A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
A Poem in the Voice of the Wind Like you, I can make the warmest of weather into a sick, shivering mess. Like you, I am angry, and whip at people’s hair and clothes, though you only do it in your imagination. Like you, I love to stir up the sand with my fingertips, but […]
By Anastacia-Renee Tolbert, WITS Writer-in-Residence Lately, I’ve been reading a host of fiction and nonfiction from writers who have come before me, thinking about my mortality and the current state of the world as a woman of color writing, teaching and mothering. So recently, I asked high school students to write editorial essays. To begin with, some […]
Falling Angel My father stands by my side listing rule after rule after rule. I roll my eyes and shun his words of caution as he straps on my wings. The wings are big and white. I secretly threaded a raven feather for luck. I look toward the blazing sun and spread my wings and […]
ON THE ROAD AGAIN by Ann Teplick, WITS Writer-in-Residence Oh, the hours I’ve spent behind the wheel of a Volkswagen bus, a Subaru, a Datsun, a Honda, from Seattle to Banff to San Francisco to Glacier National Park to D.C. to Montreal to Yellowstone to Austin to Philly. Oh, the hours with the windows rolled […]
By Kathleen Flenniken, WITS Writer-in-Residence A friend of a friend was looking for a poem her fifth-grade son could memorize for a class project. The question came to me and I made a couple of suggestions. The boy chose “Eating Poetry” by Mark Strand. His mother sent a photo of him studying the poem with […]
By Corinne Manning, WITS Writer-in-Residence The day after the election, I carried a tote-bag full of ferns, poetry by June Jordan, and a memoir in comics by Lynda Barry into the high school. To my students, I tried to introduce the idea of imagination, of finding ways to tap into their sensory experiences, even when the […]
By: Karen Finneyfrock, WITS Writer-in-Residence A few weeks ago, it snowed in Seattle! That’s a pretty exciting occurrence for inhabitants on the Puget Sound. Students got a snow day, followed by a late start. Since I was scheduled to teach in fourth grade classrooms at Lafayette Elementary, I knew I would need to work a […]
By Sierra Nelson, WITS Writer-in-Residence I first encountered Alice Notley’s work seeing her read in Seattle for the Rendezvous Reading Series cosponsored by Subtext. It was 1999. It was Hugo House, which had just barely hatched. I was in my mid-20’s, not even hatched, in my first larval year of an MFA, second year performing […]
On March 28, lauded social justice lawyer and author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, captivated a sold-out Benaroya Hall with his lessons in the “power of proximity” and hope. SAL Executive Director Ruth Dickey introduced Bryan as part of SAL’s 2016/17 Literary Arts Series. This event also celebrated the winners of SAL’s annual Elaine Wetterauer Writing Contest. […]
For Black Boys Delicate Black boy. Solider, plum painted spirit, deep rooted, dreamer. I can tell from the oceans on your bed that you’ve never been told you were beautiful. Mother didn’t remind you of rainbows in her malleable insides. She soaked you in songs but never self-love. Never explaining the pink hue of your […]