“Fear,” by Maxwell Smith
March 8, 2018
Fear When I was little, I was scared of fire. When it lit up, my face looked like a ghost, and my heart sounded like waves crashing on a beach. But now, I when I get scared, I become the thunderstorm.
SAL/ON
A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures
Introductions: Colson Whitehead
March 8, 2018
On February 15 at Benaroya Hall, Colson Whitehead—the Pulitzer Prize-winner with a taste for the fantastical—delivered a talk on his latest, The Underground Railroad. SAL Executive Director Ruth...
Lucie Brock-Broido Reads “Infinite Riches in the Smallest Room”
March 7, 2018
Many of us awoke to the sad news this morning that beloved poet Lucie Brock-Broido has passed away. Brock-Broido, the Director of Poetry and a professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia, once sai...
WITS Voices: Revision—To See Again
March 2, 2018
By Katy Ellis, WITS Writer-in-Residence I have to admit revision has never been my strong point as a writer. Only in the last ten years have I truly grasped the fact that my second (or third or fourth...
Tyehimba Jess and the Voice of the Interior
February 22, 2018
Seattle poet and educator Quenton Baker, whose work focuses on anti-blackness and the afterlife of slavery, writes below on Tyehimba Jess’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Olio. Jess’s ...
WITS Voices: Ten Years with WITS
February 20, 2018
By Peter Mountford, WITS Writer-in-Residence I have now entered my tenth year of teaching WITS, and I’m taking a look back. Specifically to my first residency at the TOPS school with teacher Lori Ei...
Three Poems by Theo Hadley
February 20, 2018
Pierre We realize perhaps we’ve been playing the waltz too slowly. We continue rapping our knuckles against the walls. Half of us learn how to dance, the rest of us learn how to cuff our jeans. Pier...
Introductions: Gregory Orr
February 14, 2018
On February 7 at McCaw Hall, Gregory Orr—master of the personal lyric poem, and one of our greatest advocates for how the reading and writing of poetry can help us heal and live more fully—read f...
Bittersweet: Ending My Time with TOPS Fifth Grade
February 9, 2018
By Laura Gamache, WITS Writer-in-Residence The book said everything perishes The book said that’s why we sing -Gregory Orr Every WITS teaching residency has a beginning, middle and end, like the sto...
“Mom,” by Namaka Auwae-Dekker
February 8, 2018
Mom, Today I was followed by every man who’s ever left us (again) Which is to say ghosts are hereditary Which is to ask who will my children carry in the echo of their ribcage? How much of me is...