If the snow doesn’t cancel, it should be a fantastic evening of two gay poets writing about the West.
Thanks to Michael Dylan Welch and his work organizing the very long-standing SoulFood Poetry Night.
More information about this reading and the whole series here:
https://sites.google.com/site/soulfoodpoetrynight/
Entre Ríos Books invites you to an afternoon of poetry on the 39th floor: an intimate reading series with sweeping views of the Sound and city.
For our first reading we are pleased to welcome Prageeta Sharma and Deborah Woodard.
THIS IS A TICKETED EVENT DUE TO LIMITED SEATING AND BUILDING SECURITY. You will not be allowed up the elevator without a ticket. Please help us make this a success by getting a ticket.
TICKETS HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-on-the-west-edge-sharma-woodard-tickets-88956353849
ABOUT OUR READERS:
PRAGEETA SHARMA is the author of the poetry collections Grief Sequence (Wave Books, 2019), Undergloom (Fence Books, 2013), Infamous Landscapes (Fence Books, 2007), The Opening Question (Fence Books, 2004), which won the 2004 Fence Modern Poets Prize, and Bliss to Fill (Subpress, 2000). She is the founder of the conference Thinking Its Presence: Race, Creative Writing, Literary Studies and Art. A recipient of the 2010 Howard Foundation Award, she has taught at the University of Montana and now teaches at Pomona College.
DEBORAH WOODARD is the author of two collections of poetry, Plato’s Bad Horse (Bear Star Press, 2006) and Borrowed Tales (Stockport Flats, 2012) and the recent dramatic poem, No Finis:Triangle Testimonies, 1911 (Ravenna Press, 2018). She has published several translations of Italian poet, Amelia Rosselli, including Obtuse Diary with with Roberta Antognini and Dario De Pasquale (Entre Ríos Books, 2018), The Dragonfly: A Selection of Poems, 1953-1981 (Chelsea Editions, 2009) with Giuseppe Leporace and Hospital Series (New Directions, 2015) with Roberta Antognini and Giuseppe Leporace. She teaches hybrid creative writing and literature classes at the Richard Hugo House.
Thanks to everyone who came out on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon for the pre-launch party of our newest book, Woodland. Featuring my own poems, it’s obviously a more personal look at our press and directions I think it might be heading as far as our book production and thematic concerns. It was great to have to do some of the anxiety-producing speaking that all of our other authors have had to deal with— ah, the selling of books!
It was a huge honor to get to read at Open Books, which is one of my happy places on this earth and truly the epicenter of my poetic education and my sense of the poetry community. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without this space.
One thing I had not realized and have been thinking quite a bit about is how important these early readings are to understand how to perform work from the book and how they shape readings that happen after and despite all the practice and thinking about order, how one still needs an audience to understand what is clicking and what is not.
I am excited to bring the work to Hugo House for it’s official launch reading. This will likely be the only time people in Seattle will get to hear pianist Aaron Otheim playing the work live. Erin L. McCoy will join me on stage to read some of the work.
https://www.facebook.com/events/318184075517790/
A fantastic evening of translation thanks to Il Punto! Italian Cultural Center and Caffè Musica. Translator Deborah Woodard and actor Riccardo Pieri reunited for an expanded evening of reading and experimentation of Amelia Rosselli’s Diario Ottuso | Obtuse Diary. This is a new translation of Rosselli’s experiments with prose and was done with Roberta Antognini and Dario De Pasquale.
We captured about half the reading and despite the quality at the beginning, think that anyone who is doing translation and then needing to present it in public would find this interesting. As Deborah would probably say, it helps to have a playful and inventive actor with you! Thanks Riccardo! Be sure to click through the to the notes in YouTube if you’re interested in what segments of the text they are working with.
A fantastic evening of drama at Hugo House with two literary luminaries (oh, we can brag!). Christine Deavel and J.W. Marshall, formerly of Open Books, took the audience on a trip through moments of some of their favorite plays and bits dialogue that inspired and taught them as they wrote their own play, Vicinity/Memoryall.
We are going to be so excited to see this play in July of 2019 at the 18th & Union Space. Please email them directly at VelMar Works to get on their mailing list or sign up for ours as we can’t wait to share more about the play’s progress.
With much gratitude to Kate Lebo, Sam Lingon and Spokane’s hot and happening literary scene, we turned her book launch party for Seven Prayers to Cathy McMorris Rodgers in a raise-the-roof take the people to church fundraiser for Democratic challenger, Lisa Brown.
Some of the best writers in Spokane— Chelsea Martin, Sharma Shields, Laura Read, Ellen Welcker, Nance Van Winckel, and Maya Jewell Zeller— joined Kate on stage to each read one of the poems, ending with an appearance by Lisa Brown with some comments on the values of art in a democratic society— one reason the Republicans keep voting against funding for the arts!
I was amazed that the night raised $1700 from a crowd out to see poets, but that speaks to the passion people have for a real representative of the people and not the billionaires and for the demand for accountability for the corruption under the Trump administration.
We always enjoy our trips to Spokane. SO many wonderful writers! And a shout out to the Bartlett for once again hosting us. They have a GREAT venue if you’re looking for performance space in Spokane.
Three years!
We were honored to be included in Hugo House’s inaugural season and delighted that we could present readers from past, present and future ERB books!
Pardon the photos— I certainly did not stand in the best space given the lighting and stage! But given the schedule Hugo House keeps, I am sure that in time, I’ll find the best spot to stand!
Thanks to Maya Jewell Zeller, Melinda Mueller, Christine Deavel, J.W. Marshall, Deborah Woodard, Riccardo Pieri and E. Briskin for reading work published with us or new work of theirs. We also thank Rachel Kessler who was representing the Vis-à-Vis Society, whose epic 100 Rooms is sure to be a big hit in 2019. And finally, we want to give a shout to Aileen Keown Vaux, who’s recently published Consolation Prize (Scablands Books) is one of my favorite books of 2018. So many of the other Washington small presses have been gracious with their knowledge, that it felt important to give a shout back!
We also had an opportunity to show one of our Emerging Vision Filmmaker films, so a another round of applause to Rebecca Starkey for her work considering Alchemy for Cells and Other Beasts and her mother!
Finally, that was a very full house and we appreciate very much all the readers who are finding our work and joining us in these events. THANK YOU.
Always a pleasure to have a reading at Open Books, but last night was especially so as we launched our first play, Vicinity/Memoryall by Christine Deavel and J.W. Marshall.
Years ago, when I was still quite young and new to Seattle, I started going to Open Books… and through time and many dozens of books later, have been friends with these two kind and generous people. As someone who never had much poetry in college and never completed a degree, I can say, that they are the biggest influence I have had in my poetic education.
It has been a wonderful honor to publish a their first play and to have the type of collaborative experience I was hoping for when starting this publishing enterprise. I have learned so much from them as we have worked through this process together.
In addition to hearing pieces of their new play (to be produced in July 2019), we also screened Sarah Lintakoon‘s “Olive”. She was the winner of our Emerging Visions Award for 2018. While checking it a bit long, we were delighted at the ways Sarah creatively worked with very little budget and a team, to tell her own story about memorialization and grief.
Finally, we also got to hear Christine sing her song, What the Moon Knows and her the musical variation composed by her father, R. Gary Deavel. Take a listen on Soundcloud.
Thanks to Open Books for hosting the book launch for our new translation of Amelia Rosselli’s “Diario Ottuso/Obtuse Diary” by Deborah Woodard, Roberta Antognini and Dario De Pasquale.
Here’s a short segment from the last section of the book, “Obtuse Diary” read by Deborah Woodard and actor, Riccardo Pieri. I thought this presentation of a bilingual text was really effective and an imaginative way for an (primarily) English-listening audience to comprehend the meaning, while still hearing the sound of the work.
Here Knox Gardner, our January featured poet at adozennothing.com/, gives us a quick tour of an incredible scene:
What other Seattle poets are you loving right now?
Oh, lord. We have an abundance, right? I want to meet regional poets outside of Seattle. I gotta say that for me, as a publisher, that is what is exciting and also necessary. Ian Boyden’s first book, A Forest of Names, should have been on every list of best 2020 books. We are doing a project with Tacoma/Bellingham writer Robert Lashley. He’ll have a new book with Blue Cactus press later this year that I am really looking forward to. I am super intrigued by Cedar Sigo, who publishes with Wave. Let me see. Out in Port Townsend, Matthew Nienow. Nothing like what I would write, but I love his work. It is so aurally sensuous and of our place. Spokane has an incredible literary scene for a city of the size. Kathryn Smith and Laura Read are out there. We have a few Spokane authors we’ve worked with, Maya Jewell Zeller and Kate Lebo. Jesus, to get on Kate Lebo’s jam mailings. I love our events in Spokane, as it feels like being held by the community. I really would like us to have more Oregon and BC writers. Dao Strom in Portland is doing incredible work, and we are subscribers to the Fonograph project, who just put out a new book/recording by her. I don’t know enough Oregon writers. Ed Skoog whom I know from here, but now lives in Portland. John Beer! His Robert Lax work is necessary stuff. We have been a few times to the Airstream Poetry Festival put on by Mother Foucault’s book store, but I can often be shy when not behind my computer. At least with poets.
Ok, but what about Seattle?
Ha! Right. Well, Don Mee Choi. I was so excited for her to win the National book award. She is making books like I have never experienced, brave intense work. Work I would aspire toward. I honestly think our own author, Melinda Mueller is one of Seattle’s best writers and entirely under the radar. Truly a poet that reorganizes how one can be in the world.
EJ Koh had lovely moments in her first book. Jane Wong, Anastasia Renee, oh Sarah Galvin is fantastic to see live. Bill Carty’s first book, Huge Cloudy— and here is a funny, tragic thing. We are sharing an office, and I was so looking forward to learning more from Bill, but he started subletting right before the pandemic, and I have barely seen him.
The Poet Salon by Gabrielle Bates, Luther Hughes, and Dujie Tahat. That’s always a good listen.
