Tag: poetry

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring A. Molotkov at Art at the Cave on June 8, 2023

May 16, 2023

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring A. Molotkov

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige

7 pm

Thursday, June 8

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

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.

A. Molotkov is an immigrant writer. His poetry collections are The Catalog of Broken Things, Application of Shadows, Synonyms for Silence and Future Symptoms. His novel A Slight Curve and his memoir A Broken Russia Inside Me are forthcoming; he co-edits The Inflectionist Review. His collection of ten short stories, Interventions in Blood, is part of Hawaii Review Issue 91; his prose is represented by Laura Strachan at Strachan Lit. Please visit him at AMolotkov.com

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.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Joann Renee Boswell at Art At the Cave on Thursday, May 11, 2023

April 28, 2023

Featuring Joanne Renee Boswell

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Joanne Renee Boswell

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige

7 pm

Thursday, May 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

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.

Joann Renee Boswell is a poet, photographer, teacher, director, mystic, mother who lives in Camas, WA with her husband (a Quaker minister) and her three young children. You can call her Jo, Jojo, Jomama, or Smookles Renee. Joann’s first book, Cosmic Pockets (Fernwood Press, 2020), is a full-length collection of poetry and photography. Her chapbook, breath so hungry, is a love letter. Her second full-length collection is a coloring poetry book in collaboration with two illustrators, called Meta-Verse, out any day. Joann loves rainy days filled with coffee, contradictions, dystopian fiction, justice, handholding, forest bathing, hope, and sci-fi shows. She was her high school mascot and spent a summer working at a lumber mill. Her super power might be whimsy. Joann has been a poetry editor for Untold Volumes and VoiceCatcher. She has been published in places such as CIRQUE, otoliths, VoiceCatcher, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Not a Pipe Publishing, and Soul Forte. You can read more at joannrenee.com

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.

Photos and Poems from The Poetics of Place at Plas Newydd Farm in Ridgefield, WA March 25, 2023

April 1, 2023

I am so grateful to Abby Braithwaite for collaborating with me on The Poetics of Place, a day-long experiential workshop for poets looking to connect with the earth. Abby has many exciting ideas in the works for how to use the beautiful Plas Newydd Farm as a site for other arts events and workshops. Learn more about the Plas Newydd Arts Initiative.

Here is the schedule for the day’s activities:

Poetics of Place

Mindful Exploration as Poetics Practice with Abby Braithwaite and Christopher Luna

March 25, 2023

10:00-11:00:                      Introductions

                                                Abby leads the group on a short walk during which she will share a short history of the farm.

EXERCISE: As we walk, find three objects and place them in your pocket or bag.

                                                Find a comfortable place to sit. Look out (in front of you) for five minutes.

                                                Then look down for five minutes.

                                                Finally, look up for five minutes.

                                                As you complete these three steps, notice what you notice.

                                                When you have completed all three steps, begin to write.

                                                Return to the house.

11:00-11:15:                       Free write.

11:15-12:00:                       Lunch.

12:00-12:45:                      Jack Collom’s “Things to Save” Exercise.

12:45-3:00pm:                  Sharing and discussing our poems. 

Christopher reads the schedule for the day as we prepare to begin our walk (photo by Jennifer Pratt-Walter)
Making our way (by Jennifer Pratt-Walter)
Photo by Jennifer Pratt-Walter
The river by Abby Braithwaite
Smelt by Abby Braithwaite
Smelt plus Roxanne’s boots
Christopher explains the dharma art exercise (Photo by Abby Braithwaite)
Looking forward for five minutes
Roxanne looking
Writers at the table
Christopher speaks to the writers (Photo by Abby Braithwaite)
Wordsworth’s Daffodils in the Windowsill by Abby Braithwaite
Christopher’s objects
Jennifer’s objects
Jennifer’s writing (Photo by Jennifer)

Save These Things Forever     

Save the smallest wild things, the overlooked

ordinary things—earthworms, baby birds, moss, deep soil.

Hold safe the green-brown smell of the woods

in spring and fall.  Save all the sequoias.

Keep safe the salamanders in the tiny stream that leaks from

the hillside by my childhood home, save their eggs,

silent as pebbles.

Enfold with safety the magic lanterns of fireflies,

save the Aurora Borealis and how my feet sound

sweeping through dry leaves in autumn.

Keep forever the voices of those beloved to me—

save all the unspoken love that overflows the

bucket of my heart.

Save always the sharp awe that envelops me when

in the presence of the still and untamed beings that have been

my true saviors for all my days.

Jennifer Pratt-Walter 3/25/2023

Place

By Gail Alexander

I hear the voices of the land today

Like a pencil sharpened in silence

Unveiled in the whispers of wind 

and the golden veined lace of your composition

Across the forest floor.

“ Where will you be Nana when you die?”

Lichen and the green of moss cling to branches.

I stand looking down into the soft clear trickle of flow.

I raise my hands and call

back to ancestors on the shoreline“ hayu masi “.

“ There in the stream is where I’ll be Owen. Can you see the bones of the boughs?

That’s where I’ll be. Someday our bones will lay

Beside each other in the clear

Water where eagles

Fly above. Waiting_”

I’m awake now

In my bed of twigs red and leaves of cottonwood and ash.

On the hillside to the north, branches

Drape like curtains and have

Opened to the light.

I want to go.

Little birds are singing 

And from a single 

cell of lichen

Lies a forest.

[UPDATE: Rena Priest will not be able to join us due to illness] Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest at Art at the Cave on April 13, 2023

March 20, 2023

UPDATE POSTED APRIL 11: I regret to inform you that our featured reader, Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest, will be unable to join us on Thursday due to illness. Here is what she posted on her Facebook profile: “After 3 years of dodging it, covid has finally caught up to me and it truly is as awful as you all say. 🤒 I’m sad that I’ve had to cancel a number of upcoming events and will miss out on the Olympia launch of the anthology, and sad to have missed you all yesterday in Seattle. On the flip side, this is the most rest I’ve had in as long as I can remember.”

To honor Rena’s service to the poetry community, bring a favorite poem by Rena or another favorite poet laureate to share at the open mic.

Rena has already been invited to read for us at a later date. Stay tuned for details to follow by subscribing to The Work poetry newsletter (send a request to printedmattervancouver@gmail.com) or by visiting Printed Matter Vancouver.

We thank Rena for her service to our state and wish her a speedy recovery.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige

7 pm

Thursday, April 13

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

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.

Rena Priest is a member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation. She is wrapping up her term as our 6th Washington State Poet Laureate. She is also a Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writing Fellow an Academy of American Poets Fellow, and the recipient of an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award. Her debut collection, Patriarchy Blues, received a 2018 American Book Award. Most recently she has edited an anthology titled, I Sing the Salmon Home: poems from Washington state. Other books include Northwest Know-how: Beaches and Sublime Subliminal. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College.

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.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Lightship Press Poet Red O’Hare at Art At The Cave on March 9, 2023

February 22, 2023

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Red O’Hare

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige

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

ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

7 pm

Thursday, March 9

Art at the Cave

108 E Evergreen Blvd

Vancouver, WA 98660

https://artatthecave.com

$5 Suggested donation

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.

Red O’Hare is a West Coast-based Jewish-American Poet. Her debut book of poetry, Seaglass Strange, was published late last year by Lightship Press. She was born during the Reagan administration to the child of Jewish immigrant Carnies and that of stalwart Presbyterian missionaries. She believes in boots and ghosts. Her dog is named after a Doctor Who character, but you have to guess which one. Red has been writing and performing poetry since she was 15 years old in California’s San Fernando Valley.  She’s competed in poetry slams but has never won, and has been featured at Wordlights, The Last Stand at Wildwood Saloon, The Nest, Portland Poetry Slam, and The Crow’s Nest, to name a few. She has also performed at Studio Morey, Fused Creative’s show Leave Me On Read, Telltale PDX’s show This Is What We Need, The Brewery Artist’s Lofts, The Anna Broome Room, and KBOO Radio’s Talking Earth poetry series, hosted by Dan Raphael. Red’s spoken word album is available at redohare.bandcamp.com.

Connect with Red on her website: www.redohare.com or follow her on Instagram at @mizredohare or on Facebook at facebook.com/mizredohare.

Learn more about Lightship Press here: https://www.lightshippress.com/

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.

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring Katherine Factor at Art At The Cave on February 9, 2023

January 15, 2023

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Featuring Katherine Factor
Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige

LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, PRO-SCIENCE, ANTI-FASCIST, PRO-CHOICE,
ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

7 pm
Thursday, February 9

Art at the Cave
108 E Evergreen Blvd
Vancouver, WA 98660
https://artatthecave.com

$5 Suggested donation

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.

Katherine Factor by Erin Monahan

Katherine Factor is an author, poet, and editor. She is the author of a book of poems, A Sybil Society, and four Choose Your Own Adventure interactive novels, including Spies: Mata Hari, Spies: Harry Houdini, and Spies: Spy for Cleopatra. Katherine earned her MFA in Poetry from the University of Iowa and has been a writer-in-residence at schools for the arts. Her music essays can be seen on PopMatters. Her children’s book about Bigfoot is forthcoming in March 2023 from ChooseCo.

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.

Book Launch for Christopher Luna’s Voracity with special guests Angelo Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna at Birdhouse Books January 6, 2023

December 18, 2022

Join us for First Friday with The Lunas (Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, and Angelo Luna) featuring the Vancouver book launch for Christopher Luna’s Voracity (Lightship Press, 2022)

From Birdhouse Books: “It’s a family affair: Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, and Angelo Luna will be joining us for the return of our First Friday Poetry Series!

Christopher Luna, co-host of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic and co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, has just released his new poetry collection, VORACITY, from Lightship Press, and will be joined by his wife Toni Lumbrazo Luna, co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver and local poetry powerhouse, and his son Angelo Luna, who co-authored the father-son poetry collection EXCHANGING WISDOM.”

7pm
Friday, January 6
Birdhouse Books
1001 Main Street Basement
Vancouver, WA 98660

Voracity, featuring poetry and collages by Christopher Luna, is now available from Lightship Press or the author.

Voracity by Christopher Luna
$18.00

“Brutally honest confessional poetry, Christopher Luna’s Voracity conjures a beatific earnestness which transcends pain and suffering through acts of lyrical, life-affirming grace and redemption.” David Madgalene, author of Call Down the Angel

In this revealing poetry collection, Luna invites readers on a candid and intimate journey behind the mask of a public figure as he grapples with identity, body image, and the enormity of his hungers.”

Driven By Hope by Toni Lumbrazo Luna
Printed Matter Vancouver, 2019

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. Order Driven By Hope here:

Exchanging Wisdom: A Guide for Parents of the Autonomous
The Poetry Box, 2021

Exchanging Wisdom features poems for and about Christopher’s son Angelo Luna, as well as a few pieces Angelo wrote for Christopher. The earliest poem was written when Angelo was three, and the most recent at age 21. Christopher endeavored to encourage his son to be an autonomous, freethinking individual. Angelo grew to become that and so much more. Taken as a whole, the poems in this collection track the development of Angelo’s personality and the strong bond between father and son.

Christopher Luna is a true heir to the Beat and New York School traditions of candor and grandeur. This collaboration and celebration of life runs on impeccable timing and deep love. As Luna and his son Angelo exchange wisdom they also re-invent the meaning of open verse: these poems crack open the heart and spill the joy of parenthood into the world.

—Lisa Jarnot, author
Robert Duncan, the Ambassador from Venus

One day you’re gonna have to…remind me how to believe in the basic goodness of all beings, Christopher Luna tells his son, Angelo, in his latest book, Exchanging Wisdom. More than a collection of father-son poems, Exchanging Wisdom is a record of gratitude. Luna knows that to be a parent is to be both teacher and pupil, vulnerable and responsible. In every poem Luna’s love beams: Like Lone Wolf and Cub we traversed…and you reminded me that magic is real…. These poems contemplate our never-ending wars, sickness, apathy, and art-making through the lens of a deeply reverent father. For some, being a parent, being the adult, is synonymous with having the answers. Luna, a Buddhist poet, community-organizer, and activist, reminds us that questioning is the only way to truth. What are you afraid to find? he wonders. Are these the right questions to ask? In these mind- and heart-opening poems Luna invites us to experience pure joy and wonder again through memory and thankfulness. Once you’ve opened those doors/ you need never do so again, asserts Luna. Once father you cannot go back to your former life. Thankfully for us, Luna never did.

—Claudia F. Savage, author of Bruising Continents

What happens during The Work poetry writing workshop? Information for newcomers

December 6, 2022

Excited to try your hand at a generative writing workshop but feeling a bit nervous about what to expect? The following is excerpted from a recent email response I sent to a writer who enquired about what they might expect from The Work poetry writing workshop:

My workshops tend to attract 4-6 poets per session. We sometimes begin by hearing one poem from those who care to share one. I do this because poetry is an oral tradition, and because hearing a few poems before we begin can help put us in the right frame of mind to begin creating something from nothing.

We then spend the next hour or so engaged in three separate timed writing exercises. I send out handouts with example poems that will be used during the writing period. Beside or beneath each poem is a series of writing prompts inspired by the poem. Each prompt has some relationship to either the content, style, or technique found in the example. I provide more than one prompt because I realize that not everyone will relate to or be interested in each one. 

I like to give people options, and to send them away with writing prompts for a rainy day. Many writers tell me that they sometimes have trouble maintaining their writing practice when they are not in the workshop. If you hold on to the handouts, you will begin to acquire a collection of prompts for those times when you may want to write yet feel uninspired. 

You also always have the option of freewriting something based on whatever struck you in the poem. 

The last hour of the workshop is spent hearing at least one poem from each writer, then sharing constructive feedback on their drafts. Because all of the poems we are discussing are first drafts, this is not a hard critique. You do not need to have any particular skills or educational background to participate. I simply ask each poet to respond as a reader and a human being, in order to let each writer know what she has accomplished so far, how/what the poem is communicating, and a few ideas for what might be done in the future should the writer choose to revise the piece.

Looking to follow your bliss in 2023? Take a poetry or memoir writing workshop with Christopher Luna.

Have a friend who might benefit from a creative writing workshop? Purchase one for them for the holidays.

I lead creative writing workshops and classes year-round. I am also accepting new coaching clients and manuscripts for editing. If you are looking for writing coaching, editing/manuscript review, or information about poetry and memoir classes, send me an email via printedmattervancouver@gmail.com.

You can read all about it on the Printed Matter Vancouver website:

Creative Writing Workshops

Christopher Luna’s 2023 Creative Writing Workshops

November 19, 2022

Looking to follow your bliss in 2023? Take a poetry or memoir writing workshop with Christopher Luna.

Have a friend who might benefit from a creative writing workshop? Purchase one for them for the holidays.

Christopher Luna leads creative writing workshops and classes year-round. He is also accepting new coaching clients and manuscripts for editing. If you are looking for writing coaching, editing/manuscript review, or information about poetry and memoir classes, send Christopher an email via printedmattervancouver@gmail.com.

Collage by Christopher Luna

You can read all about it on the Creative Writing workshops page of this website:

https://printedmattervancouver.com/creative-writing-workshops/