Judith Skillman at YVCC

Gayle Kaune at YVCC

Charles Potts Video

Lynn Martin Reading Tuesday May 30th

From Wauna--Lynn Martin



Parker Room, Higher Education Center, YVCC
Reading Begin at 730

“Arising from a sequence of great losses, Lynn
Martin’s poems walk straight into the deepest sorrow. There, face to face with the most terrifying state of not knowing, they expand outward to the farthest rim of
affirmation—where the blue bowl holds everything.”
—Noelle Oxenhandler, Essayist, The New Yorker

YVCC Weathered Pages Reading

730 pm Parker Room, Higher Education Center,

Free and open to the public

Featuring YVCC Students and Staff

From Yakima—May 15th: Editors, Weathered Pages Anthology Jim Bodeen, Terry Martin, and Rob Prout.

A six-foot cedar post, the word POETRY carved on both the east and west sides, planted in a garden on a street corner in Yakima, pushpins stuck in the wood. For ten years, hundreds of people have pinned thousands of poems to the Poetry Pole at Blue Begonia Press. After time in the weather, the pages have been taken down and saved—until now. Poems collected here represent a decade of testimony pinned and flying from a cedar post planted in a garden. They may trigger what you're looking for in your own life.

There is room on the Poetry Pole for everybody

Scenes from Gayle Kaune Lecture/Reading

Gayle Kaune at YVCC's Writers and Ideas Reading
April 3rd.









with Travis Hantz













with Ashley Hood

Scenes from Cashmere Reading

Thanks to Derek Sheffield for setting up the reading and sending these images.
Next reading, Burning Word Festival, Whidbey Island

From Friday's On Magazine YHR

from YHR's Kim Nowacki, in On Magazine First Anniversary Issue

Writers and Ideas poetry class returns this spring to Yakima Valley Community College.

But you don't have to be a YVCC student to attend....A portion of the class is open to the public and features free readings by poets who have been published in Yakima's Blue Begonia Press.

All readings are on Mondays at 730pm at YVCC in the Parker Room of the Deccio Higher Education Center, 1000 S. 12th Ave.

(This week's) reading will be by Charles Potts, a member of the 1968 Berkeley poetry explosion and author of numerous books, including an underground class "Valga Krusa."

A serious poet with a political bent and a smirking sense of humor, Potts can be found these days working out of an old Masonic temple-turned-Bohemian paradise--a place of literary and artistic worship--in downtown Walla Walla.

The remaining Writers and Ideas reading dates and poets are:

May 1: Judith Skillman, Seattle
May 15th, "Weathered Pages" editors, Yakima
May 3oth: Lynn Martin, Wauna, Wash.

Charles Potts at YVCC

April 17th: Charles Potts has had a dozen books of poetry published since 1996, the most recent: The Portable Potts from Albuquerque’s West End Press in 2005. Other new titles still in print include three from Blue Begonia Press in Yakima: Kiot: Selected Early Poems, 1963-1977, Lost River Mountain and Slash & Burn; Across the North Pacific from Slough Press; a reprint of Little Lord Shiva: The Berkeley Poems, 1968, from Glass Eye Books; and Nature Lovers from Pleasure Boat Studio. Other books in print include How the South Finally Won the Civil War: And Controls the Political Future of the United States.

Writers and Ideas Reading Spring Series

ALL READINGS at YVCC in the PARKER ROOM, DECCIO BUILDING, Beginning at 730pm
Click for video preview.

April 3rd: Gayle Kaune has published widely in literary magazines including Willow Springs, Seattle Review, Greenfield Review, Centennial Review and South Florida Poetry Review. Her poems have won several Washington Poets’ Association Awards, the Ben Hur Lampman Prize and been nominated for a Pushcart prize. Her chapbook, Concentric Circles, won the Flume Press award and her book, Still Life in the Physical World is available from Blue Begonia Press. Gayle has recently relocated from the Eastern Washington desert to Port Townsend, WA.

April 17th: Charles Potts has had a dozen books of poetry published since 1996, the most recent: The Portable Potts from Albuquerque’s West End Press in 2005. Other new titles still in print include three from Blue Begonia Press in Yakima: Kiot: Selected Early Poems, 1963-1977, Lost River Mountain and Slash & Burn; Across the North Pacific from Slough Press; a reprint of Little Lord Shiva: The Berkeley Poems, 1968, from Glass Eye Books; and Nature Lovers from Pleasure Boat Studio. Other books in print include How the South Finally Won the Civil War: And Controls the Political Future of the United States.


May 1st: Judith Skillman is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Eric Mathieu King Fund from the Academy of American Poets for her book “Storm,” Blue Begonia Press, 1998. Grants include a Writer’s Fellowship from the Washington State Arts Commission, a publication prize and public arts grant from the King County Arts Commission. Her poems have appeared in FIELD, Poetry, Southern Review, Seneca Review, The Iowa Review, Prairie Schooner, Journal of the American Medical Association, Fiberarts, Northwest Review, and many other journals. Skillman’s “Heat Lightning: New and Selected Poems 1986 – 2006 “ was published in early 2006 by Silverfish Review Press. “Coppelia, Certain Digressions,” is due out in the fall of 2006 from David Robert Books. Skillman is a Faculty Member at City University in Bellevue, Washington.

May 15th: Editors, Weathered Pages Anthology, Jim Bodeen, Terry Martin, and Rob Prout. A six-foot cedar post, the word POETRY carved on both the east and west sides, planted in a garden on a street corner in Yakima, Washington, pushpins stuck in the wood. For ten years, hundreds of people have pinned thousands of poems to the Poetry Pole at Blue Begonia Press. Weathered Pages is a sampling of the work of those who have used the Poetry Pole as a source of inspiration.

After time in the weather, the pages have been taken down and saved—until now. Poems collected here represent a decade of testimony pinned and flying from a cedar post planted in a garden. They may trigger what you're looking for in your own life. There is room on the Poetry Pole for everybody.

May 30th: Lynn Martin “Arising from a sequence of great losses, Lynn Martin’s poems walk straight into the deepest sorrow. There, face to face with the most terrifying state of not knowing, they expand outward to the farthest rim of affirmation—where the blue bowl holds everything.” —Noelle Oxenhandler, Essayist, The New Yorker

Writers and Ideas at YVCC, Preview 2006

Video of Weathered Pages at Elliott Bay

Video of Weathered Pages at Hugo House

Blue Begonia at Burning Word

The Washington Poets Association presents

Burning Word 2006

The Festival of Poetic Fire!

At Historic Greenbank Farm on Whidbey Island, WA
Saturday, April 29, 2005 - All Day!

All Day-All Event Passes: only $15 Adults, $7.50 Students

The Washington Poets Association will commemorate its 35th anniversary Saturday April 29th by presenting "Burning Word 2006", a dynamic, all-day celebration of poetry, music, performance, and workshops, featuring more than 40 talented poets and musicians, ranging from renown award-winning poets to hot new talents you'll want to discover.

The 2005 Main Stage will feature the non-stop excitement of more than 40 accomplished poet/performers. Festival headliners this year are internationally acclaimed poets Carolyn Kizer and Tess Gallagher. Also featured will be Madeline DeFrees, Tara Hardy, Ilya Kaminski, and Amalio Madueño.

The other outstanding Main Stage talent includes: Caleb and Rijl Barber, Bart Baxter, Jim Bodeen, Gloria Burgess, John Burgess, Lyn Coffin, Barton Cole, Sharon Cumberland, j.d. crosato, J.Glenn Evans, Thomas Hubbard, Holly Hughes, Paul Hunter, Christopher J. Jarmick, Don Kentop, Claudia Mauro, Terry Martin, Jack McCarthy, Tiffany Midge, Kevin Miller, Jed Meyers, John Olson, Peter Pereira, Eve Preus, Martha Silano, Joni Takanikos, Kary Wayson, the Weathered Pages poets, Brian Whittingham, Jane Winslow, and Pieter Zilinsky.

Weathered Pages in the Olympics

FIVE POETS TO READ FROM A WEATHERED PAGES

ANTHOLOGY AT MARCH 14 FOOTHILLS PRESENTATION

PORT ANGELES, Washington (February –, 2006)—On Tuesday, March 14, Peninsula College’s Foothills Writers Series will present a special program featuring readings by five poets whose work appears in the Weathered Pages anthology.

The book had its official debut last September at Bumbershoot and since then Weathered Pages readings have been held all over the state. The five poets who will read their work at the March 14 Foothills have varied backgrounds, and the voices they represent are uniquely their own.

Poets who will participate in the noontime reading in the college’s Little Theater include Port Townsend poet Gayle Kaune, Poulsbo poet Jenifer Browne Lawrence and Bainbridge Island poets Lindsay Brown, Kristin Henshaw, and John Willson.

The story behind the Weathered Pages anthology is a unique one, as are the stories of the individual poets whose work appear. The idea was the brainchild of Blue Begonia editor and press operator Jim Bodeen of Yakima, Washington.

"If wine can age gracefully, why can't words?", he asked. That was the beginning of The Poetry Pole, a six-foot cedar post he stuck in the front yard of his home in Yakima, and on which he invited poets to pin their work. As more and more poems were posted, Bodeen began to collect them, emptying the post from time to time to allow for still more postings.

The Poetry Pole remained in Bodeen’s yard for nearly a decade, drawing poets from all over the state and the country. Eventually, more than 1,000 poems were posted, and Bodeen decided the pole's pinnings were worth publishing.

He enlisted the aid of three coeditors, who helped him sift through the collection. The result is an anthology that contains more than 200 poems by 132 poets from the Northwest, including ones by Peninsula College’s own poet, English and German professor Alice Derry. Derry is also a codirector of the college’s Foothills Writers Series and was instrumental in bringing the following Weathered Pages readers to the college:

Port Townsend poet Gayle Kaune has published widely in literary magazines, including Willow Springs, Seattle Review, Greenfield Review, Centennial Review and South Florida Poetry Review. Her poems have won several Washington Poets’ Association Awards and the Ben Hur Lampman Prize and have been nominated for a Pushcart prize. Her chapbook, Concentric Circles, won the Flume Press award and her book, Still Life in the Physical World, is available from Blue Begonia Press. Kaune recently relocated from the Eastern Washington desert to Port Townsend.

Lindsay Brown of Bainbridge Island used to live just a few sidewalks and a side street away from The Poetry Pole. Now, she lives by the ocean and makes art out of sea glass and says she still can't decide which is better.

Kristin Henshaw has taught Japanese and Language Arts courses at Bainbridge High School for the past 20 years. Her poetry has been published in numerous magazines and journals, including Calyx, Crab Creek Review and convolvulus. She also has had feature articles published in The Bainbridge Review and the Yomiuri newspaper in Japan.

Jenifer Browne Lawrence of Poulsbo has been published in Potomac Review, Windfall, and Comstock Review. Blue Begonia Press will publish her first poetry collection, One Hundred Steps from Shore, in 2006.

John Willson, a poetry instructor for the Bainbridge Island Park District and a bookseller at Eagle Harbor Book company, is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize as well as awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference, the Artist Trust of Washington and the King County Arts Commission. His chapbook, The Son We Had, was published by Blue Begonia Press in 1999. He was a 1995 finalist in the National Poetry Series.

Scenes from the Whidbey Island

Save the Dates February and March

Weathered Pages Events in February and March

Please help promote these events by forwarding these links to friends and family who might be interested.

Friday, February 10 - 7 to 9 PM
Reading Seattle Richard Hugo House

Saturday, February 11 - 7 to 9 PM
Reading Langley's Island Coffee House

Sunday, February 12 - 5:15 to 8 PM
Free Workshop for High School Age StudentsLangley's Island Coffee House

February 15th, 630 pm
The Olympia Poetry Network and Blue Begonia Press present:An Evening of Weathered Poets
From The Olympia Poetry Network

Friday, February 17 at 7:30 p.m.
The Elliott Bay Book Company Weathered Pages Reading with:

Judith Roche

Joan Fiset

Paul Hunter

Cal Kinnear

Michael Daley

Mary Whitechester

Lynn Martin

Elizabeth Austen

Sharon Carter

Pam Dionne

Judith Skillman

Linda Clifton

Ann Spiers

MARCH 12, SUNDAY, 3PM
Eagle Harbor Books, Bainbridge, Washington

Washington Poets Association Hosts:

"Weathered Pages: The Poetry Pole 1996-2005"
Yakima Poets Come to Seattle & Whidbey Island

Free Reading Seattle Richard Hugo House
Friday, February 10 - 7 to 9 PM
Readers to include:

Cal Kinnear

Michael Daley

Connie Hutchison

Judith Skillman

Paul Hunter

Jenifer Lawrence

Keely Murphy

Free Reading Langley's Island Coffee House
Saturday, February 11 - 7 to 9 PM

Free Workshop for High School Age Students
Langley's Island Coffee House
Sunday, February 12 - 5:15 to 8 PM

If wine can age gracefully, why can't words? That was sort of what Blue Begonia Press operator Jim Bodeen of Yakima, Wash., had in mind when he decided to publish Weathered Pages: The Poetry Pole 1996-2005. Bodeen had been collecting the poems for years, ever since 1996, when he stuck a cedar post in the front yard of the home he shares with his wife, Karen, in Yakima, and invited the poetry community to share their work by pinning it to the post, entitled, aptly, "The Poetry Pole."

Nine years and hundreds of weather-stained, sometimes tear-stained pages later, Bodeen decided that the pole's pinnings were worth publishing. He enlisted the aid of three co-editors, Dan Peters, Terry Martin and Rob Prout, and sifted through 1,000 poems, gleaning the work of some 132 writers from throughout the Northwest.

With the help of a Breneman Jaech Foundation grant administered through the local Allied Arts of Yakima organization, Blue Begonia published Weathered Pages last September. The book has been featured at a number of public venues, including its debut last September at Bumbershoot.

But the show continues, and Weathered Pages writers will be gathering at Seattle's Richard Hugo House and at Langley's Island Coffee House for three public events in February.

First up, the Washington Poets Association and Richard Hugo House will co-sponsor a free Weathered Pages reading:

Friday, Feb. 10th - 7 to 9 p.m.Weathered Pages: The Poetry Pole Free Reading! Richard Hugo House Cabaret
1634 11th Ave.Seattle, WA 98122206-322-7030

Reading will be editors Bodeen, Peters, Martin and Prout. Donations are welcome and will help support non-profit small press, Blue Begonia's efforts to promote Weathered Pages.

Readers will also include:

Cal Kinnear

Michael Daley

Connie Hutchison

Judith Skillman

Paul Hunter

Then the show moves on to Whidbey Island, where the WPA, the Learning and Community Engagement Program (LACEP) and Americorps will co-sponsor:

Saturday, Feb. 11th - 7 to 9 p.m.
Weathered Pages: The Poetry Pole Free Reading!

At Island Coffee House124 2nd StreetLangley, WA - Whidbey Island360-221-2414

Reading will be editors Bodeen, Peters, Martin and Prout.
Donations are welcome and will help support non-profit small press, Blue Begonia's efforts to promote Weathered Pages.

Finally, the WPA, LACEP and Americorps will co-sponsor a free workshop for high school-age students. The workshop will be taught by Bodeen, who taught English at Yakima's Davis High School for 33 years. Sunday, Feb. 12th - 5:15 to 8 PM

Free Writing Workshop For high school age students At Island Coffee House 124 2nd Street Langley, WA - Whidbey Island 360-221-2414

When asked about the upcoming workshop, Bodeen said, "20 months ago I was given a word, Storypath/Cuentocamino. Two slammed- together nouns in English and Spanish. No handbook, no definition. Storypath/Cuentocamino is what I'm interested in. I have been given deeper explorations into testimony/testimonio, witnessing, and the relationship of poetry and listening. I'm not an expert in anything. I'm a beginner. In Spanish the word is principiante." For more information on this workshop contact Eve Preus

For More Information on these events contact: Victory Lee Schouten
360-331-7099

Eagle Harbor Books Hosts:

Eagle Harbor Books, Bainbridge Washington, Hosts:

BLUE BEGONIA PRESS POETS
MARCH 12, SUNDAY, 3PM

Weathered Pages: The Poetry Pole. For ten years a four-by-four wood pole has stood in the side yard at the home of Blue Begonia Press in Yakima, where it has received poems with push-pins from countless poets who also paused to read the work placed there by others. Editor Jim Bodeen, Keeper of the Pole, in concert with poet/editors Terry Martin, Dan Peters, and artist/poet/editor Rob Prout, distilled this collection of works enduring the tests of weather and time into the book Weathered Pages.

They will be joined by Bainbridge poets Lindsay Brown, Kristin Henshaw, and John Willson, along with Jenifer Lawrence of Poulsbo, Gayle Kaune of Port Townsend, and Alice Derry of Port Angeles, in a reading celebrating this quintessentially democratic venue.

For directions: Eagle Harbor Books

OPN and BBP

The Olympia Poetry Network and Blue Begonia Press present:
An Evening of Weathered Poets, February 15th, 630 pm.

From The Olympia Poetry Network:
http://www.scattercreek.com/~yake/opn.html.

Here is a picture of the shape of the evening.
The reading is held at Traditions Fair Trade Cafe, 300 Fifth Ave. SW (5th and Water Streets), downtown Olympia. We try to begin promptly, as near to 6:30 as possible.
Please bring friends, family, and books to sign and sell.
An open mike begins shortly after some opening remarks and lasts about 30 minutes.
We strongly encourage the open mike.

It is the mission of the Olympia Poetry Network to:
1) bring the strongest readers available to our community, and
2) encourage writers of all experience levels to share their work with us.

Here’s a link to the venue:
http://www.traditionsfairtrade.com/pages/tradhome.html.

Featured Poets TBA, but if you are interested in reading at this event and are in Weathered Pages, let us know soon and, like that, you’ll be a featured poet.