A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
I can’t tell you how it kills me. …..Song like the bleeding heart of fire ……….breeds the incandescent waver of ……………water rapt in wrapping ‘round ………………..the pearl. Invincible, the stretch and tear of blue on white …..seethes with the spirit of the moon. ……….I have a second sense for hollowness. ……………I receive the buoyant aura […]
“Here” feels so lonely. The hands of a ghost who loved another ghost, the space between fingertips, the hall light under the door. Whispers that evaporate into thin air like an August creek. Ferns line the sidewalks and the trails, spores frequenting their undersides. In kindergarten, someone told me that those spores heal cuts, but […]
And as dusk neared, The laughs were replaced with nonchalance, For it was dark and unsafe now One mustn’t do something to provoke— An ill-fated destiny corsets hung from old, battered joints An urge to for slim, slender, small, shrunken Gasping, choking, fighting They were struck by the intonation Of its missed, beautiful dictation of […]
Do you remember when that tickling in our stomachs had a name? It was called God. The flowers bloomed to God’s rhythm and we danced in our underwear. Our families burned weed and bras and incense and dollar bills. They used history as kindling and smoked out the stars. But we didn’t need to misinterpret […]
by Gabriela Denise Frank “If you’re going to have to figure out new things, artists are a good group to be with,” Alicia Craven, SAL’s Director of Education, noted. “They’re inventive, creative, and open to seeing possibilities that a more linear thinking pattern might not allow for.” Alicia was speaking about her colleagues—the cohort of […]
2020/21 Youth Poet Digital Engagement Ambassador Victor Xia reads his poem “Party Circa 1952,” which he performed before Ibram X. Kendi’s 2020/21 Literary Arts Series event, presented on the virtual SAL stage.
Seattle Arts & Lectures is excited to announce that we are now accepting applications to the 2021/22 Seattle Youth Poet Laureate Cohort, from now until Friday, April 23, 2021. Program Overview The Seattle Youth Poet Laureate (YPL) program is part of Seattle Arts & Lectures (SAL) with support from Urban Word NYC, Northwest Folklife […]
“There’s a reason Sappho wrote in her complex hexameter.” 2019/20 Youth Poet Laureate cohort member Maeve Kenney reads her poem “Ars Poetica,” which she performed before Madeline Miller’s 2020/21 Literary Arts Series event, presented on the digital SAL stage.
Zoë Mertz is a University of Washington student doing a remote internship with the Writers in the Schools program at SAL. After attending the recent Literary Arts Series event with Yaa Gyasi on November 16, she wrote this reflective piece on attending events pre-Covid and what it’s like to attend online now. Read on to […]
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 […]