Tag: Vancouver (WA)

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on Zoom Featuring Eileen Davis Elliott April 8, 2021

March 21, 2021

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Eileen Davis Elliott

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Morgan Paige

7 pm

Thursday, April 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 the reading series since 2015: https://nichewinebar.com

Eileen Davis Elliott

Eileen Davis Elliott is a poet and visual artist from Vancouver, WA where she retired from a career in mental health. She has just released Pobrecitos, a collaborative work written by Eileen Davis Elliott and illustrated by Lily Engblom-Stryker and Ava Town, students from Vancouver School of Arts and Academics who shared and expanded the messages of the written work focusing on the marginalized from all over the world. Travelogue, poetry, documentation of the world we live in and the people we do not always notice. Pobrecitos (Spanish for “the poor ones”) is a love story to all we meet on our path. This is Elliott’s third book, available through Amazon, Bookbaby store, and her website, Eileendaviselliott.com. Earlier books include Prodigal Cowgirl, and Miles of Pies, part family narrative and part history of a way of Midwestern life. Both of these books are available through the author’s website.

She is working on two novels and another collection of poems, as well as an invitational anthology tentatively titled Unfinished Business. Elliott has also recently completed a series of “transformative collages,” wherein she uses earlier “failed” artwork to “paint through to resolution” self- questions which came up during the time of enforced isolation. She keeps a close eye on the hummingbird feeders as well.

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 April 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 on Zoom Featuring Penelope Scambly Schott November 12, 2020

October 22, 2020

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic
Hosted by Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, & Morgan Paige
Featuring Penelope Scambly Schott

7 pm
Thursday, November 12
On Zoom

$5 Suggested donation

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

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 November 12 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.

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

Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. She has published a novel and several books of poetry, most recently On Dufur Hill, poems about the cycle of a year in her small wheat-growing town of Dufur, Oregon. Instead of listing residencies and other prizes, Penelope wants you to know that every day she and her white goldendoodle Sophia climb Dufur Hill, where she adds another rock to her cairn. Sophia is also a co-host of the White Dog Poetry Salon, which Penelope and her husband host in Portland, and a co-author of the forthcoming chapbook Sophia and Mister Walter Whitman.

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

Photos from Dan Raphael and Christopher Luna in conversation at Powell’s Books October 27, 2019

November 15, 2019

On October 27, Powell’s Books presented dan raphael in conversation with Christopher Luna. The event commemorated the publication of Manything, dan’s 21st book of poetry.

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.

At the event, Christopher read the following tribute to dan, inspired by their friendship and by dan’s latest book:

For Dan Raphael

walking around the neighborhood
like Frank O’Hara on shrooms
“cosmologies between [his] fingers”
full breakfast in his belly
dan becomes the street

impervious to rain
or despair over
encroaching fascism

only a guy who spent
three decades at the DMV
can truly grok the spiritual fortitude
it takes to resist
the soul-killing serpents
of end days-capitalism

& the paranoia of
the dispirited proletariat
to soar past all prohibition
levitate beyond pessimism

he who sees
what we do not
“rooted like a tree”
limbs swaying like
antenna jostled by the wind

picking up
electromagnetic waves
as he swings to & fro
barefooted
hypersensitive
connected

possessed
by vision
potent enough
to crack a heart open
blow yr mind

or part the fog
we muddle through
to avoid the pain
of living

 

Celebrate 15 Years of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic with Rod “Kenny” Nelson and your hosts Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna at Angst Gallery on November 14, 2019

October 18, 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Flyer November 14 2019

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

7 pm
Thursday, November 14
Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7
$5 Suggested donation

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

Rod Nelson

Rod Nelson is a spoken word poet in Central Washington. Rod Nelson’s work focuses on modern day social issues and addresses the divide between rural and urban America. He was born in Kansas but grew up in Selah, a small town in Central Washington. After completing his education in Seattle, he returned to the Yakima Valley and has lived and worked here since 1979. He was the first- place finisher in the YVCC Black Box Poetry Slam in 2017, and finished second in that contest in 2016 and 2018. He was the first- place finisher in the Litfuse Poetry Slam in 2018 and 2019, and finished second in that contest in 2017. He was a presenting poet at the Ellensburg Poetry Prowl in 2018. His poem “ A Note From Mallory’s Progeny” was one of the winners in the Yakima Coffee House Poet’s Poetry Contest in 2017 and was published in its chapbook that year.

A Failing Grade in Right and Wrong 101

Fifty-eight dead in Vegas
the Dow gains a hundred -fifty
bump-stock sales soar
Senators send thoughts and prayers.

Fifty-eight glass-eyed corpses,
on blood-soaked pavement.
the Hobbesian contract broken again
interview the girlfriend
talk with the brother
autopsy the brain
dissect for answers
but no lobe of morality
no Center for Right and Wrong
just indifferent gray matter
upon indifferent gray matter.

500 years after the birth of the church of reason
evil fairies gone from the town well
demons removed from the plague
but where is our heart?

Our ministers recite Psalms:
Lean not on your own understanding,
but trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Ancient rules,
conceived in mysticism,
chipped in stone,
gave the world faggots for the bonfires of medieval Christendom.
An eye for an eye,
a lie for a lie,
and soon the whole world was ignorant.

Seventeen dead in Parkland
Ten dead in Santa Fe
the sabbath brings eleven dead in Pittsburg.
Our leaders serve lukewarm soup to the survivors,
mirroring our lack of empathy.
And when you stare into the abyss,
the abyss stares back.

But, hey, the bulls are running hard down on Wall Street.
Adam Smith rolls in his grave,
Kant’s categorical imperative rolls its eyes at charitable deductions,
and Jesus asks, where is the love brother?

In an affluent society,
goodness only comes baked in a Sarah Lee Pound cake.
Perhaps Vonnegut was right,
it’s all about moiling for more money,
lusting for better copulation.
Reason,
harnessed by the Id,
to gang-rape the Ego,
outfox the Superego.
Mill’s Utilitarianism blushes.

Gin and tonic golfing
and Wimbledon watching
on the working man’s dime.
College admission bribing
Watergate
deflate-gate
blood-doping
pussy grabbing
gas lighting cover-ups,
cram the victims face in the vomit of her own sorrow,
drag the spouse on Oprah’s stage,
blinking in the glare of the apologetic melodrama.

Born-again sinners!
Just like the johnnies-come-late -to -Jesus
in the God squad pod at the County jail.

Lost in the wilderness,
where is our compass?

Another head -chopping video on the ‘net,
our politicians promise revenge.
An eye for an eye,
and soon the whole world is blind.
In heaven, Jesus and his faithful scribe Mathew shake their heads,
the Dalai Lama grimaces,
and Gandhi’s ghost cries in the night.

500 years after the birth of the church of reason,
the boy who paints rainbows,
the girl who tends her own garden,
still live with the stink of burning flesh.

Our nation,
blessed
with Mr. Smith’s prophesized wealth
but this pearl
as cold and hard as a bullet.
Where has our heart gone?

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.

Niche 9th Anniversary Poetry Contest (Deadline August 15)

June 21, 2019

Niche 9th Anniversary Poetry Contest (Deadline August 15, 2019)

Niche logo

Niche Wine Bar and Printed Matter Vancouver are seeking short poems on the theme of “community” to commemorate the ninth anniversary of Niche Wine Bar. What does community mean to you? What does community look like? How does one strengthen community?

The winning poem will be printed on wine glasses to be distributed to all those who attend the Niche Anniversary Party at the Kiggins Theatre on October 14, 2019. The second place winner will have their poem printed on t-shirts. The third place winner will have their poem printed on beverage napkins. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will gain entrance to the 9th Anniversary Party on October 14 and have their poem displayed on the screen in the Kiggins Theatre during the slide show.

October 14 is Indigenous Peoples Day. Each year’s anniversary party features short films from a particular country. This year’s films were produced in New Zealand.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS (Deadline August 15)

Address this question using poetry: What does community mean to you?

Submission Guidelines:

Deadline: Poems will be accepted by email only (printedmattervancouver@gmail.com) until 11:59pm on August 15, 2019.

Fee: $5.00 for up to three poems.

You may submit no more than three (3) poems on the theme of community for a submission fee of five dollars. Poems should be no longer than FIVE (5) lines. Each piece may be a complete poem or an excerpt from a longer poem. If the poem is an excerpt, please indicate this and give the poem title. Previously published poems may be accepted subject to the discretion of the editors. However, please indicate the publication name, date, poem title, and publication rights in the body of the submission email.

Mail or hand deliver a check for five dollars written to Angst Gallery, 1015 Main Street Vancouver, WA 98660. Only those poets who have paid the fee in full by August 15 will be considered for the contest.

If your poem is accepted for use in this project, the editors may have suggestions for edits or format changes to prepare the work for display. Whenever possible the editors will work with the author to review suggested changes. Authors will have the final decision on the edits. The editors are unable to guarantee publication of your work if they feel the edits are necessary and the author disapproves of the changes.

Authors agree to public use of their poem and photo. Niche will retain first rights to use and display the poems. From there, rights revert back to the author. Authors agree to have their work and photo appear online or in other publicity/promotions by Niche Wine Bar.

Contest Judges: Angst Gallery Director Leah Jackson and Printed Matter Vancouver co-founders Christopher Luna and Toni Lumbrazo Luna

Poem Format (please pay close attention to these directions):

Format your poem(s) in Times New Roman, 12 point font/one inch margins in one document.

Include your name, address, best phone contact, and email at the top left of the page.

Include the poem’s title in bold with one blank line between the title and the body of the poem.

Poems should be single-spaced with one blank line between stanzas.

Poems may not exceed five (5) lines and must be your original work.

These five (5) lines may be excerpted from a longer poem, if indicated as such.

Poems must be saved as a Microsoft Word document with this extension: your last name+Niche Poetry. Example: Rhodes+Niche Poetry

How to Submit:

Type Niche Poetry Contest 2019 into the subject line of the email.

Include in the body of the email:

The title(s) of your poem(s).

Contact information: name, address, email, and best phone contact number.

For previously published poems, indicate the publication name, date, poem title, and whether you own the publication rights.

Include your poem(s) as a separate attachment in Microsoft word.

EMAIL SUBMISSIONS TO PRINTEDMATTERVANCOUVER@GMAIL.COM UNTIL 11:59PM PST ON AUGUST 15, 2019.

Note: You will receive confirmation that we have received your submission(s).

WRITING YOUR LIFE STORY: A new creative writing workshop with Christopher Luna begins May 2, 2019

April 26, 2019

christopher by alisha jucevic
Christopher Luna by Alisha Jucevic for the Columbian

Beginning in May 2019, Printed Matter Vancouver co-founder Christopher Luna will  offer a new eight-week workshop called Writing Your Life Story at Angst Gallery on Thursdays from 10:30am – 1:00pm.

Printed Matter logo

WRITING YOUR LIFE STORY

Who: Open to all skill levels. The class will be limited to ten (10) participants.

Where: Angst Gallery, 1015 Main St., Vancouver, WA 98660

When: 10:30a – 1p Thursday, May 2 – Thursday, June 27, 2019 (Note: no class June 20)

What: Document your memories for your family or for possible future publication. Complete short timed writings as well as weekly take-home assignments. Give and receive feedback in a safe, informal environment.

Cost: $225 (cash, check, card)

REGISTER AT ANGST: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24 12 – 3:30pm, OR
WEDNESDAY, MAY 1 12 – 3:30pm

2019 Dates

May 2 – June 27
July 11 – August 29
Oct 3 – Nov 21

Overview: Christopher Luna will introduce the participants to the techniques of creative nonfiction storytelling which uses the content of one’s life as the foundation for narrative. He will introduce current examples in popular nonfiction and memoir to assist the process. Participants will be encouraged to share their writing in a safe environment (no one will be required to share their stories) with the option of receiving feedback from the facilitator and other students. We will work to achieve the following goals:

1) learn the key elements of successful storytelling in written form,
2) create a living document for yourself, your family, or others,
3) delve into or build upon your written skills.

Bring your ideas, notes, paper, and pen/pencil (no books required).

Your Facilitator: Christopher Luna

With an MFA in Creative Writing and over 25 years of experience as a creative writing teacher, published author, workshop leader, editor, and writing coach, Christopher Luna will lead you through skill-building techniques, content reflection, supporting examples, and constructive feedback. Originally from Long Island, New York, Christopher has made Vancouver, Washington his home since 2003. Since then he has taught a variety of English classes at Clark College, led poetry and memoir writing workshops, and served as the first Clark County Poet Laureate (2013-2017).

For questions contact Christopher Luna at printedmattervancouver@gmail.com or 360-910-1066.

“The highest purpose of art is to inspire.” –Bob Dylan

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Featuring John Burgess at Angst Gallery on May 9, 2019

April 14, 2019

Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic Flyer May 9 2019 cropped

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

7 pm
Thursday, May 9, 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

JB_60

John Burgess grew up in upstate New York, worked on a survey crew in Montana, taught English in Japan, and since 1985 has lived in Seattle, where he works for an insurance company. Past glories include: 2006 Jack Straw writer; co-founder of the original Burning Word Festival; 2008 Words’ Worth curator for the Seattle City Council; and past Board president at Hugo House, Seattle’s creative writing center. He’s a co-instigator with the Band of Poets. He has five books of poetry, some with maps and drawings, from Ravenna Press: Punk Poems (2005), A History of Guns in the Family (2008), Graffito (2011), “by Land…” (2015), and 1977 (2018).

1977 Cover

From 1977:

SPLEEN

I sing in praise of destitute dogs,
for days of melancholy rut
snouts bowed subservient
dissonance from the gut—

of strays, bile and vile
ion charged connected
for scent of beaten,
canine teeth retracted

a pack under attack—
ah, ill-humored howl