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Lyric World: on-stage conversations with poets
Here at Cascadia This Week, we’re big fans of Seattle poet Shin Yu Pai, who has a new book, Enso, coming out in March, and who’s always so active in organizing and leading a variety of events in the Cascadia literary community. Her latest project is Lyric World: Conversations with Contemporary Poets, a series of on-stage interviews with poets at Seattle’s Town Hall.
The series kicks off on January 30, with a reading by poet and magician Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma. He’ll have an onstage conversation with poet Melanie Noel, and musical interludes will be provided by kora player Ibrahim Arsalan.
I recently spoke with Shin Yu about the new series.
What’s behind Lyric World?
The goal behind the series is to make poetry more accessible to everyday people by enriching the conversation around poetry and how poets think about and go about doing their work. While the larger concept of the series is geared towards thinking about the social role of poetry in the world, I wanted to explore this by elevating voices that don’t always get a forum to share their work.
Will all the events include music as well as conversations?
All of the events will include music curated to fit the specific evening’s theme. In January, Thomas will explore poetry and magic (or wonder). I asked kora player and jeli Ibrahim Arsalan to perform. Jelis are keepers of cultural history and believed to have deep connections to spiritual, social, and political powers–i.e., there is an element of the magical in how they exist in the world. Percussionist Paul Kikuchi, who has done a lot of work around Japanese American history and internment, will perform in March when Koon Woon talks about and reads from work related to displacement and the notion of home. June’s musical act is still TBD, but will include a musician thinking about the intersections of the poetic and grief or grieving.
What’s your lineup so far?
January 30: Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma in conversation with Melanie Noel with musician Ibrahim Arsalan
March 19: Koon Woon in conversation with Paul Nelson, with musician Paul Kikuchi
June 25: Prageeta Sharma in conversation with afrose fatima ahmed; musical guest TBD
Purchase tickets online and find more Lyric World here. –Andrew Engelson
Get Outside: Discovery Trail
Okay, the winter weather has been pretty glum across western Cascadia this past week, with darkness, cold temperatures and incessant rain. But you shouldn’t let that stop you from getting out on a hike! The coast is a great place to wander in any weather… just make sure you’ve got adequate rain gear, the ten essentials, and a thermos of hot chocolate to warm up with after your walk.
In his latest hiking column at Cascadia Magazine, Craig Romano recommends The Discovery Trail near Long Beach on the southwest coast of Washington state. It’s a place with sandy beaches, forested highlands, and some fascinating history having to do with the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1805. I mean, a bizarre sculpture of a sturgeon, what’s not to like? Read the full write-up here.
Conflict simmers over LNG pipeline across Wet’suwet’en land
A conflict between hereditary elders of the Wet’suwet’en band and workers constructing the Coastal Link LNG pipeline across northern British Columbia could potentially become a crisis, as Adam Olsen, the leader of BC’s Green Party arrived to cross RCMP lines and talk with First Nations members preventing access to work sites, The Tyee reports. There have been rallies across the province in the past month in support of opponents to the 671-km pipeline that terminates at a port in Kitimat, BC. Premier Horgan has refused to meet with the protestors, and last month the Guardian revealed that Canadian police were prepared to use lethal force against protesters blocking pipeline construction sites last winter. Judith Sayers, a member of the Hupacasath First Nation writes for The Tyee that Horgan is betraying his support of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by backing the pipeline.
Push for gun control after fatal Seattle shooting
After a gunfight in downtown Seattle killed one bystander and injured 7, the Associated Press reports that the Washington state senate held hearings on a bill that would limit firearm magazines to 10 rounds. Meanwhile, Crosscut notes that 65 percent of Washington residents polled support limiting high-capacity assault weapon magazines. And the Oregon legislature is debating safe storage regulations for firearms.
Oregon students’ climate lawsuit rejected
OPB reported last week that a US federal court tossed out a lawsuit by a group of students based in Eugene, OR claiming the US government’s failure to address the climate emergency is a denial of their constitutional rights. KGW profiled Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, at 21, the oldest plaintiff in the case and 60 Minutes profiled the students earlier last year.
WA legislator resists resignation over domestic terrorism accusations
According to the Olympian, WA state legislator Matt Shea, who represents a district near Spokane, resisted calls for his resignation and led a pro-gun rally at the state capitol in Olympia last week. A House report last month found he has engaged in “domestic terrorism” by leading and coordinating various armed right-wing conflicts with the US government, including the 2016 standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The state Republican party expelled Shea from their caucus, but some, including John Carlson writing an opinion piece at Crosscut, believe only voters should have the power to remove him from office. Meanwhile, the Guardian reports on the people behind The Base, a neo-Nazi group that purchased land in Washington’s Ferry County to set up a training ground.
Why are apples rotting in WA orchards?
Anna King at NW News Network reports that apple growers are leaving Fuji and Pink Lady apples to rot in orchards because of a tight labor market. Meanwhile, at NPR, hear from workers at the Renton, WA Boeing plant who are concerned about the halt in production of the troubled 737 MAX, involved in two fatal crashes. And in other business news, BC logging and mill companies are facing a deep crisis, with drops in prices, wildfires, and a 7-month strike by workers on Vancouver Island, the Journal of Commerce (BC) reports.
Program connects incarcerated people with their children
Salem Reporter looks at a new program debuting in Portland that provides a better setting for people in prison to connect with their children during visits. The program, run by a nonprofit and which will spread to other correctional facilities in Oregon, improves conditions and provides toys, books, and snacks to visiting children–many of whom are in foster care.
What does Seattle owe Native people?
Writing for Bitterroot and the South Seattle Emerald, Marcus Harrison Green takes a detailed look at the movement to give reparations to the tribes taken advantage of and displaced by the settlement of Seattle. It’s fascinating story about the various “real rent” programs and the delicate balance between recognition and acknowledgement of various tribes, some federally recognized, and some not.
Wolverines still not declared endangered species
Courtney Flatt at KUOW reports on how there are only about 300 wolverines left in in the mountains of mountain west, including Idaho, Oregon and Washington–and yet the US federal government has failed for 20 years to declare it an endangered species. ““As we lost the last mountain caribous in North Idaho and in the Lower 48 States – it was really heartbreaking. I’d hate to see us also lose wolverines.”
Fiction by Rachel Rose
Cascadia Magazine‘s very own poetry editor, Rachel Rose, has a story up at Joyland, “Of Rats and Men,” a harshly honest portrait (a la Steinbeck) of a young woman randomly stabbed by a street punk and the events that transpire after. “I loved their feet most of all. Their feet were pink and precious. Fetus feet. They liked it when I stroke the bottoms of their feet with a finger or a feather. It made them chuckle.
You may not believe me, but rats can laugh.”
Poetry by Ruth Dickey & Gabrielle Bates
Over at The Seattle Review of Books, read Ruth Dickey’s “Ecola State Park,” a lovely and observant look at the natural world on the Oregon coast:
“Clumps of mosses of unexpected softness, riots of
mushrooms, fist-wide or thread-thin, whole
worlds of dripping.”
VQR has a poem by Seattle’s Gabrielle Bates, “Visitation,” a lyrical description of a bizarre dream the poet experienced:
“In the dream my mother pours
a gallon of milk over my head
because her boyfriend held my hand
under the table.”
A road trip, by Michal Kozlowski
At Geist, find the essay “Road Trip Supreme,” by Michal Kozlowski, who was born in Poland and now resides in Vancouver. It’s an on-the-road travelogue about the west coast of North America, but instead of drugs, enlightenment and adventure, he and his friend explore Apple stores and gentrified neighborhoods:
“Okay, what about that? she says in Polish, pointing at another area of the menu.
I look at the other items: XXL Grilled Stuft Burrito, Burrito Supreme, Crunchwrap Supreme, Double Decker Taco Supreme.
I tell my cousin that the menu is untranslatable.”
That’s your weekly curated collection of news, arts, environmental reporting, fiction, poetry, and essays from across the Pacific Northwest. Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next Friday. –Andrew Engelson