Paul Nelson & Gary Lemons in Port Townsend

On Thursday, October 21, Northwind Reading Series features Gary Lemons and Paul Nelson.

The readings start at 7 p.m. in the Northwind Arts Center, 2409 Jefferson St.

Gary Lemons worked most of his life with his hands.  Along the way he discovered the act of writing poetry is little different than building any structure.  Poets, like farmers for instance, contour a field that is both imaginary and real and shaped with the instruments at hand.  The expectations at harvest are similar.  He spent two years at the University of Iowa in the Undergraduate Poetry Workshop and has published two books of poetry with a third, Snake, scheduled for publication in the Fall of 2013 with Red Hen Press.  Lemons is part Oneida and lived for 6 years on the Assiniboine reservation near Wolf Point, Montana.  He now teaches yoga with his beautiful life partner, the sculptor, Nöle Giulini in their studio, Tenderpaws.

Paul Nelson, is a Chicago native, founder of SPLAB (SPokenword LAB), author of a book of essays on poetics, Organic Poetry and author of a serial poem re-enacting the history of Auburn, Washington, A Time Before Slaughter.  He worked in radio for 26 years, interviewing Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Sam Hamill, Robin Blaser, Wanda Coleman, Eileen Myles, Jerome Rothenberg, George Bowering & others. Publication credits include: Golden Handcuffs Review, The Argotist, Raven Chronicles, Blackbox, Big Bridge, Fulcrum, Rattapallax & others.  Shortlisted for the Stranger’s Genius Award in Literature in 2010, he earned his M.A. from Lesley University in Organic Poetry, a study of North American poets writing (to different degrees) spontaneously, writes one American Sentence every day & lives in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood with his wife, Meredith.

Northwind readings are free, though donations are gladly accepted to support Northwind Arts Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting the arts to our community.  For more information contact Bill Mawhinney 437-9081.

About Splabman

Poet & interviewer Paul E Nelson founded SPLAB (Seattle Poetics LAB) & the Cascadia Poetry Festival. Since 1993, SPLAB has produced hundreds of poetry events & 600 hours of interview programming with legendary poets & whole systems activists including Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Joanne Kyger, Robin Blaser, Diane di Prima, Daphne Marlatt, Nate Mackey, George Bowering, Barry McKinnon, José Kozer, Brenda Hillman & many others. Paul’s books include American Prophets (interviews 1994-2012) (2018) American Sentences (2015) A Time Before Slaughter (2009) and Organic in Cascadia: A Sequence of Energies (2013). Co-Editor of Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia (2015), 56 Days of August: Poetry Postcards (2017) and Samthology: A Tribute to Sam Hamill (2019) Make it True meets Medusario (2019), he’s presented poetry/poetics in London, Brussels, Nanaimo, Qinghai & Beijing, China, has had work translated into Spanish, Chinese & Portuguese & writes an American Sentence every day. Awarded a residency at The Lake, from the Morris Graves Foundation in Loleta, CA, he’s published work in Golden Handcuffs Review, Zen Monster, Hambone, and elsewhere. Winner of the 2014 Robin Blaser Award from The Capilano Review, he is engaged in a 20 year bioregional cultural investigation of Cascadia and lives in Rainier Beach, in the Cascadia bioregion’s Cedar River watershed.
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