A Hundred Poems @ Green Lake

Here they are, the poems (by 100 local living authors) printed on t-shirts and put onto unsuspecting runners running around Green Lake (Seattle, WA) on Sunday 10 June 2007. They're printed here in no particular order for poets and runners to enjoy. Author bios follow. Formatting may be funny due to blogger margins (tabs not recognized, prose paragraphs chopped). If something is unbearable, write and I'll change it. Otherwise, enjoy! Please respect copyright.

* Some poets have expressed interest in buying their own poetry shirt, and while there's money to be made marketing these to you, I deliberately left commerce out of this project and stand by that decision. I hope you understand. I won't be making/selling t-shirt copies. I do, of course, sympathize with the want to own one of these shirts(which I in fact do not). They were lovely, really, and made people smile. Take time, instead, to consider the value of your poem on the back of one member of your community... invaluable!

Running in Reverse

Donald Davis ran 1 mile backward in 6 minutes and 7.1 seconds on Feb. 21, 1983. -- Guinness World Records

To not see where I’m going,
not to follow the flickering heels of others,
not to trace the trails of sweat
on their necks,
not to count the miles until I’m done,
not despise the man in front
nor pity the man behind,
neither to watch the horizon slip
continually away:

For this and nothing else, I run
with my face turned toward the starting point,
my body trusting the narrow arch
of each foot,
no, trusting the path instead to find me,
and if I fall, if I crash headlong
into victory,
let it be blindly, let it be without
knowing who greets me,
let the finish line smack across my back
like an unexpected, longed-for kiss.

-Stephanie Lenox


FIRST POEM

One day I went out walking
I found a little seed
I took it home & planted it
It grew up to be a weed

-JT Stewart
(at age 4)


Writer’s House

Sometimes the grass gets mowed
at the house
where the writer lives.

-Christopher J. Jarmick


Spring windstorm--
my raincoat and I
dance the Merengue

-Lana Hechtman Ayers

Poem in French

I have one son and two wishes.
One is the kind you blow out.

I have one bad dream,
two cups for my morning tea.

Once I sat on a beach, the Siuslaw
slamming the Pacific, twice I rode

a silent, silent boat. I had never before
been two people: my outbursts, my longings,

his train pulling away: A bientot!
I have two thoughts and one of them is ugly.

At night I’m a thorn in your thorny side,
two feathers sticking sideways

from a hummingbird’s glowing gorget.

-Martha Silano

Renunciation

I saw your rejection letter from Pan Macmillan of London today.
It was stuffed inside the 2006 Writers' Market you returned to the library.
They don't accept unsolicited work.

They suggested that you read a book called From Pitch to Publication.
It's available at amazon.com.uk. I have a feeling it might be a
Pan Macmillan publication, but maybe that's just my inner cynic.

I won't tell anyone. If I did, I'd slip it inside a poem
which, when submitted for publication,
might generate a letter much like yours.

-C.E. Bozek

Inquiry #2

The way of the heart
is that it ripens –

lights up
each object

in the room –
lifts the bedposts

and two table lamps –
in wild levitations

shoulders, hips,
spirits crooning.

In morning hours
repeat, repeat, repeat

then leave -
again,

in languorous ruin.

-Susan Rich

June in Seattle

It will rain for at least 12 of the 30 days.
It will probably rain more.
Umbrellas will appear between the seats of busses
and remain at work when the sun comes out at 3 p.m.
You will wear wool one day.
You will wear sunglasses two days,
then lose them between rainstorms.
You will wear shorts one day and think
you can taste summer in the air.
Your neighbor will barbecue ribs
and the world will stop to inhale.
You will carry raindrops in the cuffs of your coat
even as the calendar reads, July.

-Kelli Russell Agodon

Poetry is
one letter less
than poverty.

-Thom Schramm

Love, Like At the Bank

I had a friend who, on and off, for fun,
Would, out of the deposit slips, take one
And write down underneath, in forceful black,

GIVE ME THE MONEY,

Fold, and put it back.

It wound up, hours later, in the hand
Of someone’s docile tweedy-suited grand-
Mamma in orthopedic heels.

The teller’s face—

And that is how it feels.

-Alexandra Oliver

Tending Eagle Point

Rakes in hand, the schoolchildren croon
into the wooden mics or shadow
the moves of imaginary characters. The lake
swirls behind them as they weed
and mulch, readying the winter ground
for seedlings. Cold and wet, they have stayed so long
they have seen the eagle:
now their eyes hold fire.

-Nancy Dickeman

Charm Against Headaches

Jar
nine pins
in spring water

With
seven shards
of blue glass

Mix
five eye
beads, three crosses

Gold
and new.
Seal with beeswax,

Then
shelve against
hungry, jealous aswang.

-Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor

VALENTINE

Yes, we’re odd as ginger snaps
dunked in Turkish coffee,
we’re hot, beneath the sugar.
We stir each other’s chai
until a foam forms.
We sip, we sleep.
Honey, you still toast
every sesame seed in me—one bite
and it’s Madagascar all over again.

-Julie Larios

WHITE FUNGAL SODA

White fungal funeral where I met you Assasin, o
Assasin, in a corpuscule of memory: bird’s nest flavoring

I would like to taste your


Caught in the mushroom in French
middle at your lips

woods electricity, root:

velcro

pulse, the piano key
out of its plug. place



Underneath, sea plaid, and by the fireplace the sound of the wheel
between us, bird’s nest flavoring in the fungal garden. Want.

-Melanie Noel


How We Can’t Separate the Music From the Sun

You wake dreaming of a melody
that suspends planets
like the upward notes

your black lab, Garbo, sends
shaking herself after a swim

prisms gone before you're certain
they existed or what it was that made you

fall on your knees in all that green
unspeakable tenderness
among the fragments.

-Jenifer Browne Lawrence

I am older than Rubik’s cube, younger than a Frisbee. The Viewmaster could be my grandfather. Click, click. The Eiffel Tower. Click. This is where I met your grandmother. Click. Where your mother was born. The house where we lived. The Grand Canyon. Click. New York City. Click. Chosin Resevior. Imjin River. Heartbreak Ridge.

-Elizabeth J. Colen

Another Bird Song

by Paul E. Nelson

(appears below as an image to retain formatting)
WORK
HUNT
EAT
SLEEP
SPEND
BREED
DIE

-L. Swartz

Google: running

away apparel a business ahead around boards barefoot back by
cramps circles coach clothes distance down daily errands everyday
free for office fatigue gear guns government hurt hard in place
in rain joke java jacket journal jump knee kismet knot lights late
laps legs lyrics map marathons miles meditation nose nowhere
out of gas on empty out of time pace pain partner poets quads
quota quarter mile room races routes rampant ragged red lights
shoes scared sore stop signs tab team time total uphill up the score
uniform visor video vista on mac with scissors watch wild with the
bulls
water windows xbox xerox copies your mouth year round zone zen
around green lake in seattle

-Carl "Papa" Palmer

DAPHNE AND APOLLO

At first it’s as simple as two people running.
Running from one story into another.
Another second, she’ll scream out in bowers.
Bowers of new green so tender it hurts her.
Her hands become halos that twig bone to branches.
Branches that carry her up into sunlight.
Sunlight that sinks a warm hand into belly.
Belly that gives way to rough bark and breakneck.
Breakneck the turning from fear into arbor.
Arbor for armor, his ardor outlasts her.
Her sense turns to sun-dapple, leaf-hiss, surrender.
Surrender the girl for the heartbeat worth saving.

-- Sierra Nelson

* Sierra's poem "DAPHNE AND APOLLO" was published previously in the journal "Mare Nostrum."

THE MOON IS FALLING
[not printed by request]
-Jeremy Halinen

Tomatoes planted
yesterday drink morning sun,
compost contentment.

-Fredda Jaffe

The city awoke drenched
With the splash
Of the great salmon.

-David Kelly-Hedrick

Nocturne for Doug Longman

In Heaven
you constantly direct
men in suits
to move pianos.

The Steinway is very nice,
thank you.

Please bring in the
Bosendorfer.

-Rebecca Loudon

tuning

the clink of a glass
solid with water
is an upright scale
to which your fingernail
is a metal hair

-a. k. allin

Tranquility

I like it best when the lights are out
and the night is clear - all of the rain in LA,
not here - and I can light a cigarette
and step onto the deck, the door sliding shut
quietly behind me and I can see
the darker mountains against
the darkened sky, and Regulus
hangs above me, blue-white giant,
the moon sheds its many skins,
a train down by the water goes by,
blowing its whistle once, then twice.

-Carlos Martinez

roots knuckle, a fight
against concrete breaks out-
blood red roses bloom

-Jourdan Imani Keith

Easter Surprise

Downwind of Christian Capitalism
Vile, loathsome smells of Boise Cascade’s paper mill
Blow in on the wind from Wallula to foul
Up the thin and beautiful pagan fog of morning.

People began worshipping the sun;
Theology has gone downhill ever since.

There are billions of people,
Christians Buddhists Moslems Hindus Republicans,
Who believe libraries full of fantasies for which
There is not a shred of reproducible evidence.

They meet in difficult to appreciate rooms
Full of noisy fools for whom
One life on earth is not enough.

-Charles Potts

Leaf

My father once sent me a leaf
instead of a letter.
It was pressed between folds of notebook paper
in response to a column I wrote
while in the Midwest, missing my first New England autumn.
The leaf
deep red, found somewhere, in response to my longing
and sent across half a country;
an unspeakable kindness.

-L. Chris Leasure

"Error"

The drive is not accessible, Lord.
Format me, O God.

Should I save the changes I’ve made?
Do I really want to quit?

Forgive me, for I have performed
an illegal operation. Again.

I’m frozen. I cannot go back.
Copy and paste me to your will.

Save this draft. Save this draft. Save this

-Stephanie Lenox

(Did you notice, Stephanie has two poems listed. "Error" is the poem that went on a t-shirt. "Running in Reverse" was too long, but was read to many visitors on the 10th of June because it was just tooooo perfect for the event. Thanks Stephanie!)

HARVEST

two weeks ago workers picked
budded daffodils, bound them into
bouquets, loaded them on trucks.
a few bunches fell in road-
side grass and lay there
conjuring all the wasted
treasures. now, i pass those same
bouquets again, flowers fully
opened, blooming at nothing.

-Ann Tweedy

green lake circuit

running
always running
running hard
trying to better
my time
trying to trim
my waist
trying to stay
young
and in shape
but mostly
trying to
get away from
that damn
poet

-David M. Laws

My New Philosophy

The chill is in, and I'm sifting decisions.
Ask, "What would I do if it were summer?"
Pop a Corona, dive into kisses,
Stay up past bedtime for meteor showers.
What am I-in work, in the dark-that comes close
To the clove-pepper-pink exploding rose.
Don't know, but it shall be my mantra,
To do what I'd do if it were summer.

-Molly Tenenbaum

Fall Song

I should like to live in Chinatown
where the rain-drenched poplars grow
and the streetlights break like beggars' teeth
or sputter, swell and glow

I should like to walk those leaf-blown streets
and sip the sour tea
the oba-chan pours in my cup
from the bottom of the sea

Penny daikon, tuna bones
the scribbled neon signs
which light the silk embroideries'
inscrutable designs

The quarter moon is on the wane
the corner cats are thin
where someday I shall make my home
and call my strangers in

-Jay Thompson

A Formula for Domestic Spousal Coexistence

On the fro motion
a piercing squeak
in the handle of
the vacuum sucking
rug dust is excruciating
my persnickety
auditory perception.
As soon as
the switch
flips off the irk
of it all is forgotten.

-Carol Levin

Skunk Cabbage

overgrown spatula
arms stretching back
to prehistoric era where humans didn’t exist
to gawk at you on lined forest paths
taking digital photographs
for relatives trapped in the ice age

-Angel Latterell

A Thousand Words

I have a hundred words to convey my thoughts
a thousand words to make idle conversation
a million words to confuse you
a hundred syllables to say the same thing
over and over
dozens of inarticulate sounds
to infer nothing
oodles of notes to sing and divert you,
but only three words
that says it succinctly
so listen closely and intently baby
I.
Love.
You.

-Venetia Ghozlan

My poem, "A Thousand Words," is being published by the Canadian Federation of Poets, in one of their anthologies.

THIS BLISSFUL LIFE

The big, brown hen
scratches out a living
of corn and oats;
pulls grubs and worms
from the compost heap

beside the newly sharpened
hatchet that leans
against the chopping block. Cluck.

Cluck. Just two days
‘til Sunday dinner.

-Anita K. Boyle

Songbird

Love is
a robin's song
sung daily,
caressed by cedars,
storm stolen,
red-breasted given,
Chinook shriven.

-Robert Dickhoff

My Daughter, English Teacher in South Korea

Oratio Animi—the spirit which moves
—Yang Jae-Moon’s Seoul photo exhibition of clouds, 1998

The solitary photo of a man by the sea
in a wheelchair.

Insa-dong calligraphy brushes
and ink.

On the Imperial grounds, children with crayons
to rub the occupation story from stone.

From the rafters, hot pink paper blossoms,
and the bell’s sound lost to the Japanese.

The way to bow in temple—red satin
kneeling pillows.

Songni-San mushrooms, drying, on orange tarps
like chameleons, exhaling slowly.

And the tallest standing Buddha, his feet
on a lotus flower.

Much we do not know and pass by—
incense, like dissident poets, perpetually burning.

-Denise Calvetti Michaels

Ollalie

This alpine lake
revolves toward morning's sun
like a baby turning her head
toward mother's voice
to nuzzle contentedly for a nipple.
The shrubby alder next to me,
the rock I perch on –
we are all painted in this light.

-V. Pepoy

Palmistry

Bars and breaks
are most common. A fork
at the midnight of life.
Everyone has chains.

-Dave Jarecki

Night Inspired Garden
Inspired by Janet Wong

Scattered in the moonlight
lie darkened tulips
a red-orange pumpkin
sitting on green leafy vines
and me,
standing next to a tree,
on the soft ground.
My bare feet make
prints in the soil.
Moonlight falls
on me
and my garden.

-Eamon O.

Lost

Lost, it isn’t the hardest word to say.
Having to go on in life is the biggest challenge
of them all.
Lost, it’s a familiar word for everyone to use.
Seeing through the past and memories
Of someone full of happiness and joy
Lost, is a word you could put with your
Keys, your phone, but even people,
and homes.
Losing things you admired in your past,
Feeling like you’re the only one who
understands.
Lost, in your feelings like falling and
Falling, until you can see you are not
the only one.

-Riley M.

A year passes like a snowflake

falling into a lake a moment intricate white dissolved
(waiting for moon)
to join thousands of liquid years glacier lake made pure
(to rise through tree trunks)
by snowflake each your face at the edge of vision lace repeating
(moon in the wrong part of sky)
and tatted by hand every expression crystalline perfection
(where it has never been before)
your face on my skin melts a year passes like a snowflake

-Janet Norman Knox

My poem, “A Year Passes Like a Snowflake” was first published by The Diagram v. 5.5 2005 and I gratefully acknowledge it.

Esther’s Harmonica

it’s an eye an egg yellow jello
with a swangle blue dangle
plunk these strings baby
and whap my bass notes
go green up the tickle scale
shiver my orange knobs
purple gramophone
climb aboard my checkered ladder
so limber look out X marks
my secret spot behind your wings
your slippery silver bedroom wings

-Beth Coyote

Rules of War

One wears a silver tag
Another covers his head
The rest are people in towns

Everyone revolves around the same center

When a town falls toward its center
Subtract from the ones on the ground

When the people in towns
Fold their bodies in half
Add zeroes to their ancestors
Then lead their goats to the next town

Who reaches the big gate first
Must stop at the big gate

(In this game every week comes to an end)

-Dana Elkun

Viet Nam at night - 1967

jagged shadow sand
the moon is high
and the night stands out
breathing heavy

-The Other Michael

April Plaint

So cold today
and tulips refuse
to open even when
told it is okay
after all this is April
the month for tulips
who last long as cut flowers
when you put an ice cube
in their waters
so cold is not what bothers
them as much as does
the lack of light
full enough for any thing
to open up.

-Maggie Kelly

Cold wind bites my lips
He is a jealous lover
I need your warm kisses

-Connie Walle

Chutzpa

I’d like to tweak the elephant’s tail
just once. I’d like to hum so loud I can leap
onto her great gray silence and ride, ride,

while I beat out a muffled tattoo
on her coarse skin. I’d like to shake
the trunk that hangs, soundlessly swaying,
that trumpet, that glory horn -

and make it blast out modest revelations.
I’d like to lift her wrinkled ear to peer,
tenderly, into its vast hidden whorls.

I’d like to stare into her eyes upside down

and then sail out to grab, in resolute
terror, those wise old tusks.

-P. Hurshell

ANGEL

Being visited
by an angel (in-

visible, subtle) is
like every cell

in your body being
kissed

by this world's
smallest lips.

-James Bertolino

Whisper

At night on the mountain
in upstate New York
a tiny ubiquitous creeping sound
as though the earth were on the march
in the silence that was not silent
terrified this city girl
until she recognized
the sound that grass makes, growing.

-Susan Stern Grossman

This Side of Solstice, She Slips from Sleep

in flannel and lace to gather
the feed, secure the coop. Tonight
she is rooted

to this earth, rusted bucket
in hand. Waxing moon.
Three days time

a child arrives.
Sleep draws close, then goes,
but dreams

are made of flesh, taste
of breath, restless, tangible –
yes, definitely this.

-Ronda Broatch

Bone Structure

The shape of bones beneath the skin,
white winged clavicle, curve
of metatarsal arch, an alabaster span,
the fine intrigue of hands,
twenty-seven bones, splayed
as the sycamore in winter
against a soft edged sky,
visible as the swell a finger traces
across the apple of a cheek, then lingers
down along the line of jaw,
the frame of bones both intricate and strong
as thoughts beneath the flesh of words.

-Maureen Doyle McQuerry

My poem "Bone Structure" was first published in The Southern Review and is in the chapbook Relentless Light published by Finishing Line Press (April 2007).

Blue sand,
Blue sky,
Blue sea,
Blue mountains,
Ahhhhhhhhhh
Eyes shut,
blue.
Goofy smile,
blue.
Rollicking,
blue.

-Sheila Alexander

Punk Poem #31

Why would you have a word for that
Moment when the sun crests
Mountain, halos the ridge line
With a horizontal brush
That now how wow moment—
How disappointing to sum
Enlightenment in one word
When it extends beyond
When in a moment
Covers much more than that.

-John Burgess

For the Sensualist

I met a man who made me think of cloves
And pepper on the eastern coastal air
And windy wheat that, cut, became the loaves,
And ginger in the wind that blew his hair.
Another made me think of bolts of silk;
Another of the oranges of Spain,
The shimmer of a stream of Jersey milk
And mushrooms that would mingle with the rain.
I never thought of socks or moldy bread,
Of sandwiches that lie around neglected,
That jobless wonder loafing in your bed
Who leaves you feeling cheap and disrespected.
So think about the world of useless oaves
And tell me if you smell the scent of cloves.

-Alexandra Oliver

GRAY WHALES / MIGRATION SONNET CYCLE

They wallow, ravenous, in shallow bays
­The giant devilfish of Chukchi Sea.
An appetite for amphipods their way
Of building tonnage for the long journey

Down the coast ­ five thousand miles no trifle.
They fast now ­ progress slow ­ a target for
Orca, shark, Makahs' high-powered rifle.
They're searched for, too, by watchers on the shore.

Unflummoxed, they swim on toward warm lagoons ­
Once slaughter sites, but first and last the place
For birthing baby grays ­ the buoyant boon
Of Magdalena Bay and Saint Ignatius.

Junior puts on fifty pounds a day
And learns to spy hop in the balmy bay.

-Barbara Lloyd McMichael

Life of poetry
will save some, but not save all
Write poems save yourself

-Julene Tripp Weaver

The Room

in which Georgia
O’Keeffe paints
hamburgers: greasy
glass walls, coved
ceilings, but her door
isn’t ajar—it’s a lid
with holes punched
in it, so sharp skulls
and flowers can breathe
while a firefly burns.

- Jared Leising

BOOK OF DAYS

Judge someone else.
Meditate, pay me no lapdog.

Move along,
move along.

Many plans are idealism out of hand.
They blur, joggers singing our terror.

Suppose that I always flounder.
Forgive me later.

-Laura Gamache

There Is a Silence that Sings

You nature look
I not knowing how to love birds
tell them I am
guilty before them.

This is my joy.

-Courtney Hudak

On the long drive home
From an open mic
Across the street from a maker
Of prosthetic limbs
A one legged crow

-Brendan McBreen

Mirror

A lake lives here. The land is low,
The wet earth slow to swallow rain.
The wind paints patterns on the plain
Of water. It makes a mystic show.

We, the shore life, gather, curled
Round our mirror of the heights.
We glimpse ourselves inside its lights,
We glistening ripples of the world.

-Jed Meyers

HIGH-KU

Red-tailed hawk soaring
Above the glittering stream,
Eyes probing for prey.

Tree swallows dart past.
Three-dimensional swervers –
Mosquitoes, beware!

Cottonwoods reflect
The orange-red setting sun –
Fiery goodnights.

-Len Elliot

LEARNING

Something to get you started,
A drowning man,
The soft rustling of bamboo
By the river. Six ducks.
You've forgotten how to swim
& so stay on the edge
Of the continent
Thinking in hindsight
Of your mistakes. If only
You could do it all again,
You'd do it all differently,
Different mistakes, the same
Six ducks.

-Craig Van Riper

Sourdough Creek Trail, Diablo Lake, Washington

Could there be such a thing
as a white deer,
walking in a quiet wood,
quiet as the wood,
by a creek called Fawn?
Tim saw one in this very wood.
Pattie tells of a white stag returned each snow.
Startled silent,
I do not even ask for such.
Knowing they exist gift enough.
Follow the sound of Fawn Creek
right into the eyes
of white deer walking by,
dignified as life lived right.
I can go home now.

-Martha Vallely

Prescription

One pill for my heart, another
for heartburn. Take with food--

fruits and vegetables. "Fiber"
and "exercise" underlined twice

in the nurse's cheery handwriting.

-Amanda Laughtland

Take What You Have Gathered

Then at the end,
when the footprints filled in,
and the wind wandered the silent streets –
obviously so alone without me –
the place was my character.
Stare, or slip away and
likewise the eyes of the world
open and close because
we have walked our roads.
But being closer to far away
plays like an interlude to making
a path, the eventual one,
and an eventual ending.

-Joe Franklin

Tender, Then Bright

Oh, to be on the water at dawn
when the pearled light softens
and the earth turns to another day.

What isn’t green is becoming green.
Next she will see the new leaves
of the willows—so tender, so bright.

Her oars cross the lake and the smell of the lake,
rank ooze of decay and birth.
The mess of living inhabits the wind.

She pushes herself a little harder,
feels water and blood, muscle and pulse.
The sun rises higher,

burns a hole through the mist.

-Joannie K. Stangeland

Confession

What you don't know is
there are actually many
of me. I am not one
individual. We trade off

working, cooking, sleeping,
dancing, drinking, fighting,
talking, listening, ignoring,
reading, writing, erasing.

The advantages
are obvious, but I
am still waiting for my
turn to hold you.

-Michael Bowers

U DISTRICT DAWN

Here seagulls, not roosters, announce the dawn:
Our sentinels of apartment roofline
Above thin shrubby lawn
And two-story pine
Voice lucent opal seacoast
Above parked pavement, traffic's ghost.

-David D. Horowitz

Unidentified World

I splash into the unidentified world
ahead of me. The lush, cool, green water brushes
my fears and worries away. A blue school of
fish whisks by me. The green kelp floats
to the surface. I try to speak but my
words turn into bubbles that float
up like little butterflies. I know that
I don’t have enough time
to see everything. I speed toward
land and take a big gulp of air.

-Santiago

Oh, the Meek shall inherit the Earth
And I hope we can do it in time
Yes, the Meek shall inherit the Earth
But I hope by the time that we do
It's worth more than a dime

-Reneene Robertson

The Public Day

New lovers leave the house for the first time. They follow water
because following water is what they have been doing.
They are learning sea, sun, sky instead of each other’s features.
In secret each fears the other’s mouth will fade.

But look at the houses! Flower boxes, flamingos, flags!

Holding hands, they step across asphalt
into the new world where all will know.

-Carol Guess

Be full of summer
reading poetry out loud
ripe words and berries

-Kim Pearson

FRANKIE & JOHNNY MUSICALLY UPDATE THE FUTURE

'AEROVIVANDA'
A futurist menu item by Fillia sans Marinetti:
'The right hand carries straight to the mouth
Freshly cut fennel hearts sprinkled on slices
Of frehly baked pesto bread. The left hand
Uses a wooden spoon to arhythmically strike
The edges of each bowl and dish on the table.
A diaphonous mist of scented water is sprayed
On the back of each diner's neck by a woman
Called Nellie Blye. Everyone at the table
Is called Johnny. While out in the unlit alleys
Frankie claws the old dirt and cries, looking
for her man. Eat while wearing a blindfold.'

-Rick Werner Fahr (for Mr. Bungle)

Confessions of a Learnéd, and Publishing, Professor

I think that I should like to be considered
a “difficult” poet. I should like my metaphors
to be “uncanny.” I should like my images
to be not merely deep but “unusurpable.”
I should like my implications to be “palpably plangent,”
my themes “insubordinate,” my forms “diabolical.”
I should like my rhythms to be “poison” or “feathers,”
or perhaps, with increasing regularity, “ineluctable.”
I should want my first editions to be squabbled over on eBay,
the queues to be tedious at my book signings. I should like,
in fact, to have a society about me, before I am dead.
I should like the Pulitzer, the Lilly, the Nobel,
and how about a knighthood, and while I’m at it, sainthood?
Then, surely, I will enter the canon, and gain, finally, tenure.

-Michael Dylan Welch

French Toast

Did the French really invent this way
of scrambling eggs and milk and cinnamon
and dousing bread in batter,
frying it golden brown on both sides,
slathering the hot squares
with pure maple syrup--
perhaps a slice or two of banana on top--
cutting the squares into tinier cubes,
until all that is left on the plate
are swirls of sweet brown syrup signaling
the dénouement of the morning meal?

-Laurie M. Greig

Embouteillage des cochemars--
Eking out sunsets one slender whisper
At a time--

These Medieval adumbrations flicker
From candled night-sweats while
The sky like dingy blue dungeons
Brightens into clay--
Eventually to yield
To the sun's feverish investigations.

These residua of Saturday night's
Softened graspings blister into daybreak.

-c peterson

Cada quien halla lo que busca

El campesino escarbó la tierra y encontró yuca.
El industrial explotador perforó la tierra y encontró petróleo.
El campesino removió la tierra y encontró fríjol y maíz.
El magnate minó la tierra y encontró diamantes.
El constructor excavó la tierra y encontró edificios,
El sacerdote recorrió la tierra y encontró almas.
La raíz penetró la tierra y encontró vida.
La gallina arañó la tierra y encontró mierda.
¡Es que cada quien!... encuentra lo que busca-.

Carlos Gutiérrez P

(English Translation)

Every one finds what he looks for

The farmer dug the Earth and found yucca.
The exploiter industrialist drilled the Earth and found petroleum.
The farmer dug the Earth and found beans and corn.
The tycoon mined the Earth and found diamonds.
The constructor excavated the Earth and found buildings.
The religious one roamed the Earth and found souls.
The root penetrated the Earth and found life.
The hen scratched the Earth and found excrement.
So it is that every one... finds what he looks for -.

Carlos Gutiérrez P

Perfumes of spring
Dance in the warming air
Offering promises
Yearnings for summer

-Jay Schlechter

Before I Waken

Shiny black-feathered ponies
soar over mountains toward
father sun’s early colors, and
that smiling woman who
guards the path between
this world and others, she
dances across the sky,
stepping to painted drums,
her blanket blowing loose
revealing flashes of her
coppery skin, luring me
into another day.

-Thomas Hubbard

My piece, "Before I Waken" has been submitted for the bus poetry project, and WILL be published this summer in INJUNZ, (a chapbook) from Gazoobi Tales Press.

GREEN LAKE, AFTER LAST POETS WORKSHOP

A profound mind, speaking simply.
--Richard Eberhart, of William Stafford

Water: how consistently it courses
through sight, like Stafford's river,
alive in sunlight.

I want to heave these textbooks
over the side, leave school
forever, in my thirty-ninth summer

having finally learned that poetry
is the driftwood shack I'll inhabit always.
Wise counsel, upwell in me

as you will; psychology be dammed,
I shall paddle away amid lilies & milfoil
without mastering recovery from brain damage.

-Ellen O. Setteducati

Addict

Your bet
on your mortality
you think
you're bullet proof
yet one day
life will take you
by the hand
and make you bleed
without ever
drawing a weapon

-Terrie Wells

Thinking of You

Sometimes I lie awake at night dreaming of you.

The gentle lock of hair floating across your eyes
The softness of your hands against mine
The sweetness of your breath upon me

I watch the darkness fade to light and sleep comes.

There under Somnus' watch in the light
There drifting among the dust of time
There between life and death

I find you close to me before Nyx calls you home.

-J. Wolf

LIVING

Breath and life given
memory

Treasured past
life

Harvest reap
pleasure

Peaceful moment
consciousness

Halcyon, serenity
spirit

Luck is mine
today
I give thanks!

-Raúl Sánchez

SING ALONG DREAM

I sing the songs of peace and love
in hopes they last the length of time.
So listen my friends and all you others
for the song that brightens your night.

-Gerald A. McBreen

Greenlake Cycle

Pilgrimages begin with absence;
The void at the center.
Spanish lessons, roller bladers, ass chasers.

We find ourselves wanting health,
Wanting coupling, wanting joy.

All come to Greenlake for the weight loss plan,
To unburden ourselves of our selves,
To cast the old into the pond.

By August the milfoil, spread thick across the lake,
Dares me to walk its platform.

-Bruce Rips

Indulgence

As in a kindness towards, as in patient attention,
As in a tolerance of desire and frailty and delay--
a complete giving of self and a giving again.
As in the hand held out and the hand taken up
in what sustains and reminds
present in weeping and later in laughter.
As in the necessity for open eyes and a softened tongue
in what brings us to what is possible and what can change--
in the willingness to hold failure close again and
then like surf, watch it break and fall away.

-Alpha Selene DeLap

My cologist

There to the left of the stage
that is where he would be sitting listening
green eyes alight as his girl reads
there wasn't enough rain
for this fun guy to grow
after he would tell me how he cringed
at Kelly's maggot covered limb
or was gasping for breath with Pat's tale
there was only enough rain for oysters
the kind without pearls
his voice only seven digits away
the keypad is blurred
waking up alone
craving the taste of his flesh
I go to the farmers' market and buy the dried wild mushroom mix.

-Marta Sanchez

Running full tilt

chasing unwaveringly
this butterfly
in my chest.
A sweet child's
unbearable pain
divides us.
Enduring love
binds us.
Catch me if you can.

Clinton Bliss

Tide Watch

A stick of heron
holds
a great blue silence.

-Laura Synder

She walks across the cool linoleum like I'm dreaming,
slow pouring silk,
and wearing the air like a sheet of gauze
floating lighter than light.
I lose myself inside the sound of her feet,
her toes,
her arches,
heels pulling with a million kisses
and sighs
and broken-hearted cries
from each molecule of the floor
as she glides and billows,
swallows my periphery in her presence.
I might be dissolving into droplets of breath,
but I don't mind.

-Hannah Ellice Rames

shadows follow
each voice sings
chiming in from behind and to the
left in accordance with
streetlights
-- the first,
she is
far too lively for this
night as I feel it
she is last
to reluctantly disappear
-- although I don't want
to be alone
I cannot invite her
inside

-Sara

TIME IS ON MY SIDE

I have partnered with time, my new best friend.
It's always in motion -- a current that must flow.
It fends off stagnation -- always an opportunity to grow.

Time is an infinite river of possibilities -- constant, reliable energy.
You don't need to drill for it.
You don't have to store it.
You don't have to pay for it.

It turns dreams into reality.

Utilized everyday, any outcome will have its day.

What will you do with your time?

-Ross Safronoff

Sagittarius

If Sagittarius is the sign of sages
Than I hope that I may be as wise as laughter.
No better way to share a moment faster
Than a smile's gratitude. To be courageous
And laugh at fear, or grin down the cages
Of sorrow. Teasing to soften a master
Is wiser than sending hard opinions after.
Your jokes will not jeopardize your wages,
And you can save your dollars for the cold.
For we all need our warmth in December,
Start your fires with laughter's embers,
Catching in hearts and burning in jokes told.
For this I wish to be a wise comedian,
So I may share my warmth on dark meridian.

-Adam T Hamilton

"Thank you, No"

This gift is too precious
Too beautifully wrapped with too many ribbons and twine

This will and want to paint the day in words
This sudden “yes” that gives me a brush and says “go.”

Where will I keep such evidence of knowing?
And how will you give so much, so often?

This gift is too full in my palm, too round,
and too easy to tuck in my pocket.

You give me voice, and the eyes to see again what I want to say.
And it’s all too much… may I borrow it, instead?

And then-- here. I will give you it back.

-Emilie Rommel

The Art of Foretelling

Like David released
from a chunk
of white marble,
I discover a cake--
flour stirred with olive oil
and lemon wine.
A tablecloth spread.
Berry glaze,
blood-stained fingers--
finding fate inscribed
in a smattering of crumbs.
Tea leaves tipped
over a china saucer,
my future revealed,
a twist of green.

-Nancy Loud Canyon

A Large Oak

It's a wet, gray,
joyless Saturday,
the clouds brooding
over this Winter afternoon.
Walking along,
I see a large oak,
with an eighty foot branch span,
reaching towards the heavens
as if in rapture,
happy to be alive,
no matter the weather,
no matter the sky.
I continue on,
now walking a little taller
and happier than before.

-James Rodgers

A Self Portrait

I drew myself a picture, a self-portrait,
So to speak
And when it was done, it was not who I wanted
To be
The person I had drawn was cold, cool, and
Withdrawn
And incapable of seeing the beauty of the
Dawn
I witnessed the death of a human being with
Wide open eyes,
And looked inward and wondered why?
Why is life so easily ended, and why not me?
I looked at my picture again and asked,
Is it me,
Or the person I have always wanted to be?

-luke n

his gear
runners shirts shorts socks
runners shoes with the last 75 miles
walks over to Greenlake
stretches
then he is gone for 2.8 miles
passes by the bathhouse
twice sometimes three
pure poetry in motion
smiling each time

-Deneen Brown

Mama's Time

Mama on the corner waiting on the bus

Had to get to work so she could care for us

Freezing from the cold
Or burning from the heat
But always standing on aching feet

Answering those fair ladies doors and pouring their ice teas
Scrubbing their floors on her knees

Cleaning up this and straightening out that
Twisting and turning
And
Bending her back

Cooking in their kitchens and putting their wash to soak
Humph.

Worked hard everyday

Still mama died broke

-Sonya Carmichael Jones

GORILLA!

When my son was 6, he wrote this poem:
way down South, there is a bone, &
in that bone, there is a stone, &
in that stone, there is a moan, &
in that moan, there is
A GORILLA!!

So— deep in our hearts where it’s warm and sticky,
there’s a bone of contention, &
in that bone of contention, there’s a stone of anger, &
in that stone of anger, there’s a moan of sadness, &
in that moan of sadness, there is
A GORILLA OF LOVE!!!

-Lyn Coffin

IN SHORT

There will never be another touch, not like that one.
There will be no skin so penetrating or filling in this world beyond this day.
This day of mourn, this day of release, this day of death.
No drinks of heaven or licks of a goddesses boot are left in this life.
You will find only yourself here.
The sea of solitude has stretched her stomach muscles and i served as main course, wailing and suffering and changing, sitting inside her inside you inside me.
There we were, sitting together inside us and trying to find a goodbye, seeing none and feeling less.
Never can survive you another I, me, this guy.
This fear and this weight are far too great even to hesitate, on this magik, this voodoo mess, this death fate.
There will be no extensions for our snip-its of perfection, no do-overs, no resurrections, no reincarnations.
What will be are collections of thin lined sheets ten and a half by eight.

-Aidan Starr

If Only …

If only I had asked for less,
not wanted the best,
been satisfied to survive,
never known I could live and thrive,
taken the line of least resistance,
settled for anythingaccepted everything,
Then life would have been conflict-free.
Because there would be no me!

-Georgia S. McDade

Obsession

Longing. Indulgence. Just a little at first to see if it’s satisfied.
Euphoria! For a moment your mind is diverted. For a moment you are able to think of something else.
But it creeps back in waves. Small at first, easy to ignore. It grows larger. You consider giving in but choose not to.
You are still able to choose.
The pounding of its waves grow louder the harder you work to ignore them, until
You're standing on the high dive looking down at the
Swirling; uncontrollable urges that hold you prisoner.
You dare yourself not to jump—pray you don't fall. The waters rise.
Despite your resolve, on that very high dive; despite your love for the solid footing of the board beneath your feet,
Before long it is up to your knees, and you've waited too long to run for higher ground.
The water rises. And the swirling froth begins to feel like bathwater—it feels warm around your waist.
You turn a bit, feel it rush between your legs and tip-toe around your fingertips.
Neck deep in the milky warmth, muddy and murky though it is, the sensation
Captivates you, pulls at your muscles, begs you to come play in the deep,
And you do.

-Heather Lilly


set-up

child - easily drawn in
fast to the phone
quick to blush
senseless ringing
a set-up for the crush
hapless juvenile
needs correction
prone to calling ‘fire’
(when) it’s only smoke
flouncin’ around
short-chairs teaparty
reading tea leaves
lopsided joke

-Nashira Priester

..........................................................................................................

POET BIOS

Kelli Russell Agodon is a Seattle native who has spent many a wet June in the city. Her books include Small Knots and Geography, winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award. Visit her website at: www.agodon.com

Sheila Alexander writes her passion for nature and celebrates the laughter and tears that are part of embracing life fully. Trained as a journalist. Walks, swims, hikes, is active in her community and family. Slowed by chronic kidney failure but not foiled.

Five years ago, A. K. Allin climbed a 60' mast in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. She spent an hour there, studying the ocean, then read a poem and cast it to sea. One day she's going to sail around the world with poems on her sails.

James Bertolino's ninth volume of poems is titled POCKET ANIMALS, and is available from Egress Studio Press in Bellingham. His poetry has won numerous regional and national awards--most recently the 2007 Jeanne Lohmann Poetry Prize. In 2005 he was the Washington Poets Association "Poetry Road Show" poet, and has taught poetry writing at Cornell University, University of Cincinnati, Western Washington University and Willamette University, where he was Writer-in-Residence for 2005-2006. JimBertolino@yahoo.com

Clinton Bliss: I'm an ER Doc. I'm a warm heart in the dark and I love my son with all my heart.

Michael Bowers is a Washington native, having grown up in Shoreline. He currently lives and works in Seattle, facilitating informal science education by day, and dabbling in writing poetry, songs, and short stories by night. He is a graduate of the University of Washington with a BA in Anthropology. In his free time, Michael most enjoys playing the lap steel guitar, salsa dancing, and enjoying the company of good friends.

Anita Boyle's book BAMBOO EQUALS LOON is available from Egress Studio Press in Bellingham. Her work has been anthologized in the Washington State poetry anthology, RED SKY MORNING, and the national anthology SAINTS OF HYSTERIA: A HALF-CENTURY OF COLLABORATIVE AMERICAN POETRY. In 2003 the Willard R. Espy Foundation granted her a one-month residency in Oysterville, Washington, where she wrote 60 poems. She is co-director of the Whatcom Poetry Series in Bellingham. domino@nas.com

My name is Charline Bozek. I live in Bothell with my husband, two daughters and a myriad of cats. I write poetry and short stories. I am also a quilter. I work in a public library. This piece is from a group of poems I'm working on based on things encountered in returned books.

Ronda Broatch is the author of Some Other Eden, (Finishing Line Press, 2005). Her work has recently appeared, or is forthcoming, in Atlanta Review, Rattle, Poetry Southeast, Silk Road, and Rhino. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Ronda is the recipient of the 2005 Kay Snow Poetry Award, and 2006 WPA William Stafford Award.

John Burgess grew up in upstate New York, worked on a survey crew in Montana, taught English in Japan and now lives and works in Seattle. He’s a 2006 Jack Straw writer and co-founder of Washington Poets Association’s Burning Word festival. He's currently running for Seattle Poet Populist as the "from the ground up" candidate. His first book is Punk Poems from Ravenna Press (2005).

Nancy Lou Canyon is the author of three works of fiction: Celia's Heaven, Stealing Time, and Whispering, Idaho, and numerous poems, essays, and articles. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific Lutheran University. She and her Tuxedo cat, Sid Canyon, live in Fairhaven, Washington, where she writes, teaches, and cares for her grandbaby part-time. www.nancycanyon.com

Widely-published poet, playwright, fiction writer. Runner up for 2006 Poet Populist. Work forthcoming in Rose Alley Press's anthology of Northwest poets. Winner of last year's Bart Baxter Award. Member of EffectiveArts acting troupe. Medal-winner at last year's World Congress of Poets in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Elizabeth J. Colen is an obscure functionary cultivating harmless eccentricities. She's currently finishing a novel in fractured narrative on the damage we do to each other. She has a blind dog, a deaf dog, and two needy cats and has recently gotten married in Canada to her favorite person in the world because the U.S. won't let her.

Beth Coyote is published in Snow Monkey, Gumball Press, synapse, When It Rains From the Ground Up, Chrysanthemum, WPA anthologies, Mute Note Earthward and Tattoos on Cedar, Reflections and a new anthology of women’s political poetry, From the Web.

Alpha Selene DeLap grew up in New York City, lives in Maple Leaf with her son, husband and golden retriever. Loves to work with words, ideas, weeds, yarn, and extend her physical and emotional capabilities.

Robert Dickhoff was born in 1947, in New York City, where he studied music at the High School of Music and Art, playing oboe with the United States Air Force Band in Wiesbaden, Germany, and later with the Bellevue Philharmonic, Bellevue, WA. He received a BA in English (creative writing), and a BFA in painting from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA; an author of fiction and poetry, as well as a visual artist; a painter and print-maker.

I have recently completed my first novel, "The Wind-Scattered World," and am a graduate of the creative writing program at the University of Washington. My poems have appeared in the anthology March Hares: The Best of Fine Madness, and in Poetry Northwest, The Seattle Review, River City and other publications. I have an essay forthcoming in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: 'The Nuclear Tide and the Child's Nightmare." I have three children, live in Seattle, and work as a children's environmental health advocate.

Dana Elkun is a Seattle poet and poetry teacher. She has taught courses at University of Washington, Richard Hugo House, and University of Arizona Poetry Center. She also works as a writer-in-residence for Writers in the Schools and with youth in detention and foster care. Her poems have been published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Bellingham Review, MARGIE, and Puerto del Sol.

My name is Len Elliott. I live in Auburn along the Green River. The three haiku that compose this offering were written while sitting on my bench at river's edge. There I am surrounded by native plants, entertained by birds and other wildlife, and calmed by the waters. Enjoy your run!

Rick Werner Fahr has made several 0 budget stoner slacker ridiculous movies with titles such as ROCK'N'ROLL MOBSTER GIRLS,& THE HEATHEN. Also an actor, he has toured and performed internationally as well as in the wilds of northern Alaska and at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada.He was a performing co-creator of the SUNSET SMACKDOWN, a notorious bar show that ran for 10 months in Seattle. He has published poetry in a number of small journals, including The Commonline Project.com and FarmhouseMagazine.com.

My name is Joe Franklin and I am working at Mount Rainier right now. I wrote this poem while i was travelling in South America this past year. I cannot make it into Seattle because I dont have a car. I like clouds and peanut butter. I had knee surgery in March. My eyes are green and I am left handed. My favorite poet is Robinson Jeffers. Cheers to all the runners and writers.

Laura Gamache would rather walk than run, swim than waterski, cox a rowing shell than jetski. Her poetry has appeared online, in journals and anthologies, in a chapbook (nothing to hold onto, 2005,) on the radio, on stage, on the bus and on bookmarks. She teaches writing workshops through Seattle Arts & Lectures' Writers in the Schools and other programs. This is her first tee shirt publication.

Venetia Ghozlan is a 49 year old disabled homo sapien, fem, daughter, mother, grandmother, mixed cultural heritage, humanist, non-tribalist, apolitical... an administrative assistant (daytime grunt earn the gruel job) and has written since she could breathe...well at least could think, cognitively.

Laurie M. Greig works as a psychotherapist with adolescents and adults in Seattle. She has published her poems and writings in Art Access, Exhibition Magazine, Crazy Woman Creek, and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. She can be reached at OnTheWheel@comcast.net

Editor, writer, and photographer Susan Stern Grossman came to Seattle from New York in 1990 for six weeks to attend the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. She took a look at Mt. Rainier, had a latte, and tore up her return ticket. She’s still here.

Carol Guess is the author of four books, most recently the poetry collection _Femme's Dictionary_. A new book of poetry, _Love Is A Map I Must Not Set On Fire_, is forthcoming in 2007. She lives in Bellingham, WA.

Carlos M Gutiérrez Parrales (1960, Diriamba, Carazo, Nicaragua): A pesar de que Gutiérrez ha publicado solo un libro bilingüe de poesía por ahora –“¿A dónde Irá?” (2003)—su nombre es ya bien conocido en varios países latinoamericanos asiáticos y europeos. En su narrativa, el autor se identifica con la tierra, el campesino, su pueblo. Los temas de sus poemas y cuentos ofrecen una visión universal de la existencia humana. En ellos se registran los sentimientos de angustia, remordimiento y violencia que acosan al ser humano. Actualmente tiene cuatro libros sin publicar; es presidente de la organización de poetas y escritores bilingüe, llamada, “PENSARTE” y es uno de los presidentes de la UPLI. Vive en Seattle.Carlos M Gutiérrez Parrales (1960, Diriamba, Carazo, Nicaragua): Although Gutiérrez has published a single bilingual book of poetry, so far entitled - " Where Will She Go?" (2003)-his name already is well known in several Latin American countries, Asia and Europe. He is president of the bilingual organization of poets and writers, here in Seattle called, "PENSARTE". Carlos is also one of the presidents of the United Poets Laureate International (U.P.L.I), which is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA. He lives in Seattle. In his narrative, the author identifies himself with the earth, the “campesino”, and his hometown. The subjects of his poems and tales offer a universal vision of the human existence. In them are registered the feelings of anguish, remorse and violence that harass the human being. Currently he is working on four books unpublished, as of yet.

Jeremy Halinen holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. He is editor and founder, along with Brett Ortler, of the new print literary magazine Knockout. His chapbook Fragments of Water won the 2003 Alan Bunn Memorial Award. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Dos Passos Review, Rio Grande Review and the 2008 Outside Voices Anthology of Younger Poets.

Adam Hamilton is a Philosophy and English Literature double-major finishing his 3rd year at the University of Washington. He often draws on philosophical, religious, and esoteric themes for his poetry and short stories. Confident in his African American heritage and his strong Mormon faith, Adam plans on going on a proselyting mission after he graduates from college. In the long term, Adam intends to continue his education at the graduate level and earn a PhD in English Literature, so that he may represent his culture in the mostly white post-Graduate arena and facilitate academic discussion of race, religion, and socioeconomics in relation to how society affects literature, and literature society.

Lana Hechtman Ayers enjoys spicy tuna rolls and the roll of ocean waves. She lives in Kirkland with many cats.

David D. Horowitz founded and manages Rose Alley Press, which primarily publishes books of rhymed metrical poetry. He earned bachelor's degrees in philosophy and English from the University of Washington and a master's degree in English from Vanderbilt University. His verse has appeared in numerous journals, such as Candelabrum, The New Formalist, The Lyric, and ArtWord Quarterly. His most recent poetry collections, all published by Rose Alley Press, are Wildfire, Candleflame; Resin from the Rain; and Streetlamp, Treetop, Star. Winner of the 2005 PoetsWest Achievement Award, David lives in Seattle and gives frequent readings at literary venues around the Northwest.

Thomas Hubbard, writing instructor, retired from Tulalip Reservation, Tulalip Heritage School.

Courtney Hudak is a poet and aspiring attorney who runs too occasionally to enjoy much in the way of runner's high. She has been published in a small number of high and low places and is currently going through a cake-baking phase.

P. Hurshell lives in Seattle. A former European opera singer, she has a PhD in English from the University of Washington and won its Robert Heilman Dissertation Award. She is the recipient of Ford and Woodrow Wilson grants for her research on Jewish women and the Holocaust. Her work has recently been heard on Literary Café, broadcast in Astoria Oregon. Forthcoming poems are Aria for Soprano in the anthology Myths and Legends, and Taffy-Pull in Borderlands: Texas Review.

Fredda Jaffe teaches poetry to fifth graders at Beacon Hill Elementary (through Powerful Schools) and works as a family therapist.

Dave Jarecki is a Portland writer with Pennsylvanian roots. He is currently working on a novel, requesting an interview from a stranger, writing a song in the key of G, and checking box scores.

Christopher J. Jarmick is a widely published author, journalist and poet. His novel is The Glass Cocoon, he curates and hosts two monthly Seattle poetry readings and is the President of PEN – Washington. Email him at glasscocoon@hotmail.com.

Sonya Carmichael Jones is a writer and marathoner who will always miss Mama.

Jourdan Imani Keith: Seattle Poet Populist 2006-2007

After teaching in classrooms in Minnesota and Puerto Rico, Maggie Kelly moved to Tacoma, WA for graduate work in literature. Kelly won a Freedom Foundation award for a poem about heroes and more recently, was a prize winner in the Utah State Poetry Society’s annual heritage contest. Some of her poems have appeared in a variety of newsletters, bulletins and anthologies, as well as in Moonthorn, Finnish American Reporter, Chrysanthemum, Another Morning and Senior Scene (for which she also writes a monthly column). In addition to taking a class from award-winning poet Allen Braden and a critiqued class at Centrum, Pt. Townsend, WA., Kelly belongs to five poetry-writing groups. She was recently a featured reader for the Distinguished Writer Series in Tacoma where she read some poems from her soon-to-be-completed chapbook, Transformations. Kelly is the editor of the newsletter for the Washington Poets Association.

I am a poet with a few poems published in magazines and a self-published chapbook entitled “Cairns” of short poems including the salmon poem which I gave out to friends and family. I work at the YMCA of Greater Seattle developing youth and international programs. I am a husband and father of three beautiful kids. I write early in the morning at my desk with a window into the side yard now graced with climbing roses and a raspberry patch and scribble notes throughout the day. I am part of an informal group of educators, agitators and poetry lovers called the Poetry Revolution. Here is a short poem I wrote several years ago on hearing news about the listing of northwest salmon on the Endangered Species List….

Janet Norman Knox’s poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in Crab Creek Review, Rhino, Diner, Seattle Review, Adirondack Review, Poetry Southeast, Cranky Literary Journal, Red Mountain Review, Diagram, Pearl, and in Pontoon and Red, White, and Blues (Iowa University Press). Her chapbook, Eastlake Cleaners Where Quality & Price Count [a romance], received the editor’s award and will be published by Concrete Wolf in 2007. She was a 2007 Finalist for the Discovery/The Nation award.

Angel Latterell migrated to Seattle two years ago to escape midwestern weather and sensibilities. She has been writing poetry since she learned to read. Angel is a practicing buddhist and attorney for artists. She lives in an intentional community devoted to sustainable living practices, organic/local eating and soulful living. In her spare time she can be found around town searching for live jazz music, performing her poetry, wandering around pike place market, or enjoying our wonderous environment filled with so many treasures.

Amanda Laughtland is a lifelong resident of the Seattle area. She teaches English part-time at Edmonds Community College, works part-time for Sno-Isle Libraries, and writes poems whenever possible. For more of her poetry, please see www.teenytiny.org.

Jenifer Browne Lawrence was raised in Alaska & currently lives in a small town on the west side of Puget Sound. A 2006 Artist Trust GAP grant recipient, Jenifer's poems are published or forthcoming in Crab Creek Review, the North American Review and elsewhere. Her first poetry collection, One Hundred Steps from Shore, was published by Blue Begonia Press in 2006. She is not a runner but admires them from a safe distance. She once had a dog that fished for salmon, practicing only catch-and-release.

David M. Laws is a former musical instrument repair technician, poet, writer, proofreader, editor, gardener, model railroader, hiker, and political satirist who lives in Bellingham with his beautiful wife, also a writer, and Lucky the Wonder Dog. He hates Bush and the GOP only slightly more than he hates the Dems. Go to www.cascadiaweekly.com and click on Electron Edition to see his weekly column, Snark News.

Chris Leasure has an MFA from some midwestern college, but would rather have a poem on a t-shirt.

Jared Leising, originally from the Midwest, received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Houston. Currently, he teaches English at Cascadia Community College and is a volunteer for 826 Seattle, a youth writing center in Greenwood.

Stephanie Lenox is a poet and co-founder of Blood Orange Review, an online literary journal. If she could do anything, she’d be an aerobics instructor. Alas, she cannot smile and grapevine at the same time. Instead, she writes poetry where she can sweat in private.

Carol Levin's chapbook “Sea Lions Sing Scat” May 07 is from Finishing Line Press and a chapbook “Red Rooms and Others” is pending from Pecan Grove Press. Poems have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Rock Salt Plum Review, Third Coast, The Seattle Review, The Comstock Review, “Seattle Woman” magazine, and issues #16 and 35 of the Cortland Review. Other publications include a coffee table book, “Kalakala: Magnificent Vision Recaptured” by Steven Russell.Poems were set as a choral work by composer Carol Sams. She collaborated with two Russians in translating Anton Chekhov’s four major plays, now being offered in a manuscript “The Three Sisters and Three More, Plays by Anton Chekhov.” She teaches the Alexander Technique in Seattle. clevin@televar.com

A lover of stories since before she could remember, Heather has always gravitated toward writing and art in every form. She finds her native Seattle to be exceedingly inspirational and loves writing on rainy days. She also enjoys reading books of pretty much any persuasion, doing fun things with fabrics, riding horses, hugging trees and being close to the ocean. Every day holds a story and Heather plans to tell it.

Rebecca Loudon is the author of Tarantella, Radish King and Navigate, Amelia Earhart's Letters Home. She lives and writes in Seattle.

Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor received her MA degree in English with honors from Western Washington University in 2003 for her thesis “Notes from the Margins,” a mixed work of memoir and fiction. Her poetry and short fiction have appeared in the Katipunan Literary Magazine and the online magazine Haruah. In addition, she has served as a freelance writer and editor for several trade journals. Currently she is working on her first novel, tentatively titled Maganda’s Comb, and she performs regularly as a storyteller in her local area. Her blog is Binding Wor(l)ds Together. I'm a writer based in Bellingham, Washington. I'm also Filipino by heritage and the reference to aswang in the poem is from Filipino myth regarding the viscera-eaters (vampires) who lurk in the jungle ready to drain life from humans and animals, thereby causing disease and death.

Carlos Martinez has been writing a very long time, the consequences of which are he has an MFA from Antioch University LA and is presently privileged enough to teach this arcane art at Western Washington University. He's 57, divorced, the father of two boys, tall, dark, used to be quite handsome, likes poetry (obviously), thinks both our species and our civilization are doomed, doesn't like nuts or vegetables (green is for money not for food), would like to see national parks closed to humans and even more land set aside where humans wouldn't be allowed to go, and is grateful for having his eyes open every morning (so far, so good). Though he's been out this way a long time, at heart he considers himself to be a quintessential New Yorker.

Brendan McBreen: member of Striped Water Poets in AuburnGeminihave poems published in various placesI enjoy haiku and surrealist poetsI'm an artistI believe the poem should speak for itself, so I very rarely include much information in my bio

Gerald A. McBreen: Omaha, Nebr., U. S. Postal Service (retired). Certified by NIA (Newspaper Institute of America). Committee member Uniquely Auburn, and Auburn Good Old Days art/poetry show. Coordinator of STRIPED WATER POETS of Auburn. A living room work shop for aspiring poets/writers. Published in anthologies and magazines.

Georgia Stewart McDade has spent more than half her life in Seattle. Her loves include reading, traveling, and teaching. After teaching English at a community college for more than thirty years, she assists teachers and students in several elementary and high schools. Currently she is trying to get a collection of her poetry published and a biography of her high school principal completed.

Barbara Lloyd McMichael: I live in Des Moines. I am a freelance book reviewer and I also work as the administrator for SoCoCulture.org, a coalition of arts and heritage organizations in South King County.

Maureen McQuerry is a writer and teacher. She was the MacAuliffe Fellow for WA State in 2000. She has poems in many journals, and has published a poetry chapbook, Relentless Light, two non-fiction books, and the first book in her YA trilogy , Wolfproof. The Travelers' Market, the second book in the trilogy will be out in summer 2008. She loves the idea of people wearing poems while they run and thinks poets on bicycles might be good too.

Jed Myers, a Seattle poet and singer/songwriter, was recent guest editor for Chrysanthemum. He won Writers’ Haven’s 1st Prize in 2004. His work has been featured on NPR, and has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals including Poetica, Drash, and Fugue, and on the web in Friends Journal, Satya Center, and Tempozine. He hosts NorthEndForum, a weekly gathering for writers and musicians in Ravenna, and can be reached at medjyers@hotmail.com.

The Other Michael: Into art at a young age. First poetry, such as it was, at 13. Graphic artist for most of my life. Astrologer too. Viet Nam survivor...to a degree. Music freak. Widower. (Sigh).

Denise Calvetti Michaels' poems have appeared in several journals and anthologies with new work in Centrifugal Eye, Seattle Woman and forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review, City Works & Crosscurrents. Denise teaches at Cascadia Community College, lives near Denny Creek with husband, Kirk, and enjoys walking and jogging with their six grandchildren.

I usually write poetry in the depths of depression, or in the midst of a life altering event. My poetry reflects the course of my life and the many twists and turns that it has taken. It is my escape and my link to the moment. Thank you.

from A Time Before Slaughter, by Paul E. Nelson, co-founder of the near-legendary SPLAB!, former radio host/interviewer, now teacher of word to Indians. See his graduate work at www.OrganicPoetry.org. (The Stuck River, one of two running through Auburn, has been diverted by explosives on several occasions. Slaughter is the original name of Auburn, Washington, where the slaughter continues a little bit at a time.)

Sierra Nelson received her MFA in poetry from the University of Washington. She co-founded the literary performance group The Typing Explosion, and her newest collaborative project, the Vis-à-Vis Society, recently published a book of poem-surveys and performed a Statistical Musical. Nelson’s poetry has appeared in publications such as Cranky, Swivel, Mare Nostrum, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Diagram. She has been lucky enough to travel to Rome several times, and Bernini’s statue of Daphne and Apollo was part of the inspiration for this poem.

Melanie Noel's work has appeared in Fine Madness, Cranky, Crab Creek Review, Filter, and on the audio magazine Weird Deer. She has written poems for the installations Partsong and Collocation, and as a live score for What Remains Unseen, an experimental documentary by James Merle Thomas. She is a co-curator for the dance, music and poetry series APOSTROPHE with Gust Burns and Michele Steinwald.

Eamon O. is in 2nd grade.

Canadian poet and humorist Alexandra Oliver’s work has appeared in Orbis, Nexus, and The Atlanta Review, as well as in her first book Where the English Housewife Shines (Tin Press.) She has performed at events including the National Poetry Slam and the CBC Radio National Poetry Face-Off and was a featured performer in the documentary Slam Nation.

Carl Palmer is a member of The Puget Sound Poetry Connection, Striped Water Poets of Auburn, The Writers Roundtable, New Poets of Lakewood, Dream Weavers, and The Tacoma Writers Club. He lived the retired life in his little corner of University Place, Washington.

Kim Pearson is an author, ghostwriter, and teacher dedicated to getting our stories out into the world where they can help to connect us, teach us, inspire us, and heal us. www.primary-sources.com.

V. Pepoy lives in the Puget Sound Basin to which she was born. She is dedicated to exploring arrant kindnesses, her surroundings, the ways we are connected and the things we forget. In life, V. Pepoy aspires to aid the effort to restore the historic processes of her bioregion. She hopes you enjoy this poem; may you consider sharing one of your own with a loved stranger, a strange lover, or both!

c. peterson: Intrepid curator of landslide scenariosExile of corn lands. Cowboy of wine-swamps.Massaging that slippery crucifix of coordinatesBetween the frontier nostalgias of marbleAnd the insouciant halo-slinging Of a yeoman on a lightning binge.

Charles Potts lives in Walla Walla and has been publishing poetry since 1963. Used to live in Seattle and has run all the way around Green Lake!

My name is Nashira Priester and this is my poem for the run around Green Lake.

Writing sappy poetry since tenderly clutching crayons in tiny toddling fists, Hannah revels in the sounds of words forming and flowing and growing into imagery. Outside of literary pursuits, Hannah enjoys trail thumping and pavement slapping, joyous dancing, lyrical musings, affixing things to other things, and general rock star magic-making. She embraces the all-around fabulousness of her native Seattle, despite leanings toward wanderlust and desert dust.

Susan Rich is author of The Cartographer’s Tongue Poems of the World, which won the PEN USA and Peace Corps Writers Awards. White Pine Press recently published her second collection of poems, Cures Include Travel. She lives in West Seattle, but has worked in Bosnia, Gaza, Southern Africa, and West Africa. She is an editor at Floating Bridge Press and on the board of directors at Whit Press.

Riley is a 6th grader working with a Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools poet. She has written, “Poetry is words that speak of the truth about feelings that are even fiction.”

Bruce Rips is an architect, urban designer and writer. When not shaping Seattle's skyline, he shapes poems and sketches drawings. Greenlake Cycle is one of a series of poems written based on Bruce's meditations while walking around the lake.

I was born in 1943 and have been writing poems and songs for about half a century. I have four children and three grandchildren, and thousands of books. Was part of StreetWrites writing/performing group through Real Change Newspaper. Was also the 2000-2001 Seattle Haiku Laureate.

James Rodgers: I have been writing poetry for the last 21 years and have turned two manuscripts of over 600 poems and song lyrics in for copyright with the Library of Congress, with another 300 ready to go. I have been published in Prism- OSU’s Literary Magazine, the Washington English Journal, HA! Magazine, the 2004 Treewalk Foundation Chapbook, the 2006 WPA Poetry collection, Raven Chronicles and in the Northwest Renaissance Poets of the Canterbury Fair, among others. I won honorable mention for a humorous poem through the WPA Poetry Contest in 2004 and won first prize and honorable mention in 2005. I am a member of PoetsWest and I read regularly in the Seattle area. Have a great day!

Emilie Rommel is 25. She lives and works in Tacoma, WA as a technical writer for a software company. She is a singer, an actor, a youngest daughter, and a francophile. She has always, always written.

Marta Sanchez - trubador, poet, drinking in the rain acid and all.

Raúl Sánchez - His eclectic poems touch on cross-cultural issues, assimilation, immigration and everyday life. Written in English, Spanish, Spanglish or Caló, “the rhythm of the rhyme is in the sound of the words”. Currently acting as the representative of Los Norteños, a Seattle Latino Writers group. The “Day of the Dead” is the most important day in Raúl’s calendar. Next event by Los Norteños scheduled for June 16th at the downtown Central Library from 3 to 5 PM. Spicy Words and Voices/Palabras yVoces Picantes. Here is my submission. Looks like a Haiku but it is not. Sounds like a Haiku but it is not. I call it 6x2x3 Six stanzas of two lines -very minimal- that connect with the single word below. The last line is the key, connecting with the title. I hope you will like it.

Santiago is a 6th grader working with a Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools poet. About poetry he wrote: “Poetry is like a flowing river. It silently goes without a sound in the night. Poems are like doors to opportunities to life. They are the air we breathe. They can be hard like rocks or soft like silk. Poetry is life to me.”

Sara: Once upon a time I came from the Midwest to the seashore. You know how some people are called to the ocean? Some people are called to the cornfields... but here I am still, a 25 year old woman, Iowan at heart, recently rejected by Poetry on Busses. It's cool. Who needs the Metro when you have an athletic Seattleite out for a morning jog?

Ellen O. Setteducati (EOS) comes from Berkeley, is still looking into graduate school, and has acurious ongoing relationship with the source of synchronicity, three instances of which are already connected to this poem. You can find four poems she wrote to stop the war from starting at poetsagainstthewar.org. Peace & Love.

Martha Silano is the author of two full-length poetry collections, _Blue Positive_ (Steel Toe Books 2006) and _What the Truth Tastes Like_ (Nightshade Press 1999). Her poems have also appeared in many magazines, including Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, Beloit Poetry Journal, and TriQuarterly. Martha teaches at Edmonds and Bellevue Community Colleges. Her website is www.marthasilano.com.

Jay Schlechter, PhD. Author of Intimate Friends: An Antidote to Loneliness.

Thom Schramm's poems have appeared in The American Scholar, New Letters, Notre Dame Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry Northwest. The opera he co-wrote with Garrett Fisher, Stargazer, premiered in Seattle in 2006, and will be released on CD this fall. The poetry anthology he edited, Living in Storms: Contemporary Poetry and the Moods of Manic-Depression, will be published by Eastern Washington University Press this fall also.

Laura Snyder lives in Seattle but each year longs to sheds her suburban-self to spend at least a month alone in the wilderness of British Columbia. She is a self-taught naturalist, a basketweaver, a knitter and a grandmother. She spins on an old spinning wheel that came out west in a covered wagon. You might catch her scribbling in her journal in art museums or wherever trees and bears hang out. Her most recent words appear in Pontoon 9: An Anthology of Washington State Poets, Switched-on Gutenberg, Chrysanthemum, Red River Review, Ekphrasis, and Moon Journal. Two nature anthologies have published her writing, Tree Stories: A Collection of Extraordinary Encounters and in Grrrrr: A Collection of Poems about Bears.

Joannie Stangeland: When she was in high school, Joannie ran at Green Lake as part of her workouts for the Roosevelt cross-country team. Now, she writes poems, some of which have been printed in various journals and on the bus. She has been a Jack Straw artist in residence and her chapbooks have been published by Rose Alley Press and Floating Bridge Press.

Aidan Starr is a poet and short story writer. Born a Pisces in 1983, he has been writing from age 9. He is a recent Seattle transplant from Portland, OR. He has self published 5 poetry zines and has been involved in two consecutive years of Language of Paradox peeformances. He will be attending Bent soon, a writing/performance poetry non-profit queer school, in Seattle, WA. He can be contacted at his email address: dismemberme2@yahoo.com.

JT Stewart – Curator of the 2006 Jack Straw Writers in Residence – uses her creative time as writer, poet, editor, playwright, educator, urban storyteller and vociferous foe of mean spirited evil doers. Now, as a grownup - see her “First Poem” - she realizes how weeds have deep roots and outlive catastrophes. Her teaching includes: Artist-in-the-schools (Seattle); writing workshops in Washington and Oregon; and these schools - the University of Washington, Seattle Central Community College, and Fairhaven College (Western Washington University). She’s a Hedgebrook alum & Co-Editor of two books: Gathering Ground: New Writing and Art of North West Women of Color (Seal Press) and Seattle Poets and Photographers: A Millennium Reflection (University of Washington Press). You can sample her work as a public artist in the collaborative permanent installation – Raven Brings Light to This House of Stories – in the Allen Library at the University of Washington.

Lydia Swartz: 50-year Seattle resident, novelist, pornographer, Buddhist, introvert, editrix. And recovering poet: This is the last poem I ever wrote, except the ones I trick readers of prose into.

Molly Tenenbaum is the author of the books By a Thread (Van West & Co, 2000), and Now, forthcoming from Bear Star Press. She plays banjo and lives in White Center.

Jay Thompson gains weight every time someone says the words buttered toast. He's moving to St. Louis for school in the fall.

Ann Tweedy grew up in a small town in Massachusetts. She has been writing poetry ever since she moved to the West Coast in 1996. Over fifty of her poems have been published or are forthcoming in publications such as Clackamas Literary Review, Rattle, Avocet, Gertrude, Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly, Berkeley Poetry Review, knock journal, and Stringtown. For her day job, she works as a lawyer on behalf of Indian tribes and divides her time between Seattle and Skagit County, Washington.

Martha Vallely: I am a woman who loved to run but whose right Achilles tendon won't do it anymore, so thank you for running for me. I am a legal editor who lives, works, writes, and walks many miles in Seattle. I am a long-term ovarian cancer survivor and I am forever grateful to be a living writer even while I can no longer be a living runner. I like to think this gratitude imbues my poetry. Thanks again for running with my poem.

Craig Van Riper is the author of Convenient Danger, winner of the Pecan Grove Press National Prize (St. Mary's University, San Antonio), and Making the Path While You Walk (Sagittarius, Port Townsend). His collaboration with Seattle painter Suzanne Brooker, Each Scar a Broken Arc, with poems and companion paintings appearing en face, is forthcoming from Egress StudioPress (Bellingham), as is a Selected Poems (Pudding House, Columbus, OH). A Contributing Editor of San Francisco's Five Fingers Review, Writer-in-the-Schools, and Poet-in-Residence at Goldmyer Hotsprings, Van Riper's work has appeared in over sixty literary journals and anthologies of contemporary American poetry, including Seattle Poets and Photographers: A Millennium Reflection (University of Washington Press, Seattle).

Connie Walle, life-long resident of Tacoma, WA. President of Puget Sound Poetry Connection. Recipient of the WPA Faith Beamer Cooke Award, and the Margaret K Williams Award in Support of the Arts.

Julene Tripp Weaver moved to Seattle in 1989. She has her undergraduate in Creative Writing and had the good fortune to study with Audre Lorde at Hunter College. Her first chapbook, "Case Walking: An AIDS Case Manager Wails Her Blues" is coming out this summer from Finishing Line Press.

Michael Dylan Welch is editor/publisher of Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem and Press Here haiku and tanka books, contributing editor to Spring: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society, and a board member of the Washington Poets Association. A longtime vice president of the Haiku Society of America, in 1991 he cofounded the Haiku North America conference and in 1996 the American Haiku Archives at the California State Library in Sacramento. In 2000 he founded the Tanka Society of America, and served as its president through 2004. He 2004 and 2005 he directed the Poets in the Park conference. He was won the Henderson, Brady, Drevniok, and Tokutomi awards, among others, and has had thousands of his poems published in hundreds of journals and anthologies in more than a dozen languages (most recently Turkish). He has poems in two Norton anthologies: The Haiku Anthology (1999) and the brand new Baseball Haiku (2007). Michael lives with his wife and two perfect children in Sammamish, Washington.

I am an Alaskan at heart, living in the city with my two white doves and three week old chicks. My attempt at world peace. I am a gypsy, poet and gardener. I believe gardening is running your hands thru Gods hair. Love words and the way they sound.

Jason Wolf is an unpublished Seattle based poet and writer. He has been writing poetry and prose for over 20 years for friends, lovers and relatives. Now, he is working to get his work out to the public for the enjoyment of all.


That's it, folks! If something needs correcting or credits are due, let me know.
-aka