We still need an editor for this page.
If interested, contact poetry@theportlandalliance.org





Poetics:  "Poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.
It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams
toward survival and change..." —Audre Lorde



This page:  http://www.theportlandalliance.org/poetry


One amazing poet is... Mimi German


Here is her page:  http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/mimi 


Generation Beats 2023”, the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc.’s yearly anthology:  Deadline to submit your submissions is Sunday July 2, 2023 at 12 midnight EST.

Send up to 2 poems, (list your favorite first)  to be considered, 100 Lines or less.  EMAIL TO: NEWGENBEATPUBLICATIONS@GMAIL.COM

Include:  A SHORT 1-6 line bio written in the 3rd person. (Any bio MORE THAN 6 LINES WILL NOT BE PRINTED) This will be a 6”x9” book.

Include your submission as a (Word Doc) attachment and also copy it into the body of the email.  Write 2023 NEW GEN BEATS BOOK

on the subject line.  Send your Submission to:   NEWGENBEATPUBLICATIONS@GMAIL.COM

P.S. Make my job easier by using 12pt ARIAL FONT AND SPELL CHECK your submission before sending it to me.
(No special formatting request will be acknowledged).   

Deadline to submit your submissions is Sunday July 2, 2023 at 12 midnight EST.  National Beat & International Beat Poetry Festival Bulletin Board  · 

Lorraine Currelley  ·   · 
 


Congratulations, Deborah Tosun Kilday! On April 23, 2023. Poets Network & Exchange, Inc. honored Deborah Tosun Kilday
with our award for Lifetime Literary Achievement & Member Appreciation.  The presentation of awards was followed by a
passionate and powerful reading featuring our honorees. 
 National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. members join me in congratulating Deborah Tosun Kilday
on her receiving this well deserved honor and award! An award was also presented to our member…

See more  — with Deborah Tosun Kilday.       
 


CULTURE

Oregon’s official state poet returns 
   By Steven Tonthat (OPB)  May 11, 2022 8:42 p.m.

Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani is returning for a second tenure as the state's chief wordsmith






Oregon Poet Laureate Anis Mojgani is returning for a second tenure as the state's chief wordsmith

Courtesy Anis Mojgani

Oregon governor Kate Brown reappointed Anis Mojgani as Oregon’s Poet Laureate for a second term. Mojgani, who originally started serving in the coveted position in May 2020, will now continue through 2024.

“I applaud Anis for his creative efforts to connect with Oregonians during the pandemic,” says Governor Brown. “He now has the opportunity to travel and make the personal connections that can be so powerful. Extending his term allows him to fulfill his vision as Poet Laureate.”

When Mojgani took over two years ago, he had to navigate how to perform poetry while keeping audience members safe and socially distant.

“Some ideas were ones that couldn’t happen within a pandemic and other ones were ideas that were birthed because of being in a pandemic, but still weren’t able to come to fruition,” he says.


 

Known primarily as a spoken-word poet, Mojgani began reciting poems from the window of his art studio in Portland. Eventually, he started to attract fairly large audiences.

“It’s been a really wonderful experience for me. And it has seemed to have been a pretty wonderful experience for the people who’ve gathered to watch.”

As his tenure continued and the state’s restrictions on in-person events slowly eased, Mojgani reached out to communities beyond Portland.

“I was able to make my way to Lincoln City for one of my only in-person visits, working with some of the folks there to foster and imagine what ways poetry might be able to play a part in this new community center,” he says.suicide monologue for web.jpg

In May 2022, during National Poetry Month, he established a tele-poem hotline where a caller could listen to a poem recorded by former Oregon Poet Laureates Paulann PetersenKim Stafford, and Elizabeth Woody.

Mojgani had originally conceived the idea for the tele-poem hotline in 2020 but had to put it on hold due to the pandemic.

Now two years later, he has a second chance to finish the projects like the hotline that the pandemic brought to a halt in 2020.

“One of the projects I’ve been wanting to do since I took the position is to create something that’s rooted in poetry that’s on something as disposable and familiar as a newspaper,” he says. “Here’s this opportunity to continue doing something that I really enjoyed doing. But I also have two years’ experience of what that feels like. So any of the elements of growth to experience during the position, I know what this role entails.”

And now that the weather is starting to warm up, Mojgani even plans to return to the balcony of his Portland art studio to recite poetry once again.

“We are always surrounded by poems, even if they are not taking shape as poems.
And what are the ways that we may let some of that poetry into our lives?”




 


     Lots of Poetry! 


Poetics:  This page:
  http://www.theportlandalliance.org/poetry

 

A poet, writer, and former board member of the Northwest Alliance for Alternative Media & Education, 
Max Linden Levy, passed away in the fall of 2012.  
Max meant a lot to us here at the Alliance. 
He was a wonderful man whose poetry and writing will endure.

Here is a small sample of his poetry.                                                                     


                                                                    For all we can know


                                                         The Universe begins and ends
                                                       
                                                         In each of us,
                                                       
                                                         In the reach of our own hands.
 

           ~From Time on Our Hands, by Max Linden Levy
                                            
                                                Readings

 A Tasty Fruit - voice presentation poetry
 The Birth of Light -- voice presentation fiction
 Driver -- voice presentation poetry
   Charlie's Dad-- voice presentation fiction

scroll down for poetry by Walidah Imarisha, Christopher Luna, Theresa Griffin Kennedy Dupay /
Nicole Taylor
and  Dan Raphael /


Matt Amott:  http://www.ThePorlandAlliance.org/poetry/mattamott

Walidah Imarisha   

"Coffee and No Cigarettes" and "Masterpiece"


Clark County Poet Laureate Christopher Luna

Contact:  Christopher Luna   /   360-910-1066   /   christopherjluna@gmail.com

Musicians who are interested in collaborating with Christopher Luna at
an upcoming event are asked to contact him

http://nichewinebar.com/   /   http://christopherluna-poetry.blogspot.com



ThePortlandAlliance.org/poetry/September2014Poetry

Before Michael Brown’s Funeral A Poem by Christopher D. Sims



ThePortlandAlliance.org/MaryOtte    New Poetry from  Mary Ought Six

Jan UnderwoodAfter Disembarking / Before Departure  http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/underwood


 About  Scars/Stars


The first collection of poetry by Walidah Imarisha.
Released October 2013 by Drapetomedia in conjunction with Bad Sista Press.
Description
In her book Beloved, Toni Morrison describes the whip scars on a former slave’s back as a tree sprouting from her flesh. Walidah Imarisha’s first poetic collection invokes this same process of alchemy, transforming both individual and collective scars into North Stars, guideposts that center us and keep us moving in the right direction. Scars/Stars reminds us that even in ravaged earth, something beautiful can still grow.

"Love songs for freedom fighters… I think of Walidah Imarisha's work as medicine for the masses. The imagery, the heart and the life experience in these poems are like tears mixed with gasoline, spark a fire." - Gabriel Teodros, emcee and writer

“Scars/Stars is Walidah Imarisha at her poetic revolutionary finest. Her life's odyssey takes one to the stars - and through the scars - on a quest for love and struggle that literally takes the breath away. It is a masterpiece that you simply must have.”
– Sundiata Acoli, writer and political prisoner

“Tenacious in her political commitment and steadfast in her belief of new possibilities, Walidah Imarisha is a voice that cannot be quarantined or categorized. Imarisha’s Scars/Stars is a testament to a new wave in the poetry of resistance; read her, hear her, join her song!” - Matthew Shenoda, author of Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone


GHOST TOWN POETRY OPEN MIC Cover to Cover Books 6300 NE St. James Rd., Suite 104B (St. James & Minnehaha) Vancouver, WA 98663 http://www.printedmattervancouver.com christopherjluna@gmail.com

WILD WILD WAYS Don’t mention the old days. You’re talking to yourself again. Somewhere between the bar and the café you got lost at sea and drowned in your tears on the sunken dance floor in the spinning light the storm-watch night, as the band went overboard, over a face that is the absolute harbor of desire, featureless, irresistible, end of song. You’re talking to the girl you used to be. Saying what you needed to hear. (from This Drawn & Quartered Moon, Anvil Press, Vancouver, B.C. 2013) --

hristopher Luna Poet Laureate of Clark County, WA Chief Communications Officer, Crowd the Book Publisher and Editor, Printed Matter Vancouver http://www.clarkcountyartscommission.org/Poet_Laureate.html
http://crowdthebook.com/blog/
http://www.printedmattervancouver.com
http://christopherluna-poetry.blogspot.com Innovators of Vancouver, a series of short films by Chris Martin Featuring Christopher Luna: http://www.innovatorsofvancouver.com/season2/christopher-luna/



The Laying Down of Feet

I stand diminished, the slickness of the street halos,

The summative results of my father's blue eyes.

Steps are slower now, the laying down of feet deliberate,
Careful not to injure and I am no longer masterfully deep--
In my schemes of tomorrow.

Teasing my suggestion slow, I wait for something to happen.
Something will happen, it always does.

I shall will it.

The scent of Spring time is long away now,
The threat of action hangs, morbid with promise,

In the air the tentacles climb over me.

Touching parts unseen, not understood or recognizable.

This coming scent of Spring, unique, unlike any other smell.

Do you smell it, do you see it?
Its particles laying down
Blue in our throats.

By Theresa Griffin Kennedy


 
Berkeley, California 94703


Chris Leja
The Sparrow Ghost Collective Anthology volume 2 is coming!

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Sparrow-Ghost-Collective/142497319183029


 




What is poetry slam?

Simply put, poetry slam is the competitive art of performance poetry.
It puts a dual emphasis on writing and performance, encouraging poets to focus on
what they're saying and how they're saying it.



Poet Pages: 
Nicole Taylor
:   http://www.theportlandalliance.org/poetry/nicoletaylor

Hey all you poetry lovers,
  We had a great reading at the Tiger last month, with a bunch of outstanding open mic readers and the visceral imagery and profound performance skills of Kyle David Congdon. Thanks so much to everyone who publicized, attended or participated in the event.
On Thursday October 20 at 7pm at Paper Tiger Coffee (703 Grand Blvd. in Vancouver, located about a mile east of I-5  between Mill Plain and Evergreen Blvd) we will be featuring the hallucinagenic verse of Dan Raphael. I've been to 2 of Dan's performances and was not only thoroughly entertained but highly impressed with his surreal yet accessible verse, and his remarkable takes on the environment, the economy and the socio-political milieu. Dan says;  I've been at this awhile, so numbers look impressive (published in over 300 places, given over 200 readings), but what matters is the now and I am, in my way, active and delivering.
     Impulse & Warp: The Selected 20th Century Poems, with work from my first 13 collections, came out a year ago: Children of the Blue Supermarket, a CD of performances weith saxophonist Rich Halley and drummer Carson Halley, was released this spring: a book of newer poems, The State I'm In, comes out 2/29/12.  Current poems appear in Rattapallax, Otoliths, Raft, Skidrow Penthouse and Caliban. I've performed at places like Wordstock, Bumbershoot, Powell’s, Eastern Oregon U, Burning Word, Pacific Crest Alpaca Farm and the Portland Jazz Festival. Currently organizing the Market Day reading Series at St Johns Booksellers, I also ran a monthl series in downtown Portland for 13 years, and made Poetland--80 poets reading in 8 venues over an 8 hour period.
    I pay for my life and art working for the Oregon DMV. Otherwise I read mostly fiction and non-fiction, read too much news, hang out in deep Southeast Portland with Melba and 400 plant varieties.

So I really hope to see all of you on the Third Thursday of October for great poetry, great company and fine beverages. This will be our first event with the new owners of Paper Tiger, Kenny and Sue Grijalva, so be sure to come and welcome them to the business and show them how much The 'Couve loves its poetry and coffee. I'll leave you with a short piece by dan Raphael to whet you appetite for this month's reading. See you there!
Dan nelson
360-334-1129
nelsondaniel59@yahoo.com


 
Alexandria
 

if rupert murdoch believes something
if wall street wants to roll 1-sided dice
congress and/or parliament will sing harmony  :
 
if science and history are on sale what about all other non-experiential truths:
just cause its on tv, on the web, in a newspaper--how did it get there?
 
do everything you can to save the libraries full of books.
you cant change books,   you have to burn them
                                                                -Dan Raphael


We need an editor for this page, please contact  poetry@writingresource.org 


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