A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
By Imani Sims, WITS Writer-in-Residence It’s always an experiment when trying to engage young minds with new content. The haibun form allows for concrete examples while also allowing the freedom to imagine. This fall, I spoke to a group of young folks who embraced this idea with vigor. The Form: Haibun Definition: A “literary form originating […]
By Jeanine Walker, WITS Writer-in-Residence As a poet, I love to play with words. When writing or revising a poem, I can spend hours switching out a single word or phrase in an attempt to get the exact right one. Despite this, I believe a poet’s business is not words, exactly. A poet’s job is […]
Sing, Mother, Sing sing, Mother, sing sing to me before you leave me sing about your tears puddling up in your eyes sing the high notes and sing the low notes sing in the dark, abandoned streets of China sing the chorus of guilt and sorrow sing about the life I will have sing to […]
By Ramon Isao, WITS Writer-in-Residence For my inaugural WITS post, I hope you’ll forgive a mere anecdote. I’m new here. On the night before my first WITS residency, I was surprised by a bout of panic. I got out of bed and tried my best to chuckle it off. There was nothing to fear. I’d […]
Today, the words and wisdom of legendary poet, Nikki Giovanni, will wow us at the first event in our 2017/18 Sherman Alexie Loves Series. Although the event is sold out, there will be a limited number of tickets available at the door. In this essay, WITS Writer-in-Residence Laura Gamache welcomes us into Nikki’s beautiful descriptions […]
By Letitia Cain, WITS Writer-in-Residence & SAL Event Manager It’s a Scottish tradition to open the front door of your house at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve to welcome in the new year, then rush to open the back door to let go of the past year. It’s a way of ushering […]
By Matt Gano, WITS Writer-in-Residence I hate the word “lecture.” I’ve always considered teaching poetry as a “conversation.” I hope to learn along with my students by talking about creative ideas, to open space in the classroom to unpack concepts such as “writing from the body,” “poetry as an economy of language,” “write what you […]
By Arianne True, WITS Writer-in-Residence This past week, my classes focused on details – what and where they are, and putting them into our own writing. We defined details, went over senses, and totally rocked an exercise on noticing them all around us in the classroom. For practice finding details in poems, we read Ada […]
By Karen Finneyfrock, WITS Writer-in-Residence I’ve have success and fun in the classroom connecting students with poetry that feature the seasons or the weather. Each November, I bring my fifth grade classes the poem “This is a Letter” by Rebecca Dunham. Young students are especially drawn to images like “the broken confetti of late fall leaves.” […]
When we receive submissions for the Elaine Wetterauer Writing Contest, each year we are reminded of the wisdom, heart, and love of language that Elaine continues to inspire in youth today. The Language Arts Department Chair at Nathan Hale High School, Elaine Wetterauer was a warm and passionate educator who impacted the lives of thousands of students, […]