New Hugo House E.D.

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Splabman

Tree Swenson

Tree Swenson is new Executive Director at
Richard Hugo House
A letter from John Burgess, RHH Board President

Hello,

I have exciting news to share with you. Richard Hugo House has hired a new Executive Director—Tree Swenson.

Tree brings to Hugo House an incredible wealth of nonprofit literary arts leadership experience. Since 2002, Tree has served as the executive director of the American Academy of Poets in New York City, where she provided inspirational leadership, vision, strategy, and management of the $1.8 million national organization. Before that, Tree served as the Director of Programs at the Massachusetts Cultural Council in Boston.

Tree also has strong ties to the Northwest. She co-founded Copper Canyon Press in Port Townsend, the nationally recognized literary press devoted to poetry, and served as its executive director and publisher for 20 years. We’re so happy she wants to return to the Northwest!

Tree has been connected to the world of writing for many years. She has served on boards for literary organizations, served on countless arts grants and fellowship panels and taught classes at universities on both coasts.

We’re so enthusiastic about Tree’s arrival and the future of our work together. Over the next several years we’ll expand the depth and breadth of Hugo House’s impact through the efforts of our staff and community partners, the board’s good stewardship of resources, the momentum of Tree’s leadership, and your continued support and participation.

Tree will start at Hugo House in March. Please join us in officially welcoming Tree at our annual fundraising event, Eat Read Hugo, on March 29.

While I have the honor of making this announcement, I share the credit for this milestone with many others:

The  insightful group of volunteers who served on our Executive Director Search Committee, including board members, Hugo House teachers, and staff members.
Anne Jaworski, who provided incredible leadership as the chair of the Search Committee.
The talented group of close to 100 candidates, both from our local community and around the country, who recognized in Hugo House a unique opportunity to make a difference in the community.
Also, I want to publicly thank Barbara Green, who’s been serving as our interim executive director since June. She worked hard in her short time with us, bringing ideas and openly sharing her expertise, to leave us in great shape for our next journey.

Hope to see you at the House soon!

John Burgess
Board President

Posted in Blog | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Living Room, Tuesday Jan 24, 2012 7P

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Splabman
Nadine a Maestas

“Emerge this is not yet thinking”

—from Bernadette Mayer’s Writing Experiments

In this Living Room session, Nadine Maestas would like us to consider the concept of writing poems that are derived from experimental procedures. Examples will include the Oulipo Compendium edited by Harry Mathews & Alistair Brotchie, the American poet Bernadette Mayer’s widely circulated list of Writing Experiments and Journal Ideas, as well as Harryette Mullen’s book Sleeping With the Dictionary.  What are experiments? What are they for? Why do we design them? What do experiments test? What is the role of failure in experiments? Are experiments effective for writing poems? What is the role of the designer of experiments? What are the consequences of experiment? What are the stakes? How might the design of writing experiments affect the practice of writing?

Writers of all ages and skill levels gather Tuesdays at 7P to read new work, the work of someone else or to just be in the engaging company of other writers. Your donation of $5 helps SPLAB continue our programming. Please bring 8 copies of the work you plan to read. If you do not bring copies, they are available for 10c.

Living Room happens in the new SPLAB in the Cultural Corner of the old Columbia School, between Rainier AV S and 36th AV S, on Edmunds. We’re 2 blocks from the Columbia City Link Light Rail Station. (Parking is available on the school grounds.)

For the 2011-2012 SPLAB Schedule, click here.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

City of Poets

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Splabman

C.A. Conrad Weather: Mostly Sunny w/ a chance of Furries

It was a phrase used by C.A. Conrad when he visited Seattle and did a reading at SPLAB. He said he loved being part of our City of Poets. Our current Board President, Eze Anamalechi likes the idea of a Poetic Commons.

Another Board Member, Joe Chiveney, suggests we have Saturday workshops where the critique goes deeper than the Tuesday night Living Room circles.

One guy who took the Organic Poetry course at the Richard Hugo House, Aaron Kokorowski, wants to know if a takeoff on Warhol’s Factory project is possible. His equation SPLAB + Factory = SPLACtory.

Nadine Maestas wants to do a more academic look at Allen Ginsberg during the Ginsberg Marathon.

Brian McGuigan wants to throw a poet’s party with “the ones that write poems about salmon and death and email and shit I don’t even understand, small press poets, homemade chapbook poets, everyone, and come get to know each other, sort of like a mixer.”

You get the idea. Now, it’s your turn.

  • We’re turning SPLAB over to a collective, a poetic commons, a City of Poets. With the exception of two dates in the Fall, the 2012/2013 SPLAB season is yours to design. It requires a commitment, but that’s to be determined. We want to stick with writers and our bias is poets. We won’t put up with poetasters, but do want folks who want to grow in their own work. Please bring a short poem for the Living Room at SPLAB, 7PM on Tuesday, January 31 and come to tell us how you’d like to see SPLAB evolve; what project you have dreamed of doing with poets.

 

SPLAB is at 3651 S Edmunds in the former Columbia School. Just off Metro’s 7 or 8, a couple of blocks from the Columbia City Link Light Rail station with plenty of free parking, join the commons. We’ll also talk about Cascadia.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Living Room January 17th: Body/Image

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Splabman

For Walt Whitman, body-consciousness seemed to propel the poet beyond anything as simple as “interest” in the physiological processes of the body in health. The 1855 versions of “Song of Myself,” “The Sleepers,” and “I Sing the Body Electric” take their very inspiration from the being and workings of the human body. In these poems, bodily health is at once a metaphor for spiritual, social, and political success and a literal topic set on equal footing with the more traditional topics of poetic expression (Killingsworth). We’ll examine the use of the body in poetry and do a brief writing exercise too. Bring examples if you like. Meredith Nelson hosts.

Writers of all ages and skill levels gather Tuesdays at 7P to read new work, the work of someone else or to just be in the engaging company of other writers. Your donation of $5 helps SPLAB continue our programming. Please bring 8 copies of the work you plan to read. If you do not bring copies, they are available for 10c.

Living Room happens at SPLAB in the Cultural Corner at 3651 S. Edmunds. (Look for the SPLAB sign on the wall and come inside.) We’re 2 blocks from the Columbia City Link Light Rail Station. Parking is available on the school grounds.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment