SAL/ON

A Blog of Seattle Arts & Lectures

Category: Poetry Series

Paisley Rekdal, in a red satin suit, stands against a wall at Hugo House that is designed to look like the shadows cast by Emily Dickinson's bedroom window.

Paisley Rekdal on Writing the Wrong Thing

Writers, what is your deepest fear about your craft? On February 6, we hosted a reading with Seattle-born poet and current Utah Poet Laureate, Paisley Rekdal. During the Q&A with SAL’s Associate Director, Rebecca Hoogs, Paisley answered questions about her writing process and her new work, Nightingale, but it was this question about fear that followed her home: “What […]

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Bernini's sculpture, The Rape of Proserpina, stands against a black background.

Time Flown

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. At 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 6, Paisley Rekdal will read at Hugo House. Tickets are still available! By Bill Carty, Senior Editor at Poetry Northwest Pythagoras’s greatest influence upon his […]

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Our Girls: Notes on Poetry and Palestinian Motherhood

This essay is part of a series in which Poetry Northwest partners with Seattle Arts & Lectures to present reflections on visiting writers from SAL’s 2019/20 Poetry Series. At 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 19, Naomi Shihab Nye will read in celebration of her new collection The Tiny Journalist at Town Hall Seattle, and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha will […]

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Introductions: Ilya Kaminsky

It was an immense honor to welcome the fabulous fabulist Ilya Kaminsky to Seattle Arts & Lectures as part of our Poetry Series on April 1, 2019. Kaminsky is the author of the bestseller, Dancing in Odessa, a co-editor of “The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry,” and, as of three months ago, Deaf Republic. By […]

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“Fruit Stand,” by Lily Baumgart

Fruit Stand Carve red into me, use your whole arms to entangle my body. I want to feel protected and warm, blue-warm like a star nearing expansion. I’ve been told I’m not humbled enough. I want you to hold me; my knees have failed and gone somewhere else. You allow yourself to let me fall […]

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A Tune Inspired by A.E. Stallings

At our 2017/18 Poetry Series event with A.E. Stallings, folk songwriter Jaspar Lepak dazzled our ears with an original song as part of the Bushwick Book Club program — it’s on repeat at the SAL offices right now! Below, listen to Jaspar’s song, which asks, “Why should the Devil get all the good tunes?” and read the […]

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“You Do Not Have To Be The Moon,” by Emrys Foster

You Do Not Have To Be The Moon You do not have to be the moon. You do not have to follow the sun always in its footsteps you do not have to take fleeting breaths of cold clear nothing through deep craters like gills you do not have to shed a light on those […]

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5 Reasons to See A.E. Stallings

We can think of many reasons why you should join SAL to hear A.E. Stallings – formalist poet and translator who’s joining us all the way from Greece – as part of our Poetry Series on November 13, but here are our top five . . . By SAL Intern, Lucienne Aggarwal 1. She lives among […]

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“A Few Blades of Grass” by Zainab Al-Bahadli

  A Few Blades Of Grass I was born to a seaglass house Softened by the rough edges of the sea, Chipped and clouded though it was I was born. Upon my birth I shattered it Gripping a dagger and a forget-me-not. I was born in a well Filled to the brim with gold paint […]

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