Oh yeah, April is National Poetry Month, I almost forgot. For those who live lives dedicated to poetry, it’s more like the month when people besides poets pay attention to the art of the written and spoken word. That being said, in addition to the events in the post I made yesterday here, there are some upcoming poetry happenings I think you should know about.

Monday, April 8, open mic signup, 7pm, show starts at 8, EasySpeak Seattle at the Wedgwood Alehouse, 8515 35th Ave. N.E., Seattle (park in back) with featured reader Shin Yu Pai. This reading has become my community in the last six years, finally filling up the space left by the demise of Red Sky Poetry Theater. EasySpeak features open mic and a featured reading by Shin Yu Pai.

Shin Yu Pai

A 2014 Stranger Genius Award nominee, SHIN YU PAI is the author of several books of poetry, including ENSO (Entre Rios Books, forthcoming), AUX ARCS (La Alameda, 2013), Adamantine (White Pine, 2010), and Equivalence (La Alameda, 2003). Her work has appeared in publications throughout the U.S., Japan, China, Taiwan, The United Kingdom, and Canada. She has been a featured presenter at national and international literary festivals including the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival and the Montreal Zen Poetry Festival. She has served as an artist in residence for Seattle Art Museum, Town Hall Seattle, and Pacific Science Center and is a former member of the Speakers Bureau for Humanities Washington. She lives and works in Bitter Lake.

Wednesday, April 10, open mic signup 6:30, show starts at 7 and ends at 9, Poetry Bridge at C&P Coffeehouse, 5612 California AV S.W. Featured readers Judith Roche and Peter Munro, two friends and excellent poets who I recommend highly.

Judith Roche

Judith Roche has won two American Book Awards and has published four collections of poetry. All Fire All Waterfrom Black Heron Press is the most recent. She has taught at all levels from elementary to university. She has poems installed in several Seattle area public art installations and is widely published in magazines and journals. She is a Fellow in the Black Earth Institute, an organization dedicated to social justice, environmental issues and spiritual awareness and teaches at Hugo House.

Peter Munro is a fisheries scientist who works in the Bering Sea, the Gulf of Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands.  When he is not at sea, his overlords chain him to a computer in Seattle and force him to estimate parameters by the maximum likelihood method. Munro’s

Peter Munro

poems have been published in such journals as Poetry, the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Iowa Review, and the Birmingham Poetry Review.  Munro is a founding curator of the open mike, Easy Speak, (www.easyspeakseattle.com). Somehow, Munro bamboozled the Jack Straw Writers Program to accept him for a year in 2013 (or 2014, he can’t quite remember). Munro has served as the Poet Laureate, Pro Tem, of Kenmore Lanes from 1987 through the present though he bowls quite poorly.  The management of Kenmore Lanes, to this day, remain unaware of having awarded him this great honor.  Listen to more poems at www.munropoetry.com.

May 9-12, Anacortes, WA, Croatian Cultural Center, Cascadia Poetry Festival. Shun Yu Pai is a co-facilitator of a panel at the Cascadia Poetry Festival, with Jason Wirth, on Cascadian Zen. How does this ancient wisdom tradition manifest in this bioregion? One of two remarkable panels at this iteration of the festival, along with Translation as a Political Act, moderated by William O’Daly and featuring E.J. Koh, José Kozer, Rebecca Seiferle, Claudia Castro Luna and Ian Boyden. The fest schedule is here:

http://cascadiapoetryfestival.org/cpf-anacortes-2019/ is an homage to the late Sam Hamill, features the launch of two different anthologies and has workshops FREE to the first Gold Pass holders who register for those workshops. Gold Passes are only $25 and are available while supplies last. Be sure to save your place at what promises to be a remarkable literary event: https://cpfanacortes.brownpapertickets.com/