by Amanda Ong
This Friday, Oct. 14, acclaimed poet Pamela Sneed will be in conversation with Shin Yu Pai at the Central Library’s Microsoft Auditorium to discuss Sneed’s memoir, Funeral Diva. The event is free and one of a series guest-curated by Pai, an award-winning writer, poet, and the producer and host of KUOW’s podcast The Blue Suit.
Continue reading Poetry and Loss During the 1980s HIV and AIDS Crisis: Pamela Sneed Talks About Memoir ‘Funeral Diva’by Chamidae Ford
On April 15, Rena Priest was appointed Washington State’s first Indigenous Poet Laureate. A joint program with Humanities Washington and the Washington State Arts Commission, the position is dedicated to connecting people and communities through the art of poetry while celebrating the importance poetry has had to our state’s culture.
Priest, a member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation, is an experienced poet, having published two collections of poetry, won the Vadon Foundation Fellowship, and received an Allied Arts Foundation Professional Poets Award in 2020. For Priest, poetry has always been a part of her life, but she didn’t fully dedicate herself to it until later, initially planning to major in theater.
“I’ve loved poetry my whole life, but I think it didn’t really start to play a big part in my life until I was in undergrad,” Priest said. “Once I started off in the English department, then writing altogether, it just kind of became it for me.”
Continue reading State’s First Indigenous Poet Laureate Aims to Spread Awareness Through Poetryby Mark Van Streefkerk
“You see that I am always getting in trouble
Trouble follows me
like a shadow right behind me, always
You see that I am always in fights
Always rebel fights, arguments
But you don’t know me. I’m not that type of person
I’m really caring, giving
Always trying to help people”
Those are the opening lines to “Josiah,” a poem by 16-year-old Damian, a youth incarcerated at Seattle’s Children and Family Justice Center (CFJC), formerly King County Juvenile Detention. “Josiah” appears in The Shadow Beside Me, a new anthology of poems from youth at CFJC, published by the Pongo Poetry Project. In the poem, Damian writes about how life changed when his friend Josiah was shot and killed. “Josiah was the only person we knew who had graduated / had a job, and had something going for him / When he left, it broke me.”
Continue reading ‘The Shadow Beside Me’: Seattle Nonprofit Debuts Poetry From King County Juvenile Detention(U.S. Election 2020: Night 3).
by Nic Masangkay
When I had dating apps (when I used to date),
I considered including in my profiles that I hate roller coasters.
I thought “true love” was powered by the
Gut-tickling high-speed swoops from high to low.
Now, I’m more interested in the in-between momentum.
Continue reading POETRY: I am learning to let love be boringby Beverly Aarons
Does this poem bring you joy? Does it move through and speak to your body? Does it make you think and feel something deeply? Arianne True, a Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations poet and experiential educator, has important questions for all poets, both young and old, but especially for the middle-school students at Hugo House’s Scribes summer writing camp. How can the experience of poetry shape how you see yourself and history?
Continue reading Does This Poem Bring You Joy? A Conversation With Arianne True
