For Immediate Release
Contact: Paul E. Nelson
Global Voices Radio/SPLAB!
Ilalqo, WA98002
http://splabman.blogspot.com/

Global Voices Radio / SPLAB! E-Fishwrapper

In this E-Fishwrapper, Robin Blaser’s passing, lots of Hugo House events and an announcement re: their new Director, Andrew Schelling TONIGHT in Port Townsend (with the Hood Canal Bridge closed for repairs until 6.12,) a Black Earth Institute reading, WITS opportunity for writing teachers and In Tahoma’s Shadow readings in Tacoma.

1) Since our last E-Fishwrapper, we were informed that Robin Blaser died. One of the most remarkable men I have ever met, I was fortunate enough to have been granted the last interview he ever gave, which Lou Rowan was kind enough to edit and shape into something quite useful. Lou published it in the Golden Handcuffs Review: http://www.goldenhandcuffsreview.com/gh9content/16.html

Charles Bernstein wrote this about Robin:

“…Blaser’s work constitutes a fundamental part of the fabric of the North American poetry and poetics of “interrogation,” to use his term. Compared to his most immediate contemporaries, Blaser has pursued a different, distinctly refractory, willfully diffuse, course that has led him to be circumspect about publication. As a result, it was almost 40 years from his first poems to the time when The Holy Forest began to emerge as one of the key poetic works of the present. Indeed, Blaser’s lyric collage (what he calls “the art of combinations” in a poem of that title, alluding to Leibnitz) seems today to be remarkably fresh, even while his engagement with (I don’t say commitment to) turbulence and turbulent thought seems ever more pressingly exemplary. Blaser’s work seems to me more a part of the future of poetry than the past…” http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/blog/

and there is this: http://damnthecaesars.blogspot.com/2009/05/robin-blaser-1925-2009.html
and this:
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Kitsilano+poet+remembered+sense+humour/1583011/story.html

2) Empty Bowl Press and the Salal Cafe are pleased to announce a reading by the poet, essayist, and translator Andrew Schelling. The reading is scheduled for TONIGHT Friday the 15th at 7:00 pm at the Salal Cafe on Water Street.

Poet Andrew Schelling, a Zen practitioner and wilderness advocate, is the author or editor of sixteen books and numerous chapbooks. He is the preeminent translator into English of India’s early poetry from Sanskrit and related vernaculars, most of which is secular, erotic, and grounded in close observation of the natural world. His first book of translations, Dropping the Bow: Poems from Ancient India has just been released from White Pine Press in a revised edition. When the book came out in 1991 it received the Academy of American Poets translation award, the first volume of Asian poetry to receive that prestigious award. His own poetry is notable for its engagement with natural history, bioregional studies, and watershed issues. A book of poems, Old Tale Road, has just come out from Empty Bowl Press. Schelling lived in Northern California for most of the 1970s and ‘80s, active with poets in the Bay Area, where he co-edited one of the period’s defining publications, the poetics journal Jimmy & Lucy’s House of “K.” He moved to Colorado’s Front Range in 1990 to join the faculty of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. Other recent titles of his include a collection of essays, Wild Form, Savage Grammar, The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry, and Tea Shack Interior: New & Selected Poetry. He teaches poetry and Sanskrit at Naropa University and is a founding member of the arts faculty at Deer Park Institute.

3) Subtext: Wednesday, June 3, 2009,
Jim McCrary & Paul Nelson @ 7:30 p.m.
http://subtextreadingseries.blogspot.com

4) From Meredith A. Sedlachek:

…I can't believe it's been a year since the last Write-O-Rama event, where nearly $10,000 was raised to support the Richard Hugo House and its programs. Thanks to your generosity, I was the top fundraiser and won a free 6 week writing class!

I know the economy sucks and times are even tougher than they were a year ago, but I hope you will consider donating again this year to a worthy cause. Every little bit helps. If you can afford $5 or $50, it all HELPS, AND it's tax-deductible! I will attend a marathon day of writing workshops on June 6, 2009, and all proceeds go to the Richard Hugo House.

The mission of Richard Hugo House is to support writers of all ages and backgrounds with the resources they need, to connect audiences to the world of writing and to promote the literary arts through the work of social justice. Hugo House nurtures writers and readers and brings innovative writing classes to people from every background.

It's EASY to donate, simply follow the link below and be sure to include MY NAME in the DEDICATION FIELD, so it counts toward my pledge total. DONATE ANYTIME BEFORE JUNE 5th!

THANK YOU!

DONATE NOW

For non-HTML e-mail:
http://partners.guidestar.org/controller/searchResults.gs?action_donateReport=1&partner=networkforgood&ein=91-1718383

5) Another Hugo House thing:
Keeping Your Hand (Foot, Spleen) In It: Poetry Writing Exercises
Finding time to write in this chaotic era can be challenging, but by experiencing a variety of writing methods (postcards, American Sentences) we’ll have more possibilities of finding that one project that defines us as a person/poet. Charles Olson, Jose Kozer, Anne Waldman, Nathaniel Mackey, Pablo Neruda, Ed Sanders and Lorine Niedecker are among the poets whose work or methods we’ll examine or use as examples. Participants will leave the course with at least 10 new poems.

Instructor: Paul Nelson
Meets: Thursday, July 09, 2009 - Thursday, July 30, 2009
Thursday, 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Min: 5 Max: 15

http://www.hugohouseservices.org/home/Class/DisplayClass.aspx?CatalogID=11

6) One last bit of Hugo House News:

Richard Hugo House Announces New Executive Director
Sue Joerger accepts position as head of the nation’s third largest literary center
SEATTLE – Richard Hugo House is pleased to announce that Sue Joerger has been hired as its executive director. In her new position, Joerger will bring significant nonprofit management and leadership experience to an organization that has gained national renown for its inventive programming over the last two years.

Joerger was most recently the executive director of the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, a nonprofit working to protect and preserve the Puget Sound. During her tenure, Joerger helped grow the organization—tripling the size of its budget and staff—and significantly raised its profile. Joerger has lived on her sailboat in waters of the Puget Sound, off and on, for the past ten years, where she enjoys writing poetry and playing drums. Her educational background includes a B.A. from Mills College and an M.S. from the University of Washington.

7) From Judith Roche:
EARTH’S ORACLES

A Reading by Fellows and Scholars of
THE BLACK EARTH INSTITUTE

Brenda Peterson
Judith Roche
Patricia Monaghan

7 pm Sunday, June 7
AT RICHARD HUGO HOUSE
1634 11th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98122

Black Earth Institute is a progressive think-tank for artists dedicated to re-forging the connections between spirituality, social justice and environment. Join us for readings by the featured writers and a spirited discussion of Black Earth’s goals and aims. www.blackearthinstitute.org

www.hugohouse.org

8) From Rebecca Hoogs:

Job Opportunities @ Writers in the Schools
WITS is looking for creative writers who are passionate about teaching the power and pleasure of writing to young people and who are excited to collaborate with public school teachers. Employment is contract and part-time. Writers-in-residence typically teach one day a week from September through June for a total of 84 direct teaching hours. A yearlong commitment is required. For more information about WITS, visit http://www.lectures.org

How to apply
Send the following via mail or email:
• Cover letter
• Teaching and artistic resume with 3 references
• 3-5 page creative writing sample in the genre you most like to teach
• 1 page describing three specific writing goals you might have for a residency
and two specific teaching exercises/lesson plans you would use to help students
achieve those goals. Please identify if the exercises are intended for elementary,
middle, or high school students.
Application materials are due by July 20, 2009 to Elizabeth@lectures.org. Feel free to apply in advance of the deadline, but be advised that we do not begin to review
applications until after the July 20 deadline. Applicants selected for interviews will be contacted in August.

9) In Tahoma’s Shadow, a new anthology of Tacoma area poets, is having the first two readings in a series to publicize the anthology:
First reading
Thursday, May 21 at 7 p.m.
King’s Books, 218 St. Helen’s Avenue, Tacoma
Featuring: Carl Palmer, Kevin Miller, Brendan McBreen, Emilie Rommel and others.

Then, a
Second reading
Thursday, May 28 at 7 p.m.
Main Branch of the Tacoma Public Library
1102 Tacoma Avenue South, featuring, Michael McGee, Jean Musser, Josie Turner, Connie Walle, Paul Nelson & others. The book is pretty cool.

Finally Spring today, sheesh! The dogwoods and English Heather seemed to like all the rain, so I won’t complain…anymore…Hope to see you at one of the above events, especially Andrew Schelling tonight. Gotta drive around, but did the whole circuit last weekend (I-5 to Deception Pass, down to Keystone, then to PT, dinner with Sam on his 66th, then back down 101 to the former Slaughter.) Today, up 101 from down here. With my daughter’s graduation from Auburn High on June 14, Meredith and I will be looking to move to South Seattle as I am SICK of driving up & down I-5. Rebecca will be majoring in Journalism at Northwestern in September and my period of Slaughter will be coming to an end. Know a house for rent in Columbia City, or Othello? We want to be near the light rail line. Please support my reading at Subtext. This is an important series to me and I would love to see your smiling face in the crowd. Hell, I hope there’s a crowd! The Slaughter book won’t be published in time for that, but it looks like it’s set for sometime in the summer. Right before I move! HA! Come get me!

Once last thing, a proposal for another poetry class:

Investigative Poetry (4 Hour class)
“News is the first draft of history.” Pity if it turns out to be Fox News, eh? Well, don’t let those fuckers get the last word, do it yourself with a template from Ed Sanders, Joanne Kyger, Lorine Niedecker or Allen Ginsberg. We’ll look at some post-modern examples of history in verse form, do some writing exercises to warm us up, then spend a good hunk of the time working on a poem that includes history. Bring a book you’ve read (biographies are good,) a news story, or a whole file of stories on a subject along with an open mind.
Blessings.

Hey! Want off this email list? Just ask.
xoxo President Postcard.

P.S. the poetry postcard website is down for the time being, but if you want to participate, send me an email and I can send you the current perennial postcard addresses.