Reading Local: Portland

This review has been provided courtesy of Lynn Alexander, editor of Full Of Crow, Fashion For Collapse, Blink|Ink Online, and producer of assorted chapbooks, zines, and ebooks through her small press collective.

Ghost Town, USA refers to the poet’s town of Vancouver, Washington, a town in the shadow of the infamous Portland. The name comes from his first impressions: a quiet place, a place without people, even in the middle of the afternoon. Now maybe he was exaggerating, or maybe bustle is relative. Certainly for a transplanted New Yorker, it can be unsettling. And for a poet like Christopher Luna whose writing is so rooted in observation, one can imagine how difficult it must have been in the beginning as he struggled to get used to the silence.

Perhaps something changed in him, opened up to the place, because he came around to this particular town and came to discover his own layers of noise, in the chatter of the ordinary. He needed to get to eye level and engage with the place, with the geography and it’s subtle pulse, to hear it, and it came. These poems include : conversations on the bus, one sided sentiments delivered in skips to a cell phone, young lovers and friends immersed in the logistics of living, plans made, plans changed, bands discovered, people making their way on the bus to different destinations…personalities made, being crafted and delivered in postures and gestures before his observant eyes. We have conversations recounted, bits of text, but his is an omnimedia ethic: music, bumper stickers, signs, notes, fridge magnets, jackets, recollections of poetry, words of the street. We meet believers of magic and miracles, social service cynics, hustlers and bruskers, addicts, people who are in love and people who would dearly like to be.

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Today’s Featured Book Event:

Verse In Person presents Floyd Skloot and Willa Schneberg (Northwest Library, @7:00pm): Two much acclaimed, award-winning poets, Floyd Skloot and Willa Schneberg, read their work.

Floyd Skloot has published 15 books, most recently “The Snow’s Music” (LSU Press, 2008), his sixth collection of new poems, and the memoir ‘The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer’s Life” (U. of Nebraska Press, 2008), named one of the top 10 northwest books of 2008 by “The Oregonian.” His “Selected Poems: 1970-2005″ (Tupelo Press, 2008) won a Pacific NW Book Award and a silver prize from ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year awards. Skloot has received three Pushcart Prizes, won a PEN USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction (for his 2003 memoir “In the Shadow of Memory”), and Oregon Book Awards in both poetry and creative nonfiction. His work has twice been included in the annual “Best American Essays,” “Best American Science Writing” and “Best Spiritual Writing” anthologies, and once in the “Best Food Writing.” A short story of his is included in the new anthology, “Portland Noir.” He lives in Portland with his wife, Beverly Hallberg, a painter whose work graces the covers of four of his books.

Willa Schneberg is a photographer, a ceramic sculptor and a licensed clinical social worker in private practice in Portland. She is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently “Storytelling in Cambodia.” Her second collection, “In the Margins of the World,” Plain View Press, was awarded the 2002 Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Garrison Keillor read “Biscuits” a poem from that volume, on “The Writer’s Almanac.” Through Poetry-In-Motion, a line from one of her poems can be found on busses and Max trains in Portland. Willa read at the Library of Congress during their “Poetry at Noon” series and has received many writing fellowships.

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Check out Mojgani’s book of “swampy, powerful poems that are as exciting as the pocket knife you got for your birthday, the three-legged frog on the lawn, and the jar of marbles your mother kept in the kitchen,” Over The Anvil We Stretch (Write Bloody Publishing).

Read more of his poetry here, and learn more about him here.

Today’s Featured Book Event:

David Hewson Reading (Murder By The Book, @7:30pm): In partnership with Friends of Mystery, DAVID HEWSON author of the Nic Costa series set in Italy will be here for a signing. (The Friends of Mystery social hour begins at 7:00.)

Other Book Event’s Today:

John Isles and Kristen Hanlon Poetry Reading (Lewis and Clark, Pamplin Room, @3:00pm): John Isles is the author of Inverse Sky (Iowa, 2008) and Ark (Iowa, 2003) and coeditor of the Baltics section of New European Poets. He received an award from the Los Angeles Review in 2004 and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005. His poems have appeared in such journals as American Letters & Commentary, the Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, and Pleiades. He lives with his wife and son in Alameda, California.

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In honor of April being Poetry Month, and to help get the word out about her new release Writing The Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writers Digest Books, 2009), Sage Cohen is conducting a “blog tour.”  Reading Local is lucky to have been chosen as a host!  So with no further ado, here is the Q & A with Sage Cohen.

Reading Local) Over on Rodney Koeneke’s blog he makes the statement that “I don’t think change can come to poetry from within poetry, no matter how formally innovative or ‘anti-literary’ its lineage.” First, do you think he is right? Secondly, does change need to come to poetry, something which seems implied in this statement?

Sage Cohen) These are interesting questions, Gabe. I think Rodney Koeneke is a fabulous poet…I’ve been admiring his work since we both lived in San Francisco in the late ’90’s. But I’m not sure I understand or agree with his premise that poetry requires change. This assumes that poetry can be contained by some single definition or rulebook by which we’re all writing. And that is not my experience of poetry. For example, Philippe Petit, the daredevil who walked on a wire between the World Trade Center towers in 1974, recently responded in an interview, ”I am not an athlete. I am a poet. I write poems with my body.” For me, poetry has been a lifelong practice specifically because there is room enough for such interpretations. We get to bring all of ourselves to poetry, no matter who we are, how we write, or what we understand a poem to be. And through the process of writing, poems are just as likely to bring change to us as we are likely to bring change to poetry.

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Ben Parzybok, who is currently on tour promoting his debut novel Couch, posted a few pictures from the road on his blog.  Seattle’s Secret Garden Books drew inspiration from the books title in their efforts to promote Parzybok’s reading:

Secret Garden Promotes Parzybok

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David Abel might be Portland’s busiest poet, a label which probably doesn’t do justice to all Abel contributes to Portland’s creative community.

Possibly his largest contribution is the Spare Room Reading Series, which generally meets once a month, and features local poets as well as those gracious enough to travel from outside the area.  The next reading is Sunday April, 5th and will feature the poetry of John Tipton, Beth Murray, and Brandon Shimoda.  Now in it’s eigth year, Spare Room and Abel have helped to inspire others like the Loggernaut, and Smorg readings.

Abel also stays active introducing poetry to those who haven’t quite figured out the genre yet.  To that end, he is teaching the upcoming class “Writing and Reading Poetry,” which takes place at the Multnomah Arts Center from March 31 through May 26.  The class is described as such: Read the rest of this entry »

As announced on his blog, The Lovely Arc, Zachary Schomburg’s new chapbook The Pond is now available from Greying Ghost Press.

Schomburg's The Pond

Narrative Magazine the “leading online publisher of first-rank fiction, nonfiction, and poetry,” features four poems from Michael Dickman in their Winter ‘09 issue.  Dickman won last years Narrative prize for his poem, Returning to Church.  Dickman’s first collection, The End of The West (Copper Canyon Press), is now available.

Narrative Magazine is a “nonprofit organization… dedicated to advancing the literary arts in the digital age by supporting the finest writing talent and encouraging readership around the world and across generations. Our online library of new literature by celebrated authors and by the best new and emerging writers is available for free.”

Narrative is currently accepting submissions for their Winter 2009 Story Contest.  They have expanded this years contest to “include entries written from any point of view—first, second, limited third, or omniscient,” and are looking for “short shorts, short stories, essays, memoirs, all forms of literary nonfiction, and excerpts from longer works of both fiction and nonfiction.”  The limitations on submissions are that they “must be previously unpublished, no longer than 10,000 words, and must not have been previously chosen as a winner, finalist, or honorable mention in another contest.”  Good Luck!

Rodney Koeneke has a new chapbook out from Cy Press entitled Rules For Drinking Forties, you can see it “getting born” here.  Maybe Mr. Koeneke will treat us all to a few of those rules at a future Tangent, Spare Room, or Smorg reading.

The long running poetry only journal, Poetry Northwest, will hold a release party for the launch of their Winter ‘08/Spring ‘09 issue next Thursday at The Blue Monk.

Here is the full release:

You like poetry
Your friends like beer
You don’t need to choose between them.

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Todays Featured Book Event:

Celebrate William Stafford’s Birthday (Looking Glass Bookstore, @3:00pm): Join us in celebrating the life and work of William Stafford’s, in this annual birthday celebration sponsored by the Friends of William Stafford. As your gift, please bring along a favorite Stafford poem to read for the rest of the group. The celebration will begin with a few featured readers and then will be open for those in the audience who wish to read. Hosted by Willa Schneberg. Featuring: Frances Payne Adler, Christine Delea, Robert McFarlane, John Morrison, Emma Oliver, and FWS Board Members Dennis and Helen Schmidling.

For other Portland book events happening today, check out the list of events.  Or please check your community Libraries schedule using these links: Washington County, Multnomah County, Clackamas County.