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“The words stretched severely.”

We arrived early to help Timothy set up the chairs, and to arrange them in a certain way, decide just where the mic would be. The small things like this are important. It’s sometimes more about what the room wants. Then we left, across the street to Jupiter for tortilla soup and crispy tacos.

We had to convince each other to sit tight at the bar until 5:45, to make sure and arrive at the reading just before it was supposed to start. Slightly nervous that no one would show. Do poets ever really get over the fear (reality) of having no audience? Trading our collaborations aloud at CAM we began filling in between each poem with tiny compositional asides and secrets. How it actually helped to open several books at random, in a borrowed apartment, to generate a single line. How it was often necessary to run the odd stanza backward just to generate the taste of immediate traction.

We found a lot in common. Similar years and addresses in San Francisco. A dedication to shining tables of diners and dive bars crowded used book stores. We created a world for ourselves, one we built fresh with each meeting. We wrote at night with music playing, talking over each other slamming the notebook down in front of the other once done with our line.

We wrote 11 poems, but ended up cutting one from an otherwise accommodating body.

There were many automated fountains around us last summer, baroque, tight entry ways, small elevators of old buildings. It is important to recognize the third and fourth rooms created when writing collaboratively. These rooms filI with a dialog that is hopefully worth stealing (word for word). Everything we wrote suddenly carried new weight, like architects finding the best flow between awkwardly arranged buildings.

“Poems may write themselves but they will not print themselves.”

Simon has a monthly , the next one is on Feb 23rd.

Cedar Sigo, Simon Wolf.

Photo Credits: Joel Sigo and Wayne Buck

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In its three meditations—MOOD INDIGO, BRILLIANT CORNERS and AIR TIME–INDIGO ANGEL takes its lead from different jazz modalities as these ray out into other arts, the natural world and human history.

In serial prose and poetry septets that begin again and again, Jeanne Heuving explores ecologies of being, indexing the possibilities and impossibilities of becoming angel.

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Cristina Cortez (MFA ‘18) releases her new work (2023) published by As I Am / Soy Como Soy (English & Spanish Edition) is Cortez’s second poetry collection and her most personal work. In an interview with Jeannette Noltenius and Susana Reyes, both key members of the , they discuss Cortez’s work. Reyes describes the book as a beautiful one that documents everything Cortez has achieved through her brilliance and tenacity. The poems allow glimpses into her reality, disability, and life.

As I Am / Soy Como Soy is social-justice-focused, diverse, tender, and intently breaks out of the margins of convention. In this book, Cortez deliberately uses different literary and experimental techniques that make the poems flow together in unexpected ways, weaving, ebbing and oscillating from one to the other. In As I Am / Soy Como Soy, Cortez uses quotes from Gabriel GarcĂ­a MĂĄrquez, Helen Keller, Stephen Hawking, Ludwig van Beethoven, W. B. Yeats, and others to discuss themes of identity and self-growth.

The poems use the voices of other individuals with or without disabilities to present a collective. An isolated quote represents the life of a person who “suffered” or lives with a disability. But collectively, the poems join together these voices, and the voices, in turn, converge into the voice of a unified speaker who declares: “You can put me in the margins, but I will not be marginalized, my life is worth living”

In Cortez’s words, “As I Am / Soy Como Soy redefines the meaning of what it is to be someone who lives with a disability despite always being under the lens of discrimination simply for being different.”

To underscore its literary and disability-empowered strengths, As I Am / Soy Como Soy was released as a bilingual edition on July 30th, the week of the ADA’s 33rd anniversary. The book features a forward by Rhina P. Espaillat, writer, poet, and translator; a literary analysis by Edgar Smith, poet and editor; cover design and artist statement by Hector Escalante Rivera; and a back cover review by Dr. Jason Fogler, Director of Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities at Boston Children’s Hospital and assistant Professor of Pediatrics and psychology at Harvard Medical School. These collaborations bolster the book as a critical literary edition.

As I Am / Soy Como Soy, in its multidimensionality, is meant to continue to foster the importance of the independent living movement for people with disabilities. Moreover, the book can serve as an inspiration and motivational text for any and all readers interested in personal growth. Likewise it can serve to further fuel the fight for disability advocacy and full inclusion.

As I Am / Soy Como Soy is a representation of not only the life story of a person with a disability but represents through poetry what it’s like to grow up with a disability as a woman, Latina, and an interdisciplinary artist who uses technology to write as a means of creating change.

Cristina’s other works include Tawantinsuyu: Poems of the Time of the Inca (2020, English & Spanish Edition), and Yo Soy, Yo Vivo (2022) Spanish, Latin American edition)

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Emily and Amy first offered the workshop at the MFA 10-year reunion in August. They have continued to develop the curriculum, bringing in more opportunities for participants to move their bodies, connect with each other through sharing exercises, and engage with creative writing prompts.

After four intense days of attending panels, building community, and browsing the immense book fair, Emily and Amy were excited to create a space for people to channel more of their awareness from their heads into their bodies. The workshop gave participants the chance to filter some of their experiences through their bodies and bring those experiences to the surface through writing. One participant noted how much she appreciated using pen and paper during the workshop, further embodying the act of writing. Another commented on how integrating a somatic approach with writing allows for more spaciousness around processing both fresh experiences and deep emotions.

The next rendition of Emily and Amy’s workshop will take place at the (Cadence Video Poetry Festival)(https://nwfilmforum.org/festivals/cadence-video-poetry-festival-2023-hybrid/) at the Northwest Film Forum at the end of April. Learn more . You can follow them on social media for more details to come. (IG: Emily Mundy:  / Amy Hirayama: )

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Altar / Alter was an installation and performance series that brought together artists, filmmakers, poets, writers, musicians, actors and other creative thinkers to reflect on the idea of altars and the role they play in our lives. The activities during the event included workshops, community discussions, a virtual tour of Kubota Garden, film screenings, a Butoh theater performance, participatory sound-making, experimental soundscapes and more.

The focal point of the performance space was a large community altar designed and built by Denny Stern. Throughout the week, participants were invited to bring offerings or make offerings from a communal table of art supplies, and leave them on the altar. A bird’s nest, strings of colorful beads, bells, poetry, paintings, flowers and figurines were some of the many and varied offerings placed upon the evolving altar.

The 56łÔšĎÍř Bothell MFA Creative Writing Poetics program was well-represented in an evening of poetry that featured writers from five generations of the MFA program – Emily Mundy ’22, Lan Duncan ’23, Emma McVeigh ’24, Ashley Skartvedt ‘20, Korede Oseni ’24, and Eric Acosta ’20.

Altar / Altar was the second event the co-curators have organized under the name, . The idea behind Reflexive Assembly is that the line between artist and viewer is blurred, and that the reactions, ideas and creativity the viewer brings to an event are as vital as the artists’ contributions. The next Reflexive Assembly is a that passes through the Mt. Baker Tunnel which will take place on July 9th at 5 pm at Sam Smith Park.

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During this two year fellowship, Landrum’s work will focus on Black Memory through topics of Barber Shops and Beauticians, the Waterfront and Education. This project extends work begun during his MFA that speaks on the culture of the barbershop in the Black community. He writes, “this fellowship will deeply inspire my novel in progress, will give me the tools to continue to world build, to reflect and bring to life work that I started in Graduate school such as “The Guide to Manhood” while preserving the history of Black Barbers and Beauticians in Seattle.”

Learn more at the .

Troy Landrum Jr. is a native of Indianapolis, IN and has lived in Seattle, WA for 9 years. His passion for reading and writing bloomed as he navigated a path of self-rediscovery through identity, faith, culture and his family’s migration stories from Jim Crow South to the Midwest. These intersections are at the helm of his human experience and literature process as a Black artist and oral historian. Troy graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts at the 56łÔšĎÍř and is currently a Program Producer for KUOW’s , a freelance journalist for the , and a Novelist. His novel In Progress explores the question of “Home” through the Historical American time period of The Great Migration. A period in American history where millions of African American people moved from the South to Northern and Midwestern cities. He dedicates his work to the brilliance of African American History and the brilliance of his family history through the work of literature and preservation.

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Along with the exhibition, a series of events in April and May invites visitors to engage more deeply with the art of poetry, from readings and open mics, to a discussion of William Carlos Williams’ epic poem Paterson. Informative profiles of the writers featured in the exhibition .

In Queen’s words, “of the many things that I’ve done thus far, this exhibit feels like a culminating event. My University of Washington, Bothell MFA thesis advisor, Jeanne Hueving, is pictured on the walls, a project that I did with artist and professor Ted Heibert is linked in a multimedia presentation in the gallery, the literary arts nonprofit that I founded, Word Seed Inc is featured, the Paterson Poetry Festival is represented, the high school Poetry Club that I advise is featured and my own poems and concrete poem are there as well. What I am most proud of is the number of living local poets that the museum curator, Heather Garside, and I were able to include. The exhibit is aesthetically beautiful. It is educational. It is celebratory.”

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This year, the PCA/ACA Conference took place April 5-8 in San Antonio, Texas. The conference brings together scholars from across the nation to talk about various aspects of culture that are impactful to our world—varying from  like fiction and nonfiction, to vampires and Disney, to gender and politics, and more!

“When I found this conference, what stood out to me were the wide variety of topics to choose from and the opportunity for graduate students to share and receive feedback on their research,” Woo said.

Levi-D’Ancona, Simmons, and Woo shared research and work written in their Winter 2022 class, Poetics Seminar: Art, Technology, And Practice, under the guidance of Professor Ted Hiebert. Levi-D’Ancona’s research focused on realism, narrative authority, and restorative poetics, presenting in the conference’s non-fiction category. Simmons, whose research focused on the many retellings of La Belle et la BĂŞte and the folkloric implications of each adaptation, and Woo, whose research focused on literature and activism, both presented in the children’s and YA literature and culture category. In addition, Simmons also presented and read an excerpt of her forthcoming YA fantasy novel and current thesis project—which features themes of BIPOC representation and the implications of antimilitarism—in the fiction category.

After the prepared presentations, audience members and panelists engaged in discussions that inspired panelists to share their poetics and expand on their research. All three 56łÔšĎÍř Bothell students commented that these discussions were one of their favorite parts of the conference, where they could partake in scholarly discourse about their work. They felt their research took a new life during these panel discussions, more inspired than ever to ask hard questions during the research process.

“I loved how kind, inquisitive, and respectful the conference was,” Levi-D’Ancona said. “Though everyone is an expert in their field, the collegiality, networking, and genuine excitement from PCA/ACA is unparalleled in comparison to other experiences I’ve had on this scale.”

The three students didn’t stop at panels, however. They mingled with other attendees between and after scheduled events, talking endlessly about their passion for their subjects.

“One professor and presenter said, ‘I love this. You guys are so drunk on theory!’” Simmons commented. “It was nice to be among people who get as excited about our research as us.”

The PCA/ACA Conference was an exciting opportunity for Levi-D’Ancona, Simmons, and Woo to further share their passions as writers amongst a larger community of scholars. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, each of them were able to establish new connections and walk away with new insights in their respective interests and field. They each hope to return to the PCA/ACA Conference with new research in the coming years.

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