A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
Each year, in a project led by Sierra Nelson and Ann Teplick of Writers in the Schools, and the School of Visual Concepts, long-term patients from Seattle Children’s Hospital and a team of letterpress artists join forces to create an extraordinary collection of handprinted, limited-edition broadsides. These works of art—which you may have oohed and […]
Born from island clay Red and wet, with eyes open Crawl to a garden Place me in a bed of ferns I grow, I am energy. I’ll tell you of my first time talking to a plant. Most was listening. I swam forever Because I could, and I had to. Water carried me. My fear […]
By Gabriela Denise Frank A minute into the interview, Alison Stagner said, “When an image strikes me as really beautiful, I immediately want to undercut that. For me, beauty is about disruption.” I was already looking forward to speaking with her after reading her book, but my heart flip-flopped when she said this. […]
The silence stretches, yawning across the land. Quiet, so quiet. A strange reverie, unbroken by sound. The bombs have stopped. The children, born in a world where the thunder is a part of life, whimper. The elders, so few, so old, raise their heads in disbelief. For they remember, a time when bombs did […]
By Gabriela Denise Frank As our nation’s underpinnings come under greater scrutiny, I’ve been in a parallel process of personal inquiry, digging into generational and cultural foundations that have shaped my writing practice and relationship to art-making, capitalism, and self-worth. You know, easy, light stuff. Months of reflection have revealed how my upbringing isn’t a […]
This essay is part of a series in which Poetry Northwest partners with Seattle Arts & Lectures to present reflections on visiting writers from the SAL Poetry Series. On Friday, September 25, Claudia Rankine read and discussed her work in conversation with Douglas Kearney. Listen to a recording of it on KUOW’s Speakers Forum. Tickets […]
To roam the lost streets of words where you hear things you can never have heard on the surface Some smooth and fast, others loud and dangerous. You’re on earth within a library, a city within a book and the clouds are just jumblings of punctuation. To play in an abandoned metropolis wondering why everyone […]
By Gabriela Denise Frank Poet Aaron Counts, co-founder of Seattle’s Youth Poet Laureate (YPL) program, described the power of poetry to me this way: “A great poem helps you understand yourself and how you fit into the world. It’s like having the recipe for oxygen—it’s a survival skill.” Poetry isn’t frivolous or a luxury, it’s […]
By Gabriela Denise Frank Has there been a year when hunger rumbled more prominently in our minds than our bellies? Months ago, I gave up searching for flour and yeast, items perpetually out of stock, but this week, after hearing my husband long for homemade bagels, I searched for and found a 3-pack of Red […]
At the beginning of Washington State’s Stay Home, Stay Healthy order, WITS Writers-in-Residence Samar Abulhassan and Sierra Nelson began sending letters to one another, filled with their daily observations and feelings during the pandemic. Their correspondence sparked “Ocean Radish,” this collaborative writing project which we are delighted to share with you today, followed by more […]