I'm very grateful to be part of this group reading our poetry and stories that we write in West Seattle at the wonderful coffee shop - monthly PoetryBridge readings at C&P Coffee in West Seattle next Wednesday, March 11th, from 6-8 PM (PST). Our featured readers will be Shannon Kringen, Ann Spiers, and Edward Harkness followed by Community Mic. C and P Coffee 5612 California Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98136
Wednesday March 11th 6-8pm
Multi Media Artist Shannon Kringen grew up in San Diego California and Whidbey Island Washington. She is a self taught photographer with a background in Graphic Design. She has worked as a figure model in Seattle since 1992. She completed her BA degree in Arts and Literature from Antioch University in 2013. She sees her creative expression as a tool to connect with community and a way of increasing self awareness and tap into a deeper wisdom within. In her own words, "I write as it flows into my brain. inspired by songwriters and nature.
I am neurodivergent and see shapes when I hear music. SYNESTHESIA
is part of my reality. (“Synesthesia is when your brain routes sensory
information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to experience
more than one sense simultaneously. Some examples include tasting words
or linking colors to numbers and letters.) My poems are visual and
musical as well as written words. double and triple entendres...paradox
rocks!
Ann Spiers was Vashon Island’s inaugural Poet Laureate and steward of
its Poetry Post in its town park. Besides teaching, she served as Vashon
Land Trust staff, Audubon president, and field assistant in the Cascade
volcanoes. Poetry published recently are Back Cut (Black Heron), Rain
Violent and Wild Cucumber New and Selected Poems (Empty Bowl), chapbook
Harpoon (Ravenna’s Triple chapbooks series).
Wild Cucumber is a glorious expression of Ann Spiers’ inimitable voice
and singular sensibility. The work is painterly – juicy, viscid language
pulled across the page in sure and sharp brushstrokes. She has a kind
of clairvoyance, sees in every landscape its concurrent past, and
future; in the baby in her arms, the man. She adores, openly, and
completely without sentimentality – the larva-riddled berry received on
the tongue like eucharist. Spiers’ study of haiku tradition is evident,
and the concluding ensÅ an apt motif. Each poem is a gift and a wonder,
at once plain, almost austere, and wholly ripe, swollen to bursting.
(Reviewed by Sati Mookherjee, author of Eye and Ways of Being.)
Edward Harkness is a Shoreline poet and English professor emeritus. In
his book, Creek Water: New & Selected Poems, Ed offers a
wide-ranging selection of his poems written over five decades, all
united by his ever-attentive eye, inquisitive mind and compassionate
heart. These narrative poems quietly and evocatively explore parallels
between the personal and the historic, setting ordinary details of daily
life alongside world events ranging from the Civil War to the hanging
of poet Benjamin Moloise in Pretoria. Whether writing about the joys of a
long marriage, fatherhood, or the challenge of facing his own
mortality, Harkness reminds us that history and our lives are made of
moments that when witnessed deeply, generously, and compassionately can
transform. Shimmering like the stones in the creek water he praises,
these poems look to the past while speaking to our current times, to
“the world breaking your heart and somehow mending it.”
You can enjoy your favorite beverage and listen to poetry too!
