3 Poems in Tertulia Magazine- out now

3 of my poems have just been published and are now available at Tertulia Magazine. Check out the poems and support the press!

Willows Wept Review Issue Nine out now!

Issue Nine of Willows Wept Review is now available online. My poem, Rebuilding Over and Again, is in this issue. It was composed many years ago based on experiences in Iceland. Give the new issue a read HERE.

2011 Northwest Poets' Concord

I will be reading at the 2011 Northwest Poets' Concord, a yearly event sponsored by Eastern Oregon University and the Lane Literary Guild. The specific time of my reading is TBA, but it will be a scheduled 10 minute reading. The conference details are below. Other scheduled readers include Oregon State Poet Laureate, Peter Sears, and Penelope Scambly Schott, Oregon’s Senior Poet Laureate.

When: May 7-9, 2011
Where: Hallmark Inn and Resort, Newport, OR
Contact organizer Dr. Ellston at 541.563.6263 for more information.


On May 7-9, sixty poets along with students from Eastern Oregon University and Newport High School will gather at the Hallmark Inn and Resort in Newport for the second annual Northwest Poets’ Concord, sponsored by EOU and the Lane Literary Guild. From 3 p.m. on Friday, May 7 until noon on Sunday, May 9, three sessions will run simultaneously each hour. The Concord culminates in a Book Fair on Sunday morning from 9 to noon where participating poets will be available to sign their books.

Sessions on Friday begin at 3 p.m. and are free and open to the public. These include presentations on myth, on beginning to write poetry late in life, on poetry and the Oregon wilderness, and on what poetry is “about.” At 5 p.m. Henry Hughes and David Hargreaves from Western Oregon University will give the keynote presentation on “Pale Imitations and Stolen Gold: What Poetry Takes from Itself” to be followed by Wine Tasting with the Nehalem Winery.

The public may also attend presentations all day Saturday for a $10 admission fee, payable at the door. This includes admission to a selection of twenty-one presentations and a reading by the Newport High School students. Saturday presenters include renowned Oregon poets Ellen Waterston, Eleanor Berry, Clements Starck, Peter Sears, Bill Siverly, Barbara Drake, Robert Davies, and Penelope Scambly Schott, Oregon’s Senior Poet Laureate. These sessions begin at 8:20 a.m. and run until 6 p.m. For local quilters, at 11 is a session on writing poetry inspired by quilts.

This Week's Poem

Blissful Democracy

Today the newspapers don’t speak
of one culture swallowing another.
Brothers are guiding their younger sisters
by the hand through city traffic.
Husbands are facing their wives in cafés
and listening, earnestly,
while radiant olive-skinned waitresses
stoop to collect shattered glasses.
I am sorting through a sea
of fruit carts in Monastiraki Square,
shadowed by an older democracy,
selecting those bruised
and most affected by the deep heat,
leaving those ripe for a less yielding day.


-published by Offcourse Literary Journal

This Week's Poem

Keep Driving

Fluent in the dialects of skyline
two empty silos raise like Braille
above the babbling wheat earth
and pause for a moment upon an early frost
spread evenly across its mother’s lap,
a winter in tow,
furious wingbeats of sun
grown desperate in the long-plowed furrows,
all elements reading each other knowingly,
as an experience feels itself shift to dream,
all silently mouthing in a united cloud of breath:

keep driving, dead man,
farther west the chill has yet descended.


-published in Concho River Review and my chapbook, A Pure River

Portland Alliance

The Portland Alliance has accepted two of my more political/social poems for an upcoming issue! At Daybreak and Revolution will be published in their December issue.

The Portland Alliance is the city's oldest alternative progressive newspaper. The Alliance reports on the issues ignored or distorted by the corporate-dominated mainstream press, asking the hard questions you won't hear on the evening news or read in your daily newspaper.

Third Thursday Poets performance- Feb. 17, 2011!

John Sibley Williams, A. Molotkov, David Cooke, Ragon Linde, and Carrie-Ann Tkaczyk will be performing a multi-media blend of poetry and music for the Third Thursday Poetry Series.

When: February 17, 2011

Where: Brigadoon Books
3600 River Road
N Keizer, OR 97303

What: A multi-genre performance mixing contemporary poetry from three Portland poets with worldly, experimental music.

Figures of Speech Reading Series- Mark Your Calendars!

I'm honored to be a part of the monthly Figures of Speech reading series, sponsored by Oregon State Poetry Association.

I will be a featured reader in that long-running series on:
Tuesday, May 17 at 7pm
at:
100th Monkey Studio- 110 SE 16th Ave, Portland, OR.

Come join us and mark your calendars THIS far in advance!

This Week's Poem

Those Washed By the Sea

I am the first to tumble gray
through the ruddy pallor, the unmistakable
grin with its long, delicate tongue
forked veins I accept rounded,
dull into me.

Gulls, terns, unpredictable ravens.
Exchange your writhing catch,
your half-digested insects, your feathers,
for a word or two on your beauty
and your praiseworthy, insistent pecking
this dawn from my palm.

Of the newborn suns I’ve known
pristine as newly-awakened kisses
and slow memories of four-handed pianoing,
the one catching this fiery black sea crest
will not fade like a clown’s joy
nor a tree’s steady reflection,
for I am two steps behind it
and cannot outstretch my arms.

I cannot see myself in the erupting rebirth
so how can it pass on to the next?
How can it pass into disappeared friends
like a wind-struck flag
like certainty?

Blood crusts the tattered rags
dawn gives me to cleanse it.
Dried, all fluids gray and leave echoing rings.
Those washed by the sea
are no exception.


-published by Seven Circles Press

LEVELER poem out

Check out my poem "Some Notes Beginning With Winter", which is headlining LEVELER Poetry Journal this week!

The Walt Whitman Project

Some 50 readers will present a staged reading of Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself.” Images relevant to the 150th anniversary of Whitman’s book Leaves of Grass will be projected onto the walls. I will be reading section 4 of the epic poem.

When: Wednesday, October 20, 6:30-8:30pm

Where: Pacific Northwest College of Art
Swigert Commons, PNCA Main Campus Building
1241 NW Johnson St.

For more info on the event, click here.

Show and Tell Gallery Mic

Fellow poets and I will be reading at the open mic for Show and Tell Gallery next week!

When: Monday, Oct. 18, 7-9pm
Where: Three Friends Coffee House
201 SE 12th Ave, Portland

Their site: http://showandtellgallery.org

Stonehenge Studios Reading and Open Mic

As every month, I will be participating in the Stonehenge Studios open mic. It's a beautiful venue with great opportunities for a subdued, less-cafe style poetry forum and conversation. Come join us!

When: October 10, 2010 from 7-9pm
Where: Stonehenge Studios
3508 SW Corbett Avenue, Portland

This Week's Poem

An Aftermath

There is a car
exactly like mine
where I parked.

The key will not open.

There is a word she once said
I knew would change
everything.

I am afraid to remember.

There is a child
whose unseeing brown eyes
like me would perceive only silhouettes

and whose vanity would tremble
while releasing all he thought
he held.

He is the door I cannot enter.

-published by Wilderness House Literary Review

Night of the Living Bards Live Poetry Competition

Fellow Inflectionist poet A. Molotkov and I will be participating in a live poetry competition called Night of the Living Bards: an evening of debauched intellectualism and live storyelling and poetry contests in the Welsh tradition. More info at: http://www.eventbee.com/view/americymru/event?eid=736303212.

When: Thursday, October 7. The event is all evening but the poetry competition runs from 9-11pm.

Where: The Buffalo Gap, 6835 S.W. Macadam Avenue, Portland, OR


Please join us for what is guaranteed to be a strange and interesting time!!