SAL/ON

A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures

Category: 2019/20 Season

“The F Train,” by Lucia Young

The F Train Maybe she didn’t get the job Maybe the hiring manager found her height overbearing, That she reeked of women who frighten men Maybe he caught sight of the pendant on the chain around her neck Hanging just above the hemline of a new-looking grey cardigan. A tarnished beauty on the shore of […]

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5 Books Giving Us All the Fall Feels

By Rachel Bachler Trees turn, leaves crunch, night falls altogether at four in the afternoon, and the delightfully sudden fifty-degree drop in temperature entices even the grumpiest of sidewalk commuters to partake in a ceremonial open-mouth, ‘I can see my breath!’ exhale. Fall, with all its entrancingly warm scarves and pumpkin scones, is the time […]

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More of a River

This essay is part of a series in which Poetry Northwest partners with Seattle Arts & Lectures to present reflections on visiting writers from SAL’s Poetry Series. At 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 17, Richard Kenney will read at Seattle Central Community College—Broadway Performance Hall. Tickets are still available! By Jason Whitmarsh In 1997, I moved from […]

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“Ode to Pitbulls,” by Jo Jo Contreras

Ode to Pitbulls Given a bad name Sweet as honeydew melon So violent everyone says not even in the top five Gone through more than imaginable Pity the pitbull Lonely star in the night sky Everywhere I look there are pitbulls chained and muzzled But what about the others Abused like the trees we tear […]

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What Happens in the Margins: Riding in Cars with Naomi Shihab Nye

Words by Danielle Palmer-Friedman, illustration by Madeline Kernan “Everything is always bits and pieces,” Naomi Shihab Nye writes in I’ll Ask You Three Times: Are You OK? As soon as I saw that sentence, I stopped what I was doing and started reading. It’s a beautiful thing when an author’s words succinctly express a feeling […]

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Introductions: Naomi Shihab Nye

By Rebecca Hoogs, SAL Associate Director It is an honor to welcome Naomi Shihab Nye back to the Poetry Series, ten years after her last appearance. In the last year alone, she added a new title to her bio: the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation, and a new title to her shelf, […]

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“Between You and Me,” by Adrienne K. Tibbs

It’s the tree that fills me with serenity. the green that towers me with hope. the roots that surround me in the twists and turns of sound. those roots that have grown to help me find mine. the limbs that make me long for touch. the smell that brings me back to that safety. It’s […]

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How to be Patti Smith: A Guide in 10 Steps

Listen—we can’t all be a rocker, a genius lyricist, a Bohemian New Yorker, a style icon, and an award-winning author. That particular blend of legendary is reserved for Patti Smith, and we on the SAL staff are just her acolytes. So if you, too, find it impossible to achieve even “Step 1” on this how-to […]

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Our Girls: Notes on Poetry and Palestinian Motherhood

This essay is part of a series in which Poetry Northwest partners with Seattle Arts & Lectures to present reflections on visiting writers from SAL’s 2019/20 Poetry Series. At 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 19, Naomi Shihab Nye will read in celebration of her new collection The Tiny Journalist at Town Hall Seattle, and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha will […]

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