Tag Archives: writing

Invite Poets to your Book Club w/ A Poet at Your Table

Please read Midge Raymond's great piece about this group (which includes yours truly!)

underwood

 

A Poet at Your Table – A Rare Opportunity for Book Groups 
In cooperation with Seattle Arts and Lectures Poetry Series and Crab Creek Review

It’s one thing to hear a poet perform in a large auditorium … but what if you could listen to a poet talk about her book in the comfort of your own home?

The greater Seattle area boasts an impressive group of poets who want to connect with readers throughout Washington.

Join the second annual A Poet at Your Table season, and receive an evening with an award-winning poet. A poet will visit your book group or gathering to discuss the process of creating her book, read poems, and answer questions about the writing life. We design a presentation that best fits your needs. In addition, your group is eligible to receive discounted tickets for the 2013-2014 Seattle Arts and Lectures Poetry Series.

Featured Poets:

  • Kelli Russell Agodon
  • Susan Rich
  • Elizabeth Austen
  • Kathleen Flenniken
  • Katharine Whitcomb
  • Annette Spaulding-Convy
  • Jeannine Hall Gailey
  • Sheila Bender
  • Kelly Davio

 Frequently Asked Questions…

1) What do we have to do to prepare for A Poet at Your Table ?

~  Besides reading the chosen poetry book, no preparation is needed. Whatever your book group usually does is fine. Just let the poets know what works for you.

2) How far in advance do we need to book our poet?

~ A month in advance would be great, but you can contact A Poet at Your Table on shorter notice, and they’ll try!

3) Do you have a web site where we can review the books and learn about the poets?

~ Visit Facebook at www.facebook.com/APoetAtYourTable. Please also check out the websites of the featured poets to see which seems the best match for you.  All of our poets have websites and many have blogs.

4) Our book group is in Kitsap County — is that too far for A Poet at Your Table?

~  Poets live and work throughout Washington.

5) Can we choose more than one poet to visit?

~   Absolutely! You could invite two poets to come on the same evening or one poet per month.

For more information please contact: PoetAtYourTable@gmail.com

Yakima River Poems Wanted!

POETS:::ONLY a FEW MORE DAYS to send in your Yakima River poems to A Sense of Place. Do you have a Yakima River-located poem? We are taking submissions for a special Yakima River sub-anthology of A Sense of Place, that will be part of a year-long exhibit at CWU's Museum of Culture and Environment. We are only accepting poems during the month of MAY 2012!!! Please send your poem, the location of the poem on the Yakima River (preferably in map coordinates) and your own picture of the place in .gif or .jpg to asenseofplace.wa@gmail.com.


yakima-river

May 2011 flashback

Click hear to listen to
My Jack Straw Productions podcast!

jack-straw-head The recording is from my May 2011 Jack Straw Writing Fellows reading in the Jack Straw studios. Being a fellow for 2011 was a fantastic experience that introduced me to warm, generous people and talented writers. I was privileged to meet my fellow "fellows" and the directors and staff at Jack Straw. I continue to benefit from these attachments!

The readings by the 2012 fellows are going on right now and I would urge you to attend! Here's the schedule.

Opportunities Abroad with Writing!

Attention all writers and lovers of art and travel!! Here are two great writing trips for summer adventures!

Speaking in Pictures: A Poetry Workshop Concerning Art

ireland

Leader: Susan Rich (http://poet.susanrich.net/) One-week Residential Workshop Retreat
Arrival: Saturday, 4 August 2012
Departure: Saturday, 11 August 2012

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
--Henry Thoreau

Poetry and painting are sister arts according to the Greeks. It’s a natural collaboration to focus on ekphrastic poetry. Ekphrastic poetry simply refers to our poems inspired by visual images. Together, we will discuss traditional and experimental models of the form by Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hayden, Lisel Mueller and Rainier Maria Rilke; study recent examples by contemporary poets, and sharpen our powers of observation and description.

Finally, through a series of provocative exercises, we will write our own poems on a variety of works of art. For the purposes of this workshop, art includes sculpture, collage, architecture and the natural world. All levels of writers are welcome — from beginners to very advanced practitioners.

http://poet.susanrich.net

AND 

Write With Us in Istanbul, Turkey

May 11-15, 2012 + optional trip to Izmir area, including Ephesus
Learn, Become Inspired, Build a Bridge to Another Culture

istanbul

Conference Fee: $550
Optional Three-day add-on Trip: about $450
With Sheila Bender, Yesim Cimcoz and Susan Bono
Optional 3-Day Trip Extension to Ephesus Area May 16-18

Sheila Bender joins Susan Bono, editor of Tiny Lights, and Yesim Cimcoz of the Writing Istanbul Project in guiding poets and writers of personal experience in writing and touring the amazing city of Istanbul. We have an optional add-on trip following the workshop for those who want to see more of Turkey. Spouses, friends and partners are welcome to join us in activities surrounding our writing groups work.

http://writingitreal.com/writers-conferences/istanbul-turkey

KaNoPoMo!!!

Well,though the novelists have grabbed November (National Novel Writing Month--NaNoWriMo) as their own, in the spirit of prolificacy, I am taking on November as KaNoPoMo (Kathy's November Poetry Month).

In April I wrote a poem every day for NaPoWri Mo; and I had 30 poem drafts as a result. I had as added incentive an agrreement I made online with the cool website ReadWritePoem to post a link to each new poem draft. About six of those new poems have been published already in journals, like Sweet and Pif. Some of those poems have ended up in my second full-length collection, Summer, Posthumous.

I was telling a poet friend the other day that the process of writing a poem every day took away the pressure that I would have "writer's block" or that my best poems were behind me. I kept surprising myself with my new poems--and it delighted me to have some much new material to revise, explore, work on. The experience of writing daily, in the middle of a very busy quarter, also showed me that there is no end in an artist's life---the intimate world of writing a poem is there for me as long as I am alive and as long as I am willing to enter it.

birds-medium

While I won't be posting new poem drafts in their entirety, I will post related material and some fragments/ideas. I have 15 drafts for November so far—I hope you will keep checking in! I'm also knitting lots of stripey birds in November (I'm on sabbatical)!!

Poetry is Cool Part Deux

dog-labistide

Welcome to Southern France, where for the next two and a half weeks I am at La Muse Artists' and Writers' Retreat in the Languedoc village of Labastide Esparbairenque. I am lucky to be on a sabbatical from my job as a writing professor at Central Washington University and very lucky to be here at La Muse right now.

My friend in the photo above, Homer, La Muse's pet spaniel, has been accompanying me on my long runs on the mountain roads that surround the village. I will be blogging about poetry, writing, running, food, animals and other loves of my life. There will be a daily poem and a running journal. Say hello!