Ongoing throughout the weekend

Broadsides exhibit: poems on paper at the Center for Sustainable Book Arts, 22100 Vashon Hwy SW (corner of Dugway Rd. & Vashon Hwy.)

Peruse the extensive broadsides collection of Phil Bevis, fine art book binder and master letterpress printer, whose archive includes some of the groundbreaking print techniques and landmark broadsides of the 20^th century. They will be on display throughout the weekend of Poetry Fest, at the brand new Center for Sustainable Book Arts, a locus of rare books and center for classes and workshops related to the literary arts. Selected broadsides will be for sale.

 

Thursday evening

6:00 – 9:00 pm
Young Poets Center Stage: open mic reading,
ages 30 and under Free
Takes place at Café Luna
Annie Brulé is the M.C. and the closing reader

Friday evening

7:00 – 9:30 pm
Finding Our Way: An Evening of Poetry with Larry Matsuda and Tess Gallagher
(Ober Park Performance Hall) $10
Terry Hershey emcees.
Music is Japanese (Mako Willett, sanshin) & Celtic (Kat Eggleston, guitar), to honor the poets’ heritage

3:00-4:00 pm
Tea & Book Signing with Larry Matsuda & Tess Gallagher
(Vashon Bookshop) Free
Matsuda and Gallagher will sign copies of their works at the Vashon Bookshop, which has an outstanding poetry section, and tea will be served in the adjoining Tea Shop, which is hosting a Highway Haiku exhibit through the month of May. Jasper Forrester accompanies with delightful harp music.

Saturday, May 28

Saturday Workshops

10:00 – 11:30 am
Karen Finneyfrock: It Happens Here, Writing about Place (Vashon Presbyterian Church) $15
Coleridge wrote about Xanadu and Richard Hugo wrote about White Center. Location can act as an anchor in a poem, or as a hot air balloon; it can figure as a character, theme or metaphor. We will read poems together that use a physical setting as a central idea and then, with the aid of a trusty map, we will write our own poems about place.

Jourdan Keith: Shadows and Light
(Vashon-Maury Senior Center) $15
Every story and every poem tells as much by what is revealed as by what is unseen. We will use haiku and haibun to journey into memory through personal narratives. This interactive workshop builds on oral storytelling traditions before bringing our tales to the page.

David Whited & June O’Brien: A Reading: Voices from Indian Country (Vashon-Maury Land Trust) $15
O'Brien and Whited write from a place in-between. Each brings the force of their life's work with first peoples of the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, to their powerful poetry rooted in relation to one's own heritage and the culture one finds oneself in. Poems of border-crossing, blood ties, and Coyote.

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