SPLAB! Co-Founders Danika Dinsmore & Paul Nelson in SPLAB!
at 14 S. Division, Auburn, WA, before it opened, in December 1996

Red Sky Reunion Series resumes on October 4, 2009 at the Richard Hugo House! (Feature to be determined.) And look for our Red Sky Facebook group.

The Northwest SPokenword LAB is an Intergenerational SPokenword Performance, Resource and Outreach project, dedicated to Poetry, Story-telling, Conversation, Debate, Consciousness and building community through shared experience of the spoken and written word.

No longer having a physical space, it exists as an asset to people and institutions who are open to the life-enhancing possibilities of the skillful use of language, practiced as a discipline to help facilitate that quest.

Upcoming workshops:

Personal Mythology of Organic Poetry

To what do you train your attention? Organic Poetry is one way to describe the process of training your ear to capture the chaotic energy of the moment, to make composition an occasion of experience. This entertaining workshop for serious writers of all levels of experience includes lively discussions and sound from interviews with poets McClure, Myles, Rothenberg, Ginsberg, Waldman. Through a series of intensifying creative writing exercises over the six week course, you will develop an understanding of your own personal mythology and write at that deeper level of consciousness.

Outlines for each week linked here.

For info on the latest Poetry Postcard Fest, see this site.

For notes and pertinent links on the October 5, 2008, Sam Hamill workshop, click here.

For 25 years Red Sky was the longest continuously-running poetry open mic on the West Coast. It ended in 2005, but a successful reunion was staged on December 14, 2007 at the Richard Hugo House and more readings are planned for the first Sundays in February, March and April, 2009. One person said, "There are a lot of open mics in Seattle, but Red Sky is a poetry reading."

July 27, 2007 marked the launch of the August Poetry Postcard Fest. Co-facilitated by poet Lana Ayers, this project perfectly illustrates the Splab interest in the intersection of an individual's poetry practice and the effort to use a collaborative poetry project to build community.

For info on the latest Poetry Postcard Fest, see this site.