Tag: poetry readings

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Wil Gibson October 8, 2020

September 23, 2020

NOTE: Due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control, this month’s reading will take place over Zoom. Email christopherjluna@gmail.com by no later than 3 pm on October 8 to indicate your interest in participating. In the subject line, let us know if you are “Reading” or “Just Listening.” You will receive instructions for how to join the meeting. Open mic readers are invited to share one poem for three minutes or less. 

If you are willing to donate to support the series, please use Christopher Luna’s PayPal account (christopherjluna@gmail.com) or contact him to make other arrangements. Include a memo stating that the money is for Ghost Town Poetry. The suggested donation is five dollars.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Hosted by Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, & Morgan Paige

Featuring Wil Gibson

7 pm

Thursday, October 8

On Zoom

$5 Suggested donation

LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST,

ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Please support Niche Wine Bar, whose owner, Leah Jackson, has provided a home for us since 2015: https://nichewinebar.com

Wil Gibson currently lives in Humboldt County, California where the trees are big. He has had 5 collections published by kind people, and has been included in a number of anthologies and lit mags both online and in print, such as Marsh Hawk Review, Button Poetry, Midwestern Gothic, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Cascadia Rising, Collective Unrest, Yellow Chair Review and many more. He has twice been nominated for both a Pushcart and Best of the Net, and currently spearheads the Redwood Poetry Project. You can find links to books and more info at wilgibson.com

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Brad Garber and Gina Williams on Zoom Thursday, September 10, 2020

September 2, 2020

NOTE: Due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control, this month’s reading will take place over Zoom. Email christopherjluna@gmail.com by no later than 3 pm on September 10 to indicate your interest in participating. In the subject line, let us know if you are “Reading” or “Just Listening.” You will receive instructions for how to join the meeting. Open mic readers are invited to share one poem for three minutes or less. 

The Loranger family, who have been loyal regulars since our very first reading in November 2004, recently lost their home in a fire. In lieu of a five-dollar suggested donation, we request that you donate to the Loranger’s GoFundMe page. Let’s come together as a community to help our friends in need: https://www.gofundme.com/f/jack-and-lori-loranger-fire-fund

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Hosted by Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, & Morgan Paige

Featuring Brad Garber and Gina Williams

7 pm

Thursday, September 10

On Zoom

LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST,

ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Please support Niche Wine Bar, whose owner, Leah Jackson, has provided a home for us since 2015: https://nichewinebar.com

Note: Gina Williams and Christopher Luna will also be reading with Dan Raphael for Annie Bloom’s books on September 14:

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/poetry-reading-gina/register

Brad Garber has degrees in biology, chemistry and law. He writes, paints, draws, photographs, hunts for mushrooms and snakes in the Great Northwest. Since 1991, he has published poetry, magazine articles, essays and weird stuff in publications including Edge Literary Journal, Pure Slush, On the Rusk Literary Journal, Sugar Mule, Third Wednesday, Barrow Street, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Barzakh Magazine, Five:2:One, Ginosko Journal, Vine Leaves Press, Riverfeet Press, Smoky Blue Literary Magazine, and Aji Magazine. Brad was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2011, 2013 & 2018.  

Gina Williams is a journalist, photographer, former firefighter, and gardener. She’s a Pacific Northwest native and can often be found rambling in the Oregon Outback, volunteering at the community garden, or on assignment in a far-flung location. She lives and creates near Portland, Oregon. Her full-length collection of poetry, An Unwavering Horizon, was published by Finishing Line Press this year. Williams is a Pushcart Prize nominee for poetry and founder of Plein Air Poetry Northwest, a nonprofit organization supporting literary arts and environmental activism. Learn more at GinaMarieWilliams.com.

An Unwavering Horizon is available through Finishing Line Press as well as other outlets, including Portland’s Powell’s Books.

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/an-unwavering-horizon-by-gina-williams/  

https://www.powells.com/book/an-unwavering-horizon-9781646621514  

dan raphael in Conversation with Christopher Luna at Powell’s Books on October 27

September 29, 2019

dan raphael in Conversation with Christopher Luna
Sunday, October 27 at 2:00 PM
Powell’s City of Books
1005 W Burnside St.
Portland, OR 97209

Manything, poet dan raphael’s 21st book, begins with a description of the Rapture from downtown Portland and ends talking about cosmological babies with a couple universes of experience and imagination in between. Raphael will be joined in conversation by Christopher Luna, author of Message From the Vessel in a Dream.

manything

Preorder a signed edition of Manything

Event description from dan raphael’s Facebook event page:

Manything, dan raphael’s 21st book, is just out from Unlikely Books. He’ll read a couple then be joined by Christopher Luna, the poetic heart of Vancouver, WA in talking about Manything, exchanging poems, and other topics.

dan raphael’s new book got it’s title from the wide variety of visions, voices and vocabularies among the 65 poems For 4 decades dan’s been active in the northwest as poet, performer, editor and reading host. Most Wednesdays dan writes and records a political poem for the KBOO Evening News.

Larry Smith, editor of Caliban, wrote: “It is appropriate that Dan Raphael’s Manything has come out in the year of Walt Whitman’s 200th birthday. Raphael is one of the few poets since Whitman to have such a complete delight in the multiplicity of the world. His integration of the objects of man’s making with the wildness of nature is liberating. The poet’s body parts can function independently and often co-mingle freely with dirty streets, rain, bottles, squirrels, and the sun. Manything is a vision, one that moves us beyond our complacency, making us less sure that the world we navigate daily is what we think it is. Like Louis Aragon in Paysan de Paris, Raphael awakens us to the ecstatic possibility that we might fall right through the sidewalk.”

Christopher Luna served as the first Poet Laureate of Clark County, WA from 2013-2017. Luna has an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and is the co-founder, with Toni Lumbrazo Luna, of Printed Matter Vancouver, a small press which also provides writing coaching, editing, and manuscript review for Northwest writers. He and Toni co-host the LGBTQ+ friendly, all ages and uncensored Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, founded by Christopher in 2004. Luna’s books include Brutal Glints of Moonlight and The Flame Is Ours: The Letters of Stan Brakhage and Michael McClure 1961-1978. His first full-length collection of poetry, Message from the Vessel in a Dream, was published by Flowstone Press in 2018. A revised and expanded version of Ghost Town, USA, which features poems and observations of Vancouver, WA from a New Yorker’s perspective, is forthcoming from Uttered Chaos Press.

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.

Printed Matter Vancouver Presents Driven By Hope, the third book of poetry by Toni Lumbrazo Luna/ Book Launch Celebration at Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic July 11, 2019

June 14, 2019

Printed Matter Vancouver presents A Book Launch Celebration for Driven By Hope
The third book of poetry by  Toni Lumbrazo Luna

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic flyer July 11 2019 cropped

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

7 pm
Thursday, July 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

Cover-Driven By Hope 2019-05-30-promo

Driven By Hope is Toni Lumbrazo Luna’s third book of poetry. It contains glimpses into the lives of people she has met throughout her career as a Social Worker and Life/Career Coach. These poems are based on real life and Toni takes them to new places inside her imagination. Perhaps you will see yourself through her eyes.

BW Toni Lumbrazo Luna by Maria Vara
Toni Lumbrazo Luna by Maria Vara

Toni Lumbrazo Luna (formerly Partington) is a poet, editor, publisher, visual artist, and writing coach living in Vancouver, Washington. She holds a B.A. in Social Work and a M.A. in Humanities and Literary Editing. She’s had a long career in social work, college teaching and administration, grant writing, life and career coaching, and nonprofit consulting.

She is the author of three books of poetry: Jesus is a Gas, Wind Wing, and her most recent, Driven By Hope, released in June 2019. Her poetry has been published in VoiceCatcher (editions 3 and 4), OutwardLink, Poeming Pigeon, Perceptions and more. She was Co-Editor for the final print edition of VoiceCatcher 6. Toni is currently working on her memoir, titled Life in View of the Crazy House.

Toni Lumbrazo Luna by Christopher Luna
Toni Lumbrazo Luna by Christopher Luna

Toni is co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, an editing service and small press imprint that publishes the poetry of Pacific Northwest writers. Toni works with poets and writers on their manuscripts, individual poems, essays, and prose. She has also developed business plans, marketing materials, grant proposals, and government reports. She co-hosts the Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, established in 2004 by Christopher Luna.

Toni has been creating visual art since 1980 and in the last seven years has enjoyed the challenge of collage using found materials. She uses both 2D and 3D formats, experimenting with salvaged metals, plastics and anything that is the slightest bit unusual.

Most recently she was nominated to serve on the Clark County Arts Commission representing the business community. Originally from central New York, she’s made the Pacific Northwest her home for thirty years. Toni has been writing poetry since she was ten years old and is still in love with it!

Toni can be reached at printedmattervancouver@gmail.com

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Emmett Wheatfall at Angst Gallery June 13, 2019

May 12, 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Flyer June 13 2019

 

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

7 pm
Thursday, June 13
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

Emmett cropped

Emmett Wheatfall is a published poet, playwright and recording artist. Emmett is the author of six books of poetry and a play titled Under the Red Robin, and has released five poetry CDs. In May 2018 Fernwood Press (an imprint of Barclay Press) published Emmett’s sixth poetry collection entitled As Clean as a Bone. For more information, visit http://emmettwheatfall.com

as clean as a bone cover

Boxed-In

I saw a man with no teeth,
he smiled at me.

I bumped into a woman who had no feet,
she crawled to me.

I hugged a child with no arms; we
laughed until I cried.

A blind man called to me. Why
couldn’t I see where he was coming from?

A homeless man cursed at me,
afterward, he and I shared his beer.

A street-walker propositioned me, I
replied, thank you, but no thank you,

then named that street after her.

Some people are boxed-in. Life is like that
for some.

Life is like that.

Emmett Wheatfall, 2018

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna at a special time and location Thursday, April 11, 2019

March 30, 2019

Printed Matter Vancouver, Clark County Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Morgan,
Clark County Arts Commission, and ArtsWA Present

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Featuring Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna of Printed Matter Vancouver
6:30-8:30 pm
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Open mic sign up begins at 6:00 and closes at 6:30
FREE

Columbia Room
Vancouver Community Library
901 C Street
Vancouver, WA 98660

LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Claudia Castro Luna will be signing books at Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street (nichewinebar.com) from 5-6 pm. Spend happy hour with the Poet Laureate. There will also be an after party at Niche Wine Bar at 8:30 pm.

Claudia-Castro-Luna-light-blue-dropshadow

Biographical information from ArtsWA and Claudia Castro Luna’s website: Claudia Castro Luna is Washington State Poet Laureate. She served as Seattle’s Civic Poet, from 2015-2017 and is the author of the Pushcart nominated and Killing Marías (Two Sylvias Press) also shortlisted for WA State 2018 Book Award in poetry and This City, (Floating Bridge Press). She is also the creator of the acclaimed Seattle Poetic Grid, an online interactive map of showcasing poems about different locations around the city. The grid even landed her an interview on PBS NewsHour.

Castro Luna is a Hedgebrook and VONA alumna, a 2014 Jack Straw fellow, the recipient of individual artist grants from King County 4Culture and Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture. Born in El Salvador she came to the United States in 1981. She has an MA in Urban Planning, a teaching certificate and an MFA in poetry. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, La Bloga, Dialogo and Psychological Perspectives among others. Her non-fiction work can be read in several anthologies, among them This Is The Place: Women Writing About Home, (Seal Press) Claudia is currently working on a memoir, Like Water to Drink, about her experience escaping the civil war in El Salvador. Living in English and Spanish, she writes and teaches in Seattle where she gardens and keeps chickens with her husband and their three children. Since 2009, Claudia maintains Cipota bajo la Luna, a blog with reflections, writing and reviews.

Claudia Castro Luna was appointed the fifth Washington State Poet Laureate by Governor Jay Inslee. Castro Luna’s term will run from February 1, 2018 to January 31, 2020. Prior to Castro Luna, Tod Marshall (2016-2018), Elizabeth Austen (2014-2016), Kathleen Flenniken (2012-2014), and Sam Green (2007-2009) held the position.

The Washington State Poet Laureate program is jointly sponsored by Humanities Washington and the Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA). Poets laureate work to build awareness and appreciation of poetry-including the state’s legacy of poetry-through public readings, workshops, lectures, and presentations in communities throughout the state. Laureates are selected through an application and panel review process that evaluates candidates’ proposed project plans, writing acumen, and experience promoting poetry.

ABOUT CLARK COUNTY POET LAUREATE GWENDOLYN MORGAN

Gwendolyn Morgan learned the names of birds and wildflowers and inherited paintbrushes and boxes from her grandmothers. With an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College, and an M.Div. from San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union, she has been a recipient of artist and writing residencies at Artsmith, Caldera, Into the Depths of Winter, and Soapstone. Crow Feathers, Red Ochre, Green Tea, her first book of poems, was a winner of the Wild Earth Poetry Prize, Hiraeth Press. Snowy Owls, Egrets and Unexpected Graces, initially published by Hiraeth Press and now Homebound Publications, is a Nautilus Gold Winner in Poetry and a Foreward Indies Book of the Year Finalist in the Nature Category. Her third book of poems is forthcoming from Homebound Publications in the Summer of 2019. Her poems have appeared in: Calyx, Kalliope, Mudfish, Tributaries: A Journal of Nature Writing, Wayfarer as well as The Cancer Poetry Project 2, and other anthologies, blogs and literary journals. She is currently serving as the Clark County Poet Laureate. Gwendolyn and Judy A. Rose, her spouse, share their home and creekside walks with Naomi, a rescued Chesapeake Retriever and Cardigan Corgi mix.

ABOUT GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC

Christopher Luna founded Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic in 2004; Toni Lumbrazo Luna, his wife and co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, joined him as organizer and co-host in 2007. Printed Matter Vancouver is an editing and writing coaching service for Northwest writers which also publishes books of poetry by Clark County authors. Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic began in November 2004 at Ice Cream Renaissance before moving to Cover to Cover Books and finally, Angst Gallery. It has been LGBTQ+ friendly, all ages, uncensored, and free since its inception. Christopher’s many years of service to the poetry community led the Clark County Arts Commission to name him the first Poet Laureate of Clark County, a position he held from 2013-2017.

Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, & Claudia F. Savage read at Another Read Through April 25, 2019

March 30, 2019

Poetry Reading with
Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, & Claudia F. Savage

7-8 pm
Thursday, April 25, 2019

Another Read Through Logo

Another Read Through
3932 N Mississippi Ave
Portland, Oregon 97227

Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna (formerly Partington) co-host Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, the LGBTQ+ friendly, all ages and uncensored Vancouver, WA reading series Luna founded in 2004. Luna and Partington are also the co-founders of Printed Matter Vancouver, a small press and editing/coaching service serving Northwest writers. Printed Matter Vancouver has published two anthologies from the Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic as well as debut books of poetry by Clark County, WA poets Tiffany Burba, Matthew Eiford-Schroeder, and Jenney Pauer.

Wind Wing Cover

Toni Lumbrazo Luna is the author of Wind Wing and the chapbook Jesus is a Gas.

Message_FrontCover_sm
Message from the Vessel in a Dream (Flowstone Press, 2018) featuring poetry and collage art by Christopher Luna

Christopher Luna is the author of Message from the Vessel in a Dream (Flowstone Press, 2018) and the chapbooks GHOST TOWN, USA and Brutal Glints of Moonlight.

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.

 

Photos from Matthew Eiford-Schroeder and Christopher Luna’s Reading at Vintage Books in Vancouver on February 2, 2019

February 14, 2019

Matthew Eiford-Schroeder and Christopher Luna would like to thank everyone who attended our reading on February 2. We are very grateful to Candace and the rest of the staff at Vintage Books for being so hospitable. Both Matthew and Christopher have additional readings lined up for this year. Please visit our Events page for more information.

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Matthew Eiford-Schroeder reads from Consistently East

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Matthew Eiford-Schroeder reads from Consistently East

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Matthew Eiford-Schroeder reads from Consistently East

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Christopher Luna reads from Message from the Vessel in a Dream

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Christopher Luna reads from Message from the Vessel in a Dream

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

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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