A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
Holy the first breath you take and the last exhale of your life, Holy the song stuck in your head, Holy from a hug to a kiss to love, Holy the new jeans you bought, Holy when you looked better in the picture, Holy from the speed talker to the stutterers, Holy the anger passing […]
We’re just reminding you now: February is a hard month. By February, you’re already slipping with your New Year’s resolutions to get out there and see more art, to be part of more community conversations. You’ve got Valentine’s Day gift-giving panic and that what-do-I-have-to-look-forward-to-now? slump on the wrong side of the holiday season. Luckily, SAL has a stockpile […]
By Rachel Edelman Three weeks ago, on Tuesday, November 8th, I left a reading in South Lake Union and walked west on Harrison. I attempted, unsuccessfully, not to look at the U.S. maps glowing so red on every bar’s television screen. I arrived at the bus stop knowing my own phone was dead, fearing my roiling […]
Unsolicited Advice to People Who are Going through the Same Thing, After Jeanann Verlee When your best friend forces you to do things, Say, “No.” When you best friend starts bullying you, Do not take it as a joke. Smile. Say, “We’re over” and Walk away. When you finally learn how to Nae-Nae and it’s 2015, […]
Everyone at SAL is deeply saddened to hear the news that poet and essayist Lucia Perillo has passed away at the age of 58 in Olympia, Wash., a place she called home for many years. A MacArthur fellow, Lucia authored seven collections of defiant and sharply humorous poetry, including Inseminating the Elephant in 2009, which was a finalist […]
If you could curate your own series of authors and thinkers to come to Seattle, who would you choose and why? Besides starting up your own local reading series, the closest you can get to a literary-style Choose Your Own Adventure is probably SAL’s Create Your Own Series, in which you can pick any four of our events […]
On October 5th at McCaw Hall, Ada Limón—the wildly generous and truthful poet whose “heart wants her horses back”—read from her book Bright Dead Things and gave us all excellent writing advice. SAL Associate Director Rebecca Hoogs introduced and interviewed Ada for this event, which opened SAL’s 2016/17 Poetry Series. By Rebecca Hoogs, SAL Associate Director For a […]
By Alison Stagner, SAL Events Coordinator & Sonder Editor When SAL’s luminous 2016/17 Poetry Series opener Ada Limón visited Roosevelt High School last Thursday, there was a surprising moment in the classroom. Asked about the writing exercises she uses in her own classes, Ada described a technique she ordinarily practices with much younger children: a group effort poem, composed aloud, […]
By Elijah Brooks, SAL Intern The virtual world has become an inescapable part of modern life, and because of this, the wisdom of Pablo Neruda is ripe with new applicability. In a 1971 interview with Radio-Canada (originally conducted in French), Neruda admires the physical world and voices his suspicion of writing that departs from it. When […]
By Gabrielle Bates “The route is often associative.” —Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric [Yes, and] When I was a little girl in Birmingham, Alabama, wracked with shame over some transgression I can no longer remember, I asked my father how, when faced with a choice, to know which decision is the right one. He […]