December 21, 2016. Seasons Readings. Bring your favorite mid-winter poem as we celebrate short days, the chill, a range of religious and secular traditions, and the promise of eventual sun. Open mike sign-up typically begins at 6:00 PM. 

 

November 16, 2016. Born and reared in Spokane, Thomas Aslin has lived nearly his entire life in the Pacific Northwest. Aslin holds degrees in Sociology (UW) and Creative Writing (University of Montana).  He has published poems in magazines as varied as Artful Dodge, INTRO 12, and Natural Bridge, and has new work forthcoming in The Georgia Review. His books include Sweet Smoke (Red Wing Press) and Moon Over Wings (Tebot Bach) -- which was a finalist for the 2009 Washington State Book Award in poetry. His newest collection, Salvage, was released in October by Lost Horse Press.

 

October 19, 2016. Patrick Dixon is a photographer, writer, retired educator, and former commercial fisherman who has been published in Cirque Literary Journal, Oregon Coast Magazine, National Fisherman Magazine, Oberon Poetry Journal, Smithsonian and others. Mr. Dixon has been a featured reader at the FisherPoets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon for 18 years. He is the editor of the seven-book set Anchored in Deep Water: The FisherPoets Anthology (2014). His chapbook Arc of Visibility won the 2015 Alabama State Poetry Morris Memorial competition.  

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A wide range of poetry books gifted by Bill Marshman will also be offered for sale as part of this event! With book donations benefiting OPN.

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September 21, 2016. Allen Braden is the author of A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood (University of Georgia) and Elegy in the Passive Voice (University of Alaska/Fairbanks).  His poems have been anthologized in The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Poetry: An Introduction, Best New Poets and Spreading the Word: Editors on Poetry.  Assistant poetry editor of Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built + Natural Environments, he teaches at Tacoma Community College and volunteers for AWP’s Writer to Writer mentorship program.

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August 17, 2016. Come bring a poem or two to Olympia Poetry Network’s August All Open Mic readings. It’s a great time to relax
out of the heat of the summer and listen to a wide range of poetry and visit with other poets.

We challenge you to bring a new poem, or old one, experimental, or traditional one, rhymed or free verse. Whatever you want to read, it’s your night. Remember to stay within the 3 minute time limit so that everyone has a chance to share their poems!

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July 20, 2016. Carol Levin's work includes Confident Music Would Fly Us to Paradise (MoonPath Press 2014) and Stunned By the Velocity (Pecan Grove Press 2012). Her work’s been widely published in journals and anthologies, print and online, in Russia, New Zealand, Germany and the US: recent poems appear in Sand Journal, The Red Headed Stepchild, and The Mom Egg Review. As former Literary Manager for The Art Theater of Puget Sound she translated Chekhov’s four major plays. Carol is an Editorial Assistant at the journal, Crab Creek Review and teaches at The Breathing Lab / Alexander Technique, in Seattle.

 

June 15, 2016. Tim Sherry, a long time public school teacher and administrator, lives in Tacoma, Washington.  His poems have appeared in Rattle, The Raven Chronicles, Crab Creek Review, Broad River Review, and Windfall:  A Journal of Poetry of Place, among others.  He has been a Pushcart nominee, had his work recognized in contests, and in 2010 was an Artsmith Artist resident.  His first full-length collection, One of Seven Billion, was published in 2014 by Moonpath Press.

 

May 18, 2016. Jordan Hartt is a reader, writer, writing teacher, and community & events' organizer. His creative work has appeared in about thirty literary magazines and journals: a collection of narrative poems “Leap,” appeared in 2015. He writes about the Pacific Northwest--rain, firs, cedars, ocean, blue tarps, rusted trucks, meth labs, logging, fishing--and it's recommended that readers put on raincoat before reading his work. Hartt directly facilitates five annual writing retreats, including the Port Townsend Writers' Conference, that serve just over two thousand writers per year.

 

April 20, 2016.  Dead Poets Reading. In honor of National Poetry Month, board members of the Olympia Poetry Network, will channel the works of favorite dead poets, proving that those who came before us still come alive when their works are read. This year, again, the shades drawn to our séance will be varied, brilliant, and occasionally disconcerting: Edna St Vincent Millay (the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry), the Argentinian-Swiss poet of nature and feminism Alfonsina Storni, winner of two Washington State Book Awards Madeline DeFrees, Maxine Kumin -- poet of “dailiness of farm life and farm death”, the Nobel Prize-winning Swede Tomas Tranströmer, known for his “luminous simplicity,” and the revered Mongolian nomadic herder and radio personality Tsendyn Chimeddorj. No doubt other inspirations will arise for the occasion. The audience will be invited to share their own favorite dead-poet poems during the Open Mike session. Please join us for an entertaining evening among old, but not forgotten, friends.

 

March 16, 2016. Joseph Green’s most recent collection of poems is What Water Does at a Time Like This (MoonPath Press 2015), following That Thread Still Connecting Us (MoonPath 2012), The End of Forgiveness (Floating Bridge, 2001), Greatest Hits: 1975—2000 (Pudding House, 2001), Deluxe Motel (Signpost Press, 1991), and His Inadequate Vocabulary (Signpost, 1986). Through the Peasandcues Press, he and his wife, Marquita, produce limited-edition, letterpress-printed poetry broadsides using hand-set metal type; and at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry & Museum of Metal Typography, in Portland, he works to preserve the craft of casting the type itself.

 

February 17, 2016. Christianne Balk’s newest book is The Holding Hours from University of Washington Press. These poems explore the subtle and surprising transformations that come from caring for her young, neurologically injured daughter. Balk anchors these meditations within the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. Christianne’s previous award-winning poetry collections include Bindweed and DesiringFlight. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including the New Yorker, the New Republic, and the Atlantic. She lives in Seattle, where she writes and teaches creative writing. She travels frequently into the Cascade Mountains.

 

January 20, 2016. Lucia Perillo’s sixth book of poems, On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths (Copper Canyon 2012) was a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award and received the Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Award. Her other publications include a book of stories, Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain (Norton 2012) and one of essays, I’ve Heard the Vultures Singing (Trinity University Press). Inseminating the Elephant (Copper Canyon 2009) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her new book is called Time Will Clean The Carcass Bones (Copper Canyon Press, 2016).