Here’s to Moms!!
Please join us as we celebrate mothers with seven fabulous local poets! Reading tonight will be Kevin Sampsell, Tim Barnes, Suzanne Sigafoos, Penelope Schott, Donna Prinzmetal, Nikki Shulak, and Leanne Grabel.
Kevin Sampsell is a Portland author, publisher, bookseller, collage artist, and father. He was born in Kennewick, Washington, and is the youngest of six children. While growing up, his mother worked at a fabric store and made most of his wardrobe.
Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Recent books include Serpent Love: A Mother-Daughter Epic about a struggle with her adult daughter, House of the Cardamom Seed, and November Quilt. Penelope lives a double life — in Portland where she and her husband host the White Dog Poetry Salon and in Dufur, where she spends half of every week and also teaches an annual poetry workshop.
Suzanne Sigafoos‘s collection of poems, Held in the Weave, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her work has appeared in The Oregonian; Windfall, a Journal of Poetry of Place; VoiceCatcher Journal, and Poeming Pigeon’s Garden Issue. Her lyric essay, Green, was published in Bellingham Review’s Issue 71, for which she received a Pushcart nomination. Lately, Sigafoos has been seen dressed as Scarlett O’Hara, posed against the setting sun, declaring “With stars as my witness, I’ll finish my full-length book of poems and get that sucker published,” or words to that effect. She served as poetry editor for VoiceCatcher Journal.
Donna Prinzmetal is a poet, psychotherapist, and teacher. She often uses writing to facilitate restoration and healing in her psychotherapy practice. Her poems have appeared in many magazines, including Prairie Schooner, The Comstock Review, The Cincinnati Review, and The Journal. Her first book, Snow White, When No One Was Looking, was published with CW Books in May of 2014.
Nikki Schulak writes and performs comedy about bodies and relationships. Her work has been published in numerous journals and websites, including Creative Nonfiction, Bellevue Literary Review, and Full Grown People. Nikki’s latest tattoo is not a mistake; she really does love voles.
Tim Barnes has published five books of poetry, Mother and the Mangos (a one-poem book illustrated by Angelina Marino-Heidel, M Kimberly Press, and Charles Seluzicki Fine Books, 1991), Star Hill Farm and the Grain of What is Gone (Skookum’s Tongue Press, 1994), Falling through Leaves (Marino Press, 1995), Of Almonds and Angels (Skookum’s Tongue Press, 2007), and Definitions for a Lost Language (Skookum’s Tongue Press, 2010). His poems and essays have been published in a number of journals and magazines, among them Basalt, Poet Lore, Cloudbank, Cutbank, Oregon English, South Dakota Review, and Xanadu.
Leanne Grabel, M.Ed., is a writer, illustrator, performer, and special education teacher (in semi-retirement). In love with mixing genres, Grabel has written & produced numerous spoken-word multi-media shows, including “The Lighter Side of Chronic Depression”; and “Anger: The Musical.” Her poetry books include Lonesome & Very Quarrelsome Heroes; Short Poems by a Short Person; Badgirls (a collection of flash non-fiction & a theater piece); and Gold Shoes, a collection of graphic prose poems [Finishing Line Press, 2018]. Grabel has just completed Tainted Illustrated, an illustrated stretched memoir, serialized in THE OPIATE. She is working on a compilation of 45 years of illustrated writing. She and her husband Steve Sander are the founders of Café Lena, Portland’s legendary poetry hub of the ’90s.
