Cristian Rodriguez Ramirez
Bio:
Cristian Ramirez Rodriguez is a 22-year-old Venezuelan-Canadian poet-physicist currently
working in the Quantum Sensing and Ultracold Matter lab at the University of New Brunswick.
His multilingual, cross-disciplinary work has appeared in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics,
the Ecotheo Review, and various literary journals including Cerritos College’s ¡Pa’lante!, and
Dartmouth’s Meetinghouse magazine. When he is not working in the underground laser lab you
can find him dancing Salsa, playing the ukulele for a local choir, or working on various diversity
initiative on and off campus. Connect with him @pray4cristian on Instagram or via
https://linktr.ee/cristianramirezrodriguez
Cristian Ramirez Rodriguez es un poeta venezolano-canadiense de 22 años que trabaja en el
laboratorio de Quantum Sensing and Ultracold Matter en la Universidad de Nuevo Brunswick.
Sus poemas y artículos han aparecido en Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Ecotheo Review
y otras revistas literarias, como ¡Pa’lante! de Cerritos College y la revista Meetinghouse de
Dartmouth. Cuando no está trabajando en el laboratorio, puedes encontrarlo bailando salsa,
tocando el ukelele o trabajando en diversas iniciativas de diversidad. Puedes hablar con él a
través de Instagram @pray4cristian o por https://linktr.ee/cristianramirezrodriguez.
Linear Poems
In this bilingual (English/Spanish) workshop, discover a new poetic form (the Linear Poem)
which began in a bilingual high school classroom in Oakland, California. This workshop will
briefly highlight how poets and mathematicians have and can mutually benefit from each other,
then give you the tools to write your own mathematical poetry!
¡Ven a descubrir una nueva forma poética (el poema lineal)! Esta forma tiene sus orígenes en
una clase bilingüe de álgebra de secundaria en Oakland, California. En esta sesión hablaremos
de como poetas y matemáticos se benefician mutuamente, y cómo pueden beneficiarse
mutuamente, ¡y te preparará para escribir tu propia poesía matemática!
More information about the Linear Poem form can be found in this 2025 article from the Journal
of Humanistic Mathematics (https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol15/iss2/12).
Puedes encontrar más información sobre el poema lineal en este artículo de 2025 del Journal
of Humanistic Mathematics (https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol15/iss2/12).
Amelia Diaz Ettinger
Bio
Amelia Díaz Ettinger is a Latinx BIPOC poet and writer whose work explores identity,
immigration, family, and memory. She is the author of Learning to Love a Western Sky,
Speaking at a Time / Hablando a la Vez, and These Hollow Bones, as well as two chapbooks,
Fossils in a Red Flag and Self Dissection. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous anthologies, literary journals, and magazines. With an MS in Biology and an MFA in Creative Writing, Amelia brings a unique perspective that bridges the sciences and the humanities. Her writing reflects a deep engagement with both the natural world and personal history.
A passionate teacher and workshop leader, Amelia is committed to helping others find their
voice through poetry. She currently lives in Eastern Oregon, where she writes, teaches, and tends
to a small farm.
Beyond the Sonnet: Exploring Obscure Poetic Forms
Tired of the same old poetic structures? Beyond the Sonnet invites writers of all levels to explore lesser-known but deeply powerful poetic forms from around the world. This hands-on workshop introduces forms such as the triversen, ghazal, gigan, décima, and sijo, offering a rich variety of cultural and formal traditions. Each form is presented with historical context, examples from literary masters, and accessible prompts to spark original writing.
Participants will discover how constraints—like syllabic count, rhyme schemes, or
repetition—can ignite rather than inhibit creativity. Whether you're a seasoned poet looking to reinvigorate your craft or a curious beginner ready to experiment, this class will stretch your imagination and broaden your formal repertoire. You'll leave with multiple poem drafts, a fresh appreciation for global poetics, and new tools to deepen your writing practice.
Teiah Faulk
Bio
Alone Featuring Company is a spoken word artist hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan. They are the current Grand Slam Champion (2025) and had the honor of representing Oregon at the 2025 Blackberry Peach National Poetry Slam. They represented Portland in 2024 and 2025 for the Bigfoot Regional Slam and do not plan to stop writing, performing, and sharing anytime soon.
Fluidity: A workshop about how to flow through waves of grief and joy.
Redirecting tsunami’s of hurt and harm, into showers of abundance and healing. A transformative workshop, regarding the threshold of disaster that comes from reciting, holding and speaking our poems into the ether.
Shawn Aveningo Sanders
Bio
Shawn Aveningo Sanders overcame a lifelong fear of birds when in 2013 she moved to
Oregon and fell in love with the adorable Dark-Eyed Juncos in her backyard. Over 250 of
Shawn’s poems have been published worldwide in Australia, Croatia, England, France, the
Netherlands, South Africa and the United States. Her work has appeared in journals such as
ONE ART, CALYX, Verseweavers, Quartet, Timberline Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Cloudbank,
and recent best-selling anthology, Love Is for All of Us (edited by James Crews).
Shawn is multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and has received awards from
the Oregon Poetry Association, Benicia Literary Arts, Sacramento News & Review, as well as winning the inaugural El Dorado County Poetry Slam. She is the author of What She Was
Wearing, and her newest collection Pockets (MoonPath Press, 2025) was a finalist in the
Concrete Wolf Chapbook Contest.
A proud mother of three and Nana to one adorable little girl, she shares the creative life with
her husband Robert in Beaverton, Oregon, where together they run an independent press, The Poetry Box.
Yay, My New Book Is Here!—Now What?
Are you feeling a little squeamish or overwhelmed about promoting your forthcoming or just-
released poetry book? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. In this workshop, Shawn brings her
experience as a poet and expertise as a publisher to help both emerging and experienced poets
navigate the sometimes-choppy waters of book promotion. Not only will she help you get past
the “I can’t do that” voice that keeps you from sharing your accomplishment, but she will also
help you reconnect with the joy you had when you wrote the book. You will learn the difference
between passive promotion and active promotion, and what results to expect from each type. The
workshop will include topics such as building your readership; booking & performing stellar
readings (in person and via Zoom); email campaigns that get results; social media; building a
press kit; newsletters; book reviews, and more. Make peace with the idea of self-promotion and
wave your anxiety goodbye.
Amy Miller
Bio
Amy Miller’s Astronauts, a chronicle of two sisters and addiction, won the Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize from Beloit Poetry Journal and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, and her full-length poetry collection The Trouble with New England Girls won the Louis Award from Concrete Wolf Press. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, Calyx, Copper Nickel, The Missouri Review, New Ohio Review, North American Review, Terrain, and ZYZZYVA, and she received a 2021 Oregon Literary Fellowship. With a long career in book and magazine publishing, she lives in Ashland, Oregon, where she works as a communications editor for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, teaches workshops on writing and publishing, and hosts a podcast, The Writer’s Dish. She serves as a Senior Reader for Beloit Poetry Journal and is the poetry editor of the regional NPR listeners’ magazine Jefferson Journal.
Power Up Your Prose Poems
Good prose poems are like the Power Bars of poetry—a lot of energy packed in a small space. And they’re everywhere right now, in big literary journals and highly awarded books. But where do prose poems get their power, and how do they break away from being “just prose” or “just poetry without line breaks”? In this workshop, we’ll take a close look at prose poems by several contemporary poets, figure out how they work, and then use some of their secrets—including narrative jumps, punctuation strategies, surrealism, and unusual formats—to write two or three of our own. Whether you’re already a fan of prose poems or have never tried one, this 75-minute interactive presentation will explore the power of this highly versatile form and inspire you to do it your own way.
Sallie Ehrman
Bio
Sallie Ehrman has been composing cut-up poetry for over two decades. She has presented this technique at a variety of events, including a yoga festival, a literary festival and, in the past, at the OPA conference. Sallie also writes “normal” long hand poetry. She has been published in an assortment of literary magazines. One of her greatest joys is teaching poetry to students in the elementary school where she works as an educational assistant in Ashland, Oregon. Her participation in a local crit. group feeds the desire to intermingle with other poets while also sharpening her writing skills.
Cut-Up Poetry
Sometimes it’s a challenge to put words on the page but if you have a page with words on it, just pick and choose. These words may be uncommon to you because they come from a driver’s manual or a kite book. Certain words or phrases will pop out due to your mood, your issues or your curiosity. The benefits of cut-up poetry include the juxtaposition of material on the pages given. One page on birding, for example, and another page lifted from a recipe book. The poet is forced to find meaning in seemingly disparate phrases. Rhyme, alliteration, similes…all the components of poetry are available in the technique of cut-up poetry but the added constraint of limited material makes for magic. Scissors, glue sticks, words provided.
Camden Michael Jones
Bio:
Camden Michael Jones is a secondary educator in rural North-Central Oregon, a small-business owner, a museum curator, a volunteer firefighter, and a poet. He is the author of the poetry collection “There is a Corner of Someplace Else” (Cornerstone Press, 2023) and the forthcoming chapbook “Steward of the Blooms: Poems” (Finishing Line Press, 2026). One of his many hats, Jones is an MFA Candidate at Oregon State University – Cascades, and since December 2024 he runs monthly writing workshops in his community. He is married, has two young children, and spends his free time in his garden.
Ten Rules for a Future
Attendees are invited to an inclusive space where we, collectively, will explore the concept of nostalgia for a future not yet realized. This workshop will begin with a walk through Corita Kent’s Ten Rules as adopted by the Immaculate Heart College Art Department and a discussion of their application to our own practice and approach to writing, art, and other creative pursuits. Attendees will then follow a series of generational prompts to lead poets towards a frame of thinking where they may craft a new poem or poems that center on specific images or scenes of a hope, on peace, on self-actualization, and on resistance against all that might seek to undermine such a future; consider, for example, such a resistance to be grounded in community, socially and environmentally conscious, and built upon collective movement towards positive change. All musings on this theme are welcome. Attendees can expect these prompts to last approximately 45 minutes, followed by a short wrap-up conversation.
Aimee-Okotie Oyekan
Bio;
Aimée Okotie-Oyekan is a prayer towards a loving, healing eco-cultural practice. Informed by her lived experiences as a Nigerian diasporic woman and her passions for earth stewardship and community-based cultural work, Aimée stories difficult truths about belonging, place, identity, and injustice with a fierce vulnerability. Performing on a diversity of stages from the Oregon Country Fair to the Oregon Senate Chamber, she uses storytelling as a healing modality, a practice of bearing witness, a space for radical imagining, a convener of community, and a facilitator of transformative change. Aimée is the founding principal of Aiye Collaborative, the home to her creative practice and a living ecosystem of projects focused on reconstructing power, elevating marginalized stories and facilitating cultures of ecological and social wellness. She has concurrent masters in Environmental Studies and Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon.
Poetic Activism; Gentle Militancy for Social Change
This 75-minute workshop invites participants to explore the role of poetry as an accessible medium for transformative social change. The workshop begins by foregrounding the legacy of poetry as a medium for healing, truth-telling, resistance, and community-building within and against the historical backdrop of empire. The workshop will feature an original spoken word performance from the facilitator followed by an opportunity for participants to build skills in close reading by analyzing the use of poetic activism tools and best practices within the context of the spoken word poem. The workshop will also include a series of poetry prompts that invite the participants to incorporate and expand upon the shared tools within their own social change writing practice. By the workshop’s conclusion, participants will have borne witness to stories grounded in marginalized resistance movements, been offered a space to share their own ideas for social change, and been equipped with a range of writing tools to inform their own social change writing practice in these times of heightened injustice.
Juan Cervantes
Bio
Juan Cervantes Morales, born in Oaxaca, Mexico, is the author of two poetry books: Voices of Freedom and Endless Word. He has been a member of the Silverton Poetry Association (2010-2018) and co-founder of Spiral Publishing. It is at this time a special guest as a reader and exponent of topics on poetry for students at Portland State University. In 2020, together with German Rizo, published La Otra voz, a poetic anthology that includes poems by Oregonian authors of our time. In 2018, he founded the Arte Poética club to promote poetry in the Spanish language in the state of Oregon. Cervantes practices the art of digital photography and as such he photographs landscapes and people.
Juan Cervantes Morales promotor de la poesía en español en el estado de Oregón. Fundador de las editoriales Imaging media y Espiral. Autor de dos libros de poesía: Voces de libertad (2010) y Palabra sin fin (2020). En el año 2018 Juan Cervantes junto con el galardonado poeta oregoniano Kim Stafford presentaron lecturas y temas de poesía en centros culturales y clubes de Oregón. Mientras fue miembro y parte del comité de Silverton Poetry Association (2012-2018) creó programas de poesía bilingüe español/inglés para promover la poesía hispana. Juan Cervantes ha sido articulista invitado para tratar temas de poesía en periódicos y revistas en Oregón y California. Juan Cervantes es un apasionado de la fotografía y lector de Miguel de Cervantes.
Poesía en voz alta
Poesía en voz alta (bilingüe workshop) Primera parte Presentar algunos elementos necesarios para recitar poesía: Entonación, fluidez, pausas, rimas, emociones, identificación de la voz propia para recitar y preparación para recitar en público. Ejemplos: Come leían en voz alta poetas conocidos: Borges, Jaime Sabines, Gloria Fuentes. Segunda parte —Memorización e interpretación de versos. —Actividad: Participantes de la audiencia presentaran breve recital frente a sus compañeros de curso. Poetry in voz alta Part I Introducing basic elements to recite poetry: intonation, word fluency, breaks, rimas, emotions, identify the inner voice to recite and preparation for public reciting. Examples of how poets used to read out loud: Borges, Jaime Sabines, Gloria Fuentes. Part II —Memorizing and interpreting verses —Activity: Audience members will present a short recital in front of their classmates. https://youtu.be/1ik7LPuZv8Q https://youtu.be/-ouOrm5aai8 https://youtu.be/k68bJDyzfhY https://youtu.be/KtN4LrKb6SQ
Jorge Luis Porrata
Bio
Jorge Luis Porrata (1975) was born and grew up in Camagüey, Cuba. He is a poet, artist and educator. In 2001 he emigrated to the USA. He has illustrated over 10 books for the Cuban/Cuban American Miami-based publishing house Ediciones Homagno. He has published poetry in literary magazines in Mexico, Cuba, and the Southwest USA. He taught art courses in different universities for 10 years across three states.
What the Animals Had to Say is his first book published and is part of a series of animal fables in development. Todo en el tiempo de Dios is his second book compiling 30 years of his original poetry in Spanish and English. Jorge currently lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children, and teaches in a Spanish immersion elementary school.
Illustrating Poetry: The relationship between words and images (bilingual workshop)
In the first half of the workshop, I will share my experience as an illustrator, my strategies, and processes to interpret metaphor/ideas into visual images. By sharing three books published by Ediciones Homago I will present three specific methods I have used: verses that inform illustrations, how to pair already created illustrations with verses, and how to write from a visual body of work. In the second half, I will guide participants in creating illustrations from selected verses in other works by Ediciones Homagno or in finding affinities from a selection of my own drawings. Participants will also explore writing poetry from the provided drawings. To wrap up, we will present our created experiences.
Jorah LaFleur
Bio
Jorah LaFleur is a writer and performer who has been playing with spoken word poetry throughout her adult life. Along the way, she has built related skill sets: emceeing concerts, festivals, and variety shows; acting; interviewing; and facilitating workshops. While Jorah enjoys being an entertainer herself, a central theme in her artistic life has been serving as a container builder and advocate for artistic expression in community.
For over a decade, she ran the Eugene Poetry Slam, and for the past eight years, she has worked with the small-but-mighty literary nonprofit Wordcrafters in Eugene as a teaching artist and Writers in the Schools Coordinator. Jorah has released two books of poetry, but most of her work still lives in her memory banks and is published on stage. Writing and reading, testifying and witnessing, taking turns being seen and being heard at the mic—Jorah is continually moved by these potent, simple magics. Her current passion is working with writers who want to strengthen their connection to reading their own work aloud, through classes and individual coaching. JorahLaFleur.com
Page to Stage – The Art of Reading Aloud
Does giving a reading send you into a panic? Do you enjoy sharing your work but feel uncertain about how best to voice your words? Would you like to feel more powerful and peaceful onstage? Sharing our creativity publicly is inherently vulnerable. In this workshop, we’ll spend some time exploring the beliefs we hold about how we show up on stage and the sensations that arise in our bodies. We’ll name how we want to feel, explore practical somatic warm-ups, and consider what metaphors might help us cultivate greater comfort and confidence.
With a few craft-based concepts, we’ll move through playful activities designed to help us consciously build a fuller palette of emotional expression. Elements such as tone, pace, volume, and posture all shape how our work is received. Like actors, we’ll explore how to make intentional choices about delivery. Every voice is unique—even when using the same strategies. With a focus on each writer’s strengths, this work encourages honest, impactful expression that deepens the connection between author and audience.
Stephen Meads
