Matanuska River Overlook
Abandoning Chronology, was posted April 23, 2014 at 49 Writers. In this mini-essay, I explore some effects and possibilities of wind, both real and imagined.
My other blog posts at 49 Writers during April 2014:
1. Deleted Morsels
2. Digressive Travel
3. Common Life
The second and third installments of my April guest blogs have been posted at 49 Writers.
Digressive Travel (4/9/2014) includes musings on travel and metaphors, and will transport you (briefly!) to the MacKenzie River in the Canadian Arctic and the Matanuska River channel in south-central Alaska.
In Common Life (4/16/2014), I consider the question “what triggers ideas for writing?” and traipse across some of my writing terrain, from Tiger Swallowtail butterflies, lilac blooms, and picking tomatoes to moose and icy roads.
Of course, common life is what we notice and experience every day. Or is it?
My first post was Deleted Morsels (4/2/2014). The fourth and last of my guest posts will appear on the 49 Writers’ web site next week, on April 23rd.
Matanuska River [photo: katie eberhart]
My first of four weekly posts appeared April 2. Deleted Morsels begins:
“Lately, I’ve realized that my writing landscape is littered with pieces of essays and poems—relics cast aside and yet that I’m unwilling to totally abandon to the trash. Instead I think of these fragments as potentially useful, like the contents of a junk drawer—the screws and picture hooks, batteries, rubber bands, string and tape that might come in handy someday for connections or repairs, or to start a whole new project.
If I were writing a story about this landscape, the water would be the character. Perhaps I’d give the people bit parts, but it would be the water that you’d have to get to know. Big and slippery. Belligerent. . . .”
Please visit 49 Writers to read my entire post, Deleted Morsels.
Walking into a Poem
A writing workshop with Katie Eberhart at the 2014 Oregon Poetry Association Conference. Bend, Oregon. 9:00 – 11:00, Sunday April 13.
“A Poem is a Walk” – A. R. Ammons
“Poetry is written from the body as well as the mind, and the rhythm and pace of a walk can get you going and keep you grounded.” – Edward Hirsch
Walking – and writing – around Bend. Depending on the weather, we may walk as far as Drake Park and Mirror Pond (a straight line distance of 4 blocks) or we may wander over to the Deschutes Historic Society, the library (with lovely frescoes of poetry), then to Drake Park where there’s a big-wheel logging artifact and Mirror Pond. Again, assuming lovely weather, we’ll stop along the way to sit and write – yes there are benches in the park and across from the library or, if the weather is too chilly to write outside, we’ll spend more time at a tea or coffee shop.
Planting Mania: Poetry, Memory, Nostalgia Writing Workshop. Northwest Poets’ Concord, Newport, Oregon, May 4, 2013.
Landscape to Mindscape: Among Waterfalls. Rainier Writing Workshop alumni gathering at Silver Falls State Park (November 2012).
Landscape to Mindscape, Finding Your Writing Territory. Northwest Poets’ Concord, Newport, Oregon, May 2012 .
After School Drop-in Class: Journal-writing. Twice a week during April 2012. The Nature of Words. Bend, Oregon.
Poetry Workshop: Mat-Su Senior Services Center, Palmer, Alaska. Sponsored by the Palmer Arts Council, March 28, 29, 30, 2012.
Poetry Workshop: Palmer Senior Center. March 23, 30 and April 6, 2011.
At the Northwest Poets’ Concord in Newport, Oregon on Saturday May 5, 2014 from 3:00 to 3:50, Katie Eberhart and Eleanor Berry will perform from their collaboration Convergence of Visions: A Dialogue in Poems. They will also talk briefly about the evolution of this project, including the effect of the collaboration on their on-going work.
The performance will be a back-and-forth exchange and will follow at least one thread of the poem-conversation.
Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe in Bend, Oregon now has my chapbook Unbound: Alaska Poems in stock.
Dudley’s, a locally owned, independent bookstore and cafe, also serves afternoon tea (or espresso) with scones or pastries.
The Milepost5 December Reading will feature Bill Siverly, Katie Eberhart, and Justin Price.I’ll be reading from Unbound: Alaska Poems. Hope to see my Portland friends there!
The reading, presented by Elohi Gadugi Journal, starts at 7:00 pm, Tues. Dec. 17, 2013 at the Denizen Gallery, Milepost 5, 850 NE 81st Ave., Portland, OR.
Unbound: Alaska Poems
I’ll be signing copies of my new chapbook Unbound: Alaska Poems at bookstores in Palmer and Ketchikan:
Fireside Books — Palmer, Alaska on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013 — 4:00-6:30 pm
Parnassus Books — Ketchikan, Alaska on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2013 — Noon-2:00
Please stop by If you’re in the vicinity!
The Palmer Arts Council is sponsoring “a conversation between poems and music” at Vagabond Blues in Palmer, Alaska, Saturday September 21, 2013 at 7:00 pm. Music by the Northern Aurora Flute Ensemble. I’ll be reading from my new chapbook “Unbound: Alaska Poems” published by Uttered Chaos Press.
Palmer Arts Council poster for “a conversation between poems and music” with the Northern Aurora Flute Ensemble and poems from my new chapbook “Unbound: Alaska Poems.”