The Poetry Box LIVE — November Edition

Nov 14, 2020 at 4pm (Pacific) / 7pm (Eastern)

The Poetry Box LIVE is a monthly Zoom poetry reading series on the 2nd Saturday of each month. Shawn Aveningo Sanders is the host/emcee with 3 Featured Poet/Authors each show.

November Featured Poets:
• Doug Stone (Oregon), author of SITTING IN POWELL’S WATCHING BURNSIDE DISSOLVE IN RAIN
• Tiel Aisha Ansari (Oregon), author of THE DAY OF MY FIRST DRIVING LESSON—1st Place Winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize, 2020
• Rebecca Smolen (Oregon), author of EXCORIATION and WOMANHOOD & OTHER SCARS

——- ABOUT THE FEATURED POETS ———-

Doug Stone is a fourth generation Oregonian and lives with his wife amid hop yards and vineyards near the Willamette River in Benton County, Oregon. In past lives he has worked on a county road crew, been a grocery store clerk, a case worker, and an analyst and a consultant on public policy issues to state governments, AARP, and the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice.

He has won the Oregon Poetry Association’s Poet Choice Award. His poems have been published in numerous journals and in the anthology, A Ritual to Read Together: Poems in Conversation with William Stafford. He has written two collections of poetry, The Season of Distress and Clarity, and The Moon’s Soul Shimmering on the Water.

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Tiel Aisha Ansari is a Sufi warrior poet. She works as a data analyst and professional curmudgeon for the Portland Public School District and is President Emerita of the Oregon Poetry Association. She now hosts the Wider Window Poetry show, promoting the work of poets of color on KBOO Community Radio. Her work has been featured by Fault Lines Poetry, Windfall, KBOO, and an Everyman’s Library anthology, among others. Her collections include Knocking from Inside, High-Voltage Lines, Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare’s Stable, and Dervish Lions (forthcoming from Fernwood Press). She drinks coffee in the morning and tea at night.

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Rebecca Smolen is a writer based in Portland, Oregon transplanted from New Hampshire in 2014, and is a mom of two adorable little gingers. She grew up on a dead-end road exploring drainage pipes and pond life. She has a strong feminist voice that sometimes gets trapped within society’s confines, but vows to teach her son and daughter that there are no confines.

Smolen has a degree in creative writing and philosophy and works as veterinary technician. She is trained and certified in the Gateless Method and leads writing workshops employing this method, which was scientifically created to avoid provoking the fight or flight reaction generating a safe place to produce raw, new writing that will spotlight the strongest aspects of that material.

Her first chapbook, Womanhood and Other Scars was published by The Poetry Box in 2018. Her poetry and essays can be found most recently in Allegory Ridge, Feminine Collective, Tiny Seed, The Inflectionist Review, Unchaste Anthologies, Hip Mama, Mutha Magazine, VoiceCatcher: a journal of women’s voices & visions, The Poeming Pigeon: Cosmos, and the anti-fascist anthology, Shout.

——— HOW TO ACCESS THE ZOOM READING ———

Join Zoom Meeting:
https://zoom.us/j/91945258774?pwd=R3JyV1phM0cyWkkvZzRZYUI1VU5BQT09

Meeting ID: 919 4525 8774
Passcode: 652298
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