah Fletcher: “It’s the duty of those who can – Being able to do the right thing is a privilege some people can’t afford”
PRINTED MATTER VANCOUVER 