Tag: open mic poetry

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Neil Aitken January 11, 2018

December 28, 2017

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic January 11 2018

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

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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

Babbages_Dream_v23
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

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Jamie Houghton December 14, 2017

November 19, 2017

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Flyer December 14 2017 cropped

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Jamie Houghton

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 head shot

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.

Jamie Houghton book cover

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.

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.

 

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Julene Tripp Weaver November 9, 2017/ Poeming Health Workshop November 10

October 15, 2017

Ghost Town Flyer November 9 2017 cropped

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 T Weaver Brick Background

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.

 

JTWeaver-TruthBeBold WebPage-LargeSize

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Coleman Stevenson September 14, 2017

August 17, 2017

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic flyer September 14 2017

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

Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar: http://briz.us/

LGBTQIA+ FRIENDLY, ANTI-FASCIST, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Listen to a feature on Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on OPB Radio’s State of Wonder: http://www.opb.org/radio/programs/state-of-wonder/article/ghost-town-poetry-vancouver-washington-open-mic/

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Sean Aaron Bowers August 10, 2017

July 28, 2017

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Flyer August 10 2017 edit

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

featuring Sean Aaron Bowers

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

7 pm

Thursday, August 10

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

Angst Gallery

final

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

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

Niche logo

Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar

LGBTQIA+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

We_Were_Warriors_FRONT_COVER

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.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Oakland Poets Tongo Eisen-Martin & Derek Fenner July 13, 2017

June 12, 2017

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic flyer July 13 2017 edit

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Oakland Poets Tongo Eisen-Martin and Derek Fenner

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

7 pm

Thursday, July 13

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/

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.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Recap (June 8, 2017): Jan Stewart & Lori Loranger

June 11, 2017

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.”

Dan Raphael June 8 2017
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
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”

 

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Rob Katsuno & Dan Raphael Thursday, June 8, 2017

May 14, 2017

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic flyer June 8 2017 edit

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Rob Katsuno and Dan Raphael

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

7 pm

Thursday, June 8

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/

LGBTQIA+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

katsuno-professional-photo-image

Rob Katsuno has been employed as a Boeing jet design engineer, a Mitsubishi Joint Venture Broker, a Morgan Stanley Investment Banker in NY and Tokyo. He holds an MBA from UCLA and currently works as a Ameriprise Financial Advisor. In 2011 he received third place in the Willamette Writers Kay Snow Writing Contest. He is also a talented performer who has appeared at BackfencePDX and United Solo, America’s largest solo performance festival in Theatre Row, NY. For more information about rob, visit robkatsuno.com

Dan Raphael by Robert
Dan Raphael performs at the Ford Building in Portland Photo by Robert Sanders

Everyone in This Movie Gets Paid, dan raphael’s 19th book, came out last June. Some of his newer poems appear in Caliban, Curly Mind, The Poeming Pigeon, In Between Hangovers and Otoliths. Every Wednesday he writes and records a news poem, as well as writing stories for the news anchors on KBOO Radio. He hosts Fo Po Poetry, a monthly reading series in Portland, and is the prose editor for Unlikely Stories, an e-zine based in New Orleans.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Sam Roxas-Chua March 9, 2017

February 12, 2017

ghost-town-poetry-flyer-march-9-2017

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Sam Roxas-Chua

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

7 pm Thursday, March 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

LGBTQ-FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Featuring Sam Roxas-Chua

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Sam Roxas-Chua is a poet and visual artist from Eugene, Oregon. His poetry has been described as “tidal,” and he has been called “a man who can take any kind of physical material and transform them into art.” According to poet Dorianne Laux, “Like Jack Gilbert before him, Roxas-Chua reaches beyond the imagery and emotions we expect—creating his own universe, logic, and definitions of the beautiful.” His first book, Fawn Language, was published by Tebot Bach in 2013 and his current manuscript, Saying Your Name Three Times Underwater, is forthcoming from Lithic Press. His poems have appeared in various journals including Narrative, december Magazine, and Cream City Review. His collection of poems, Diary of Collected Summers, won the first place award in the 7th Annual Missouri Review Audio Competition in poetry. Most recently he appeared in a live broadcast of Dear Sugar Radio at the Aladdin Theater in support of #writersresist. He is the owner of The Poetry Loft, a small business dedicated to community writing workshops. He holds an MFA from Pacific University.

Angst Gallery showcases cultural events including art shows, musical performances, book launch parties, classes, workshops, and the monthly Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic. All art forms are valued. More than just a place to show art, Angst Gallery is also a safe space for community discussion, where all people are respected for who they are. We donate the use of the space to organizations that work for human rights and progressive social change such as Planned Parenthood, the YMCA/YWCA, Cascade AIDS Project, and the NAACP.