Jack Straw Writers

In 2010, I was selected to be a fellow in the Jack Straw Writers Program. Jared Leising curated that year’s cohort from about 90 applicants. My fellow cohorts were Roberto Ascalon, Brian Barr, Katherine Grace Bond, Bill Carty, Martha Clarkson, Amber Flame, Esther Altshul Helfgott, Marjorie Manwaring, Denise Calvetti Michaels, Tara Roth, and Louise Spiegler. Read more about the 2010 program and see my bio page. The bio page also includes a link to a podcast recording, focusing on my neon buddha poems, with the addition of American Sentences and a few longer poems.

In addition to many group activities, reading opportunities, and audio and studio training, a selection of my poems appeared in the 2010 Jack Straw Writers Anthology. On 14 May 2010, I was a featured reader at the Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle, and on 13 November 2010, I was featured with the rest of my Jack Straw cohort at the Seattle Central Library. You can listen to the latter reading on the Seattle Public Library website (in this 94-minute recording, I’m introduced at about the 9:00 minute mark, ending at 16:30). Jared Leising introduced me with an “American Sentence”: “You know him for haiku, but you should ask him about his racquetball.”  Here's the recording:

Being part of the Jack Straw Writers Program has yielded benefits I couldn’t have predicted, the best of which has been being part of a lifelong “club,” with various opportunities that have arisen through networking and camaraderie. One of these, for example, was leading an “American Sentences” interaction and an artwalking tour for the Seattle Art Museum’s annual SAM Remix art and dance party at the Olympic Sculpture Park held on 27 August 2010. You can read more about it and see all my poems and photographs at “Silver Notes.” And I was even on a Raven Chronicles magazine cover (so to speak), in celebration of Jack Straw. I’ve given other readings through requests from Jack Straw and have also regularly featured Jack Straw writers at readings I curate for SoulFood Poetry Night and the Redmond Association of Spokenword. I highly recommend the Jack Straw experience.