MOST RECENT OPA NEWS
MVPS Poetry in Performance Event
Read all of this item.Healing Fractures
A Mid-Valley Poetry Society Poetry in Performance Event
2-4 p.m., Sunday, April 25, via Zoom
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85235663282?pwd=NERyWU45M0t1RGFMWDVnVUhuWmMxdz09
Featuring
Painter & Writer Cynthia Herron & Singer-Songwriter Kristen Grainger
Free ● Open Mic between Sets by Featured PresentersThis Poetry in Performance event will be a program of art, music, and poetry for “Healing Fractures.” Painter and writer Cynthia Herron will present her art, and Singer-songwriter Kristen Grainger will perform with Dan Wetzel, her partner in the True North duo.
Enter the link above into your browser to attend the free Zoom event. Meanwhile, you are invited to write poems in response to a visual work, “Low Field with Mended Oak Leaf,” by Cynthia Herron and/or a song, “The Ghost of Abuelito,” by Kristen Grainger—and then to perform the poems during the open mic segment of the April 25th program.
Grainger’s “The Ghost of Abuelito,” in a performance with the True North band, can ...
MEMBER NEWS
- Posted: March 20, 2021
Related to Loon: a first year teacher in Tuluksak by Jackie McManus
Related to Loon: a first year teacher in Tuluksak has been accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press. Kathleen Flenniken, former WA Poet Laureate says “McManus is a skilled storyteller, playful, respectful…This book is an absolute delight.” Further reviews and ordering information can be found at www.finishinglinepress.com or the ...
LATEST BOOK REVIEW (EXCERPT)
OPA reviews Grim Honey, by Jessica Barksdale, reviewed by Alicia Hoffman
Read all of this item.
Reviewed by Alicia Hoffman
Grim Honey by Jessica Barksdale
Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7354002-1-1
Available at https://sheilanagigblog.com/sheila-na-gig-editions-quick-shopping/jessica-barksdale/Exigence and Apocalypse
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
– William FaulknerLike the horrific tragedy of 9/11, everyone will remember where they were when Covid19 shut down the globe. In early March 2020, days before nation-wide school closures, I was standing in a room full of maskless high schoolers, reviewing for the upcoming AP Language exams. We were studying the rhetorical concept of exigence, the idea that writers often come up against a situation that demands action or remedy. It is this impulse, this urgency, that often calls us to act, that prompts utterance, that begs us to better understand our place in the world’s vast and complicated chess game.
When the pandemic came ...
MOST RECENT POET’S SPOTLIGHT
2020 Spring Contest Winners: Poet’s Choice: 1st Place Winner
June 3, 2020Baby, It’s Cold Outside
(a Vivianne sonnet variation)
As embryos we each explore the wall
of womb that holds us. It’s the first place joy
is felt—mom’s heartbeat like a lullaby.
Cocooned in touch, that’s how we interact.
We’re chastised just as soon as we can crawl
or walk. Just look! Hands off! That’s not a toy.
We’re told to view, to listen, smell that, try
a taste of this—but touch … and hands are smacked.
And so begins our isolation. All
those inhibitions finally destroy
instinctive comfort found in touch, deny
the core of who we are. Our lives contract.