Other People’s Poems
Other People’s Poems
The first OPP of 2023! Come recite someone else’s poem by heart, or just listen. There is an event directly afterwards so we will start at 7 sharp.
A resource for the PDX literary community. Produced by Old Pal.
LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.
For details regarding specific events please contact the organizers or venues. If you are an organizer or venue and would like to reach out to us please feel free to contact us or submit an event using our submission form. We’d love to hear from you!
The first OPP of 2023! Come recite someone else’s poem by heart, or just listen. There is an event directly afterwards so we will start at 7 sharp.
It’s a family affair: Christopher Luna, Toni Lumbrazo Luna, and Angelo Luna will be joining us for the return of our First Friday Poetry Series! Christopher Luna, co-host of Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic and co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, will be launching his new poetry collection, VORACITY, from Lightship Press, and will be joined by his wife Toni Lumbrazo Luna, co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver and local poetry powerhouse, and his son Angelo Luna, who co-authored the father-son poetry collection EXCHANGING WISDOM. 7pm Friday, January 6 Birdhouse Books 1001 Main Street Basement Vancouver, WA 98660 Voracity, featuring poetry and collages by Christopher Luna, is now available from Lightship Press or the author: https://www.lightshippress.com/books/p/voracity-by-christopher-luna Voracity by Christopher Luna $18.00 "Brutally honest confessional poetry, Christopher Luna's…
Long-time Portland poet, performer editor and reading host dan raphael will be reading from In the Wordshed, his 26th book, just published this December. Poet and designer Ash Good will read from Us Clumsy Gods, which came out in October.
Cultivating a Sustainable Writing Practice Instructor: Alissa Hattman This workshop is offered via Zoom PST Register here Class Meetings: 1 Saturday, Jan. 7th; 1-4pm $15 – $75 sliding scale *6 no-cost spots available; BIPOC & 2S prioritized Our practice—how we labor as writers—is highly personal. When we create a writing habit, it helps to consider our individual creative processes, life priorities, writing goals, and all the ways that we get in the way of our own writing. How we labor is also bound up in cultural notions of productivity and success that can often kill the creative drive. It can be hard to consistently carve out time in order to cultivate the type of patient, inner stillness required to write, but it is possible. Necessary,…
Annie Bloom's welcomes Oregon poets Leanne Grabel and Elaine S. Nussbaum for an in-store reading from their new collections, all published by local press The Poetry Box. Unfortunately, Rachel Barton, who was originally scheduled to participate, is no longer able to join the event. About My Husband's Eyebrows: My Husband's Eyebrows is a humorous examination and honest celebration of Grabel's long marriage—its good, its bad, its ugly—told through a collection of prose poems and poetry, punctuated by the author's richly colored, exuberant, exaggerated illustrations. Leanne Grabel is a writer, illustrator, and performer in love with mixing genres. Her first collaboration was with a bongo player and sax player in the mid-70s and her most recent collaborations were with filmmaker Penny Allen and dancer/choreographer Gregg Bielemeier.…
The 16th season of the Milwaukie Poetry Series continues on January 11 at 6pm with a live reading at the library by poet Wendy Willis. Seating limited to 50. Wendy Willis has published two books of poems, a book of essays, and a textbook. Her last two books, These are Strange Times, My Dear, and A Long Late Pledge were finalists for the Oregon Book Award. Wendy is also the founder and director of Oregon's Kitchen Table, a statewide community engagement program housed at Portland State University. She lives in Southeast Portland with her family. Room Location: Community Room
Ghost Town Poetry is an open mic that goes down on the second Thursday of every month at Art at the Cave. More information can be found on the Printed Matter Vancouver website: https://printedmattervancouver.com/tag/ghost-town-poetry-open-mic/
Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms This workshop is virtual, PST Register here Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms In this 6-week class, we will experiment with short form creative writing. Our focus—whether it’s flash fiction, lyric essay, prose poetry, or hybrid—will be on the art of compression. Each week, participants will be given a writing exercise, a short reading, and two workshop submissions from their peers. Class time will include workshop as well as discussion of readings and craft. Our workshop will be guided by observations, questions, and possibilities. We will be thinking less about how to “fix” a piece of writing and more about what we see, our curiosities, and how to recognize hidden opportunities. Each participant will receive feedback from…
Annie Bloom's welcomes local poets Bill Siverly and Penelope Scambly Schott for readings from their latest collections. About Starry Night: "Employing a mirrored parallelism for both individual poems and this entire collection, Bill Siverly takes us on a journey that encompasses Germany, his childhood in Idaho, the pandemic, and the drought. Although Starry Night celebrates the balm of the natural world and the joys of a passionate marriage, the gravitas of the tone here is clear: These poems implicate us fully in the destruction we've wrought on our world. Siverly's lyric voice demands we acknowledge 'how in one lifetime we've greased the skids / of our human demise.'" -Paulann Petersen, Oregon Poet Laureate Emerita, author of One Small Sun Bill Siverly was born and grew…
“To talk about formal verse is meaningless – poetry is form.” ~ Robert Pinsky Poets know that prosody is akin to prayer and how words gain and deliver their energy. But, for so many of us born into the free verse tradition, the study of prosody can sound like the poetic equivalent of “eat your peas.” Well, you can really like peas, fresh peas, anyway, and they are great for your skin. Prosody is the study and practice of the deep music in poetry (think meter, rhyme, cadence) and is key to all our strict forms like sonnet, villanelle, and sestina. In our Saturday session, along with drafting a few forms, we’ll explore how to “crack open” our own reluctant poems, discover our own rhythmic…
The Milwaukie Poetry Series and the Ledding Library are delighted to sponsor a William Stafford Birthday Celebration. Room Location: Community Room
Winter is a time for going indoors, breaking out the extra blankets, and hibernating. But it can also be a time of thoughtfulness, of preparing one for the renewal of Spring to come. In this spirit Winter Writing will be a generative poetry class. A class of first drafts. Over eight weeks we will write poems from a diverse list of prompts, suggestions, and examples from poets such as Morgan Parker, Dorianne Laux, Major Jackson, Sharon Olds, Richie Hoffman and others. Each week we will bring in our first draft to share, discuss, and celebrate. Come write with us! Zoom link provided prior to start of workshop. Teacher: Matthew DickmanTime: Sundays, Jan 15 - Mar 5, 1-3pm Pacific TimeTotal Fee: Discounted Early Registration is due seven (7) days…
“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” ~ E. L. Doctorow You have a thousand stories inside your head. You dabble on the page but rarely if ever finish anything, much less share with others. “Is my work good enough?” you wonder. “Do I have something original and interesting to say? What makes me think I can be a writer?” The biggest obstacle for emerging writers is not lack of time nor lack of skill nor lack of things to write about. It’s a lack of self-confidence. This workshop is designed for those who want to be writers but are not sure they can be. …
“A poet’s resources and inspirations remain constant, but our curiosity about form and technique renews the art for us.” ~ Paul Violi In this session we’ll open up and explore several potent forms that power great poetry, like the aubade, pantoum, litany, and palindrome. And maybe more importantly, these forms will provide a roadmap and a toolkit for future radical and satisfying revision of your draft poems. We’ll consider the music and strategy of model poems, and then through writing experiments and play, we’ll draft our versions. You will leave each evening with an appreciation and a draft of the evening’s form, and that form that will stay with you to invigorate your writing practice. Zoom link provided prior to start of workshop. Teacher: John MorrisonTime: Wednesdays,…
Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms This workshop is virtual, PST Register here Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms In this 6-week class, we will experiment with short form creative writing. Our focus—whether it’s flash fiction, lyric essay, prose poetry, or hybrid—will be on the art of compression. Each week, participants will be given a writing exercise, a short reading, and two workshop submissions from their peers. Class time will include workshop as well as discussion of readings and craft. Our workshop will be guided by observations, questions, and possibilities. We will be thinking less about how to “fix” a piece of writing and more about what we see, our curiosities, and how to recognize hidden opportunities. Each participant will receive feedback from…
Please join us for Constellation #1, a free community reading at Tin House Books, featuring poet Armin Tolentino, novelist Juhea Kim, and writer/artist Annika Hansteen-Izora. Location: Tin House Books, 2617 NW Thurman St, Portland, OR 97210 (Enter through the double doors on 26th) Armin Tolentino (he/him) earned his MFA at Rutgers University in Newark and is the author of WE MEANT TO BRING IT HOME ALIVE (Alternating Current Press, 2019). His poetry has appeared in Hyphen Magazine, Arsenic Lobster, The Raven Chronicles, and elsewhere. Originally from Lincoln Park, New Jersey, he now lives in Vancouver, Washington. He's an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship recipient, Clark County's Poet Laureate, and an avid (albeit usually unsuccessful) fisherman. He hopes one day to earn a Guiness Record for World's Loudest Clap.…
Annie Bloom's welcomes local poet Tara Shepersky for an in-store reading from her new collection, Tell the Turning. About Tell the Turning: Sometimes a thought, or a whisper, or a dispatch, Tell the Turning unfolds as lyrical journal, hymnal, and almanac all rolled into one volume, with its three poem cycles interweaving thematic rhythms and threads. It is an ambulatory archive, paced to poet Tara K. Shepersky's steps and treks along a stretch of the Pacific coast, from Oregon up to Washington and down to California. Then there’s a circadian and seasonal rhythm, with Tara attuned to the tug of moon on tide and tide on poet; the balance (and present-day imbalance) of the seasons; and the slumbers and awakenings of the earth and its…
Slamlandia is a poetry open mic and slam that meets every month. This mic provides a creative, fun, and welcoming space for all literary communities in Portland. We encourage poets new and old to come share their work. We strive towards a safer space for poets to read their own poetry, witness others, and participate in community. This event takes place in-person. Proof of Covid-19 vaccine or a negative PCR test is required for admittance. Please see our Covid-19 guidelines for in-person events at Literary Arts. Hosted by Julia Gaskill. Julia Gaskill Julia Gaskill is a professional daydreamer hailing from Portland, Oregon. Her poetry examines the tightrope we sometimes walk of feeling our voices censored and also being unabashedly ourselves. Her poems touch on everyday…
The Symposium by Plato asks: what is love? It is the story of a banquet in classical Athens, attended by Socrates and his friends, at which each person tells a story about the origin of Love. These stories are full of deep psychological insight, powerful mythic imagination, and profound philosophical reflection that have made The Symposium one of the masterpieces of world literature and a crowning work of philosophy. Bawdy and sentimental, drunk and wise by turns, with a surprising turn of events near the end, each story illuminates a striking part of the human condition. The event is crowned by Socrates’ own story, telling us the origin of his gift and portraying the nature of the world in terms of Love. Throughout the night,…
Annie Bloom's welcomes Portland poets Dianne Stepp and Judith Montgomery for an in-store reading from their latest collections. About The Nest's Dark Eye: Some traditions believe a grieving woman-given her vulnerability, given the boundless expanse of her sorrow-stands at the spirit world's threshold. Grief gives her a kind of holiness, a sacred compassion and perception. Dianne Stepp's voice possesses such a power. Her poems are finely crafted, deeply musical lamentations for her son who committed suicide. Her poems are grateful paeans to the natural world's bounty and grace. A poet-mother trying to fathom her son's final, devastating actions, she's "craning to see, twisting / to search the shape / of his death." The Nest's Dark Eye offers us sorrow's keen insight, its fraught and luminous…
If you allow them to, ideas for art and writing can come from absolutely anywhere. This creative generation class will put that theory to the test, through a series of experiments in creative problem-solving, spontaneous and chance-based play, and other exploratory prompts that challenge you to work outside your normal modes and investigate how the creative brain works. Prior to the start of this series of classes, each participant will receive a unique packet of random materials in the mail. In-class exercises and weekly assignments will ask you to work with these materials in various ways, including an opportunity to create collaboratively at a distance. You’ll also keep a weekly journal detailing your personal process and ideas about creativity. As support for this process, we…
Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms This workshop is virtual, PST Register here Pushpins & Portals: Experimenting with Short Forms In this 6-week class, we will experiment with short form creative writing. Our focus—whether it’s flash fiction, lyric essay, prose poetry, or hybrid—will be on the art of compression. Each week, participants will be given a writing exercise, a short reading, and two workshop submissions from their peers. Class time will include workshop as well as discussion of readings and craft. Our workshop will be guided by observations, questions, and possibilities. We will be thinking less about how to “fix” a piece of writing and more about what we see, our curiosities, and how to recognize hidden opportunities. Each participant will receive feedback from…
Writers often use musical techniques to access states of consciousness we associate with grief. Lyrical writing prioritizes music, rhythm, and emotion over the narrative arc. The goal of this course is to find entry into writing through reading, conversation,and various prompts and exercises to catalyze memory and thinking. We will consider how writers crafting stories and poetry about grief use lyricism, discursiveness, fragmentation, and silence to embody writing content through form. Participants should be prepared to write a lot! Prompts and exercises will allow students to access various parts of memory. In a short period of time, we will get to know one another and provide a sounding board for our stories in a safe space. Access Program We want our classes to be accessible…
Gabrielle Bates’s electric debut collection, Judas Goat (Tin House), plumbs the depths of intimate relationships. The book’s eponymous animal is used to lead sheep to slaughter, while its own life is spared, and its harrowing existence echoes through this spellbinding collection of forty poems, which wrestle with betrayal and forced obedience, violence and young womanhood, and the “forbidden felt language” of sexual and sacred love. Bates’s poems conjure encounters with figures from scriptures, domesticated animals eyeing the wild, and mothering as a shape-shifting, spectral force; they question what it means to love another person and how to exorcise childhood fears. All the while, the Deep South haunts, and no matter how far away the speaker moves, the South always draws her back home. In confession,…
Spare Room Reading Series & Passages Bookshop present a poetry reading and book launch for Dylan Angell (Demanding the Room) and Dan Raphael (In the Wordshed). Door opens at 6:00 pm; reading at 6:30 pm (no late entry). Admission free — Mask & vax required Dylan Angell is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. He has released a number of chapbooks including Anywhere I Lay My Head, released by The Silent Academy, and Photo Never Taken, released by The Concern Newsstand. He co-organizes Evenings, a mixed media series, with Loan Tran and Victoria Bouloubasis. His new collection Demanding the Room, with artwork by Mark He, is published by Bored Wolves. He plays the trumpet and likes to swim in natural bodies of water.…
Though published many decades apart, these two texts share similarities both in their subject matter and their experimental qualities. Just as Dictee cannot be merely labeled as a memoir and DMZ Colony cannot be labeled purely as a poetry collection, both texts expand our understanding of genre by weaving together prose, poetry and photographs. Moreover, they “hold history accountable” by integrating historical events into the deeply personal, ranging from Japanese colonization of Korea to the Korean War. In doing so, these Korean American writers give voice to feelings and understandings that have often been silenced. By looking at these two texts in tandem, we will examine their use of language to resist power and silencing as well as how their experimental methods seek to give…
In partnership with Alano Club of Portland, “The Break is a monthly virtual gathering of writers and artists lead by Kaveh Akbar, celebrating amongness, collaboration, and interdisciplinary creative experimentation. Though many of the activities and discussions orbit or are inflected by recovery themes (Akbar has been in active recovery for eight years), participants are not required to self-identify as being in recovery to participate.” Register at: https://www.portlandalano.org/the-break Kaveh Akbar Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian-American poet and scholar, and the author of Pilgrim Bell, published by Graywolf Press; Calling a Wolf a Wolf, published by Alice James Books in the US and Penguin Books in the UK; and the chapbook Portrait of the Alcoholic, published by Sibling Rivalry Press. In 2014, he founded the poetry interview…