PoetryBridge is collaborating with Lyn Coffin who is editor for a special North American Poetry Edition hosted by Last Bench Journal in the UK (see below announcement). The edition will focus on unpublished protest poems. Lyn will be emceeing what is the North American Kickoff of this project and I am excited PoetryBridge can be involved.

Peter Munro, who recently read as a featured reader in April recently had one of his poems published. Here is the message I received from Peter.

Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna to offer a free staged reading of Killing Marías: A Poem for Multiple Voices

For some reason Poetry Pole Publishing has been unusually active recently.

Click on the photo to see more of the published poems.

If you missed C&P's well attended Celebration Party last Sunday, I am including a link to a West Seattle Herald article.

As you may know, I asked twelve of our past PoetryBridge featured readers to help write a collective poem …

Recently I asked you all to submit articles, essays, interviews... whatever you thought might be of interest to the PoetryBridge community, so the website would evolve into a site where most of the content would come from you readers.

As you can see, Pamela Carter, Christopher Anderson, Arleen Williams and Christopher Jarmick have all recently contributed. WOW! Thanks you!

Submitted by Pamela Carter (See her article on Templates) 

SOMETHING SAD

I loved my Grandma,

She died of cancer.

There’s nothing more to say,

and the poem ends,

hard as it began.

I loved my Grandma.

—L.M.N.

an essay about my love-hate relationship with templates, when gathering poems from small children.

Based on a craft talk at “It’s About Time” at the Ballard Library, 10/11/12

by Pamela Hobart Carter 

WAYS TO BEGIN

Recite Neruda, in translation, “Ode 

to a Large Tuna in the Market”—

Among the market greens/ a bullet/from

the ocean/depths,/a swimming/projectile,/

a short story by Christopher Anderson

One evening I was in the mood for a beer and walked up to the Beveridge Place with my dog. They allowed dogs because they didn’t serve food. I passed a good-looking blonde, who looked me over. I engaged the look and got in line for a beer. 

            I sat with my beer and my dog. The blonde came over. “Buy me a beer?”

            “Buy you a beer?” 

by Arleen Williams

A while back, I was driving home to Seattle from eastern Washington with my sisters. I sat in the back seat. As we drove over Snoqualmie Pass and started the descent into the Puget Sound lowlands, I noticed two police vehicles parked in an open area, perhaps a weigh station parking lot, to the north of the highway. One was an SUV, the other a sedan. Both were black. They were parked head-to-head with the drivers’ windows aligned. The SUV was on the highway side, almost blocking the view of the sedan.

Every 3rd Saturday of the month BookTree bookstore has a free writing workshop 4:30 to 6:00pm led by poets, writers, or teachers, followed by an evening of poetry (including an open mic) 6:15 to 8:05pm.   It is hosted and curated by BookTree owner, writer and poet Christopher J. Jarmick. 

If your lot is interested in OUR community mic (love that term, so much nicer, more inclusive than “open” mic), it happens – along with featured readers -- at the Rainbow Café on Main Street in beautiful downtown Auburn every first Monday, 7 p.m…

I am excited to have 2 play events in April. 

The first, Let Go Now, is a ten-minute play that passes the Bechtel test. The evening includes 7 plays by 7 playwrights all performed by the same actors and directed by the same director, Rachel Rene Araucto.

Dear West Seattle and Beyond,

It is with the most profound gratitude that we can say we have raised the funds needed to purchase and preserve the coffee house.

Thousands of us stood together to say that community matters, and that a true community space like the coffee house is worth saving. That same spirit and kindness has always made C & P what it is.

Cheryl Latif will be a featured reader on Saturday, April 14 at Tsuga Fine Art and Framing, 10101 Main St., Bothell WA.  There will be some poems you haven’t heard as well as some favorites.

This coming Tuesday night, my guest Pamela Hobart Carter, a once-teacher who wrote (plays, poems, essays, fiction) on the side, and now-writer who teaches on the side, will join me in a friendly duel of flash fiction.
 

February marks our 8th year of PoetryBridge and we are CELEBRATING! with special prices on drinks and PIE!

Our 2018 Reading Schedule is now taking shape for most of the year and I think you will find it most enjoyable and stimulating.