2021 Readings

January 29, 2021 — Janka Hobbs (poet)

Janka Hobbs recently joined the RASP board of directors, after being promised that it would require minimal adulting. Spell check helpfully changes the word “adulting” into “adulating.” She looks forward to adulating more poets. You can find Janka’s poems in Here, There, and Everywhere, 56 Days of August, on www.urbanfantasist.com, and a few other places. She has also released several short stories into the wild.

February 26, 2021 — Pongo Poetry Project Mentors read from The Shadow Beside Me (poets)

The Pongo Poetry Project uses personal poetry as a means for facilitating healing among those coping with devastating traumas, such as abuse, neglect, and exposure to violence. To that end, Pongo runs therapeutic poetry writing workshops inside detention centers, homeless shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and other sites where trauma is a dominant theme for the residents. The Shadow Beside Me is Pongo’s 15th collection of poetry, featuring work produced by youth served through its programming at King County Juvenile Detention. The poems describe profound loss, tragedy and sorrow but also capture the self-discovery and resilience that creative expression can bring. Pongo poetry mentors participating in this reading will read from the book and also read selections of their own poetry. You can purchase The Shadow Beside Me for $20 at https://www.paypal.com/instantcommerce/checkout/JQSDA2249SAKW.

Lisette Austin is a web designer, podcaster, traveler, dancer, and former freelance writer. She has volunteered with Pongo for multiple years, mentoring both youth and adults. She’s always grateful when poems appear, asking to be written.

Maven Gardner is a Black, nonbinary, Seattle-born creative. They got wrapped up in poetry at age seven and have been at it ever since. They served as the Seattle Youth Poet Laureate for 2016–17 and published their first book of poetry, Blood Melody, in 20017. They also got the chance to work/open for some amazing creatives, artists, and activists such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jane Fonda, and Pearl Jam. They have been featured in other poetry books such as Catalyst and WA129. Their goal as a poet has always been to make people sweat and ask questions.

Richard Gold is the founder of the Pongo Poetry Project, a 25-year-old nonprofit whose mission is to help marginalized youth heal from trauma through writing personal poetry. In his 2014 book, Writing with At-Risk Youth, Gold codifies the Pongo Method; the uniquely successful trauma-informed technique he created for teaching therapeutic poetry. Gold has been the recipient of multiple honors, including a presentation from Bill and Melinda Gates, recognizing his tireless work in both founding Pongo and championing increased access to trauma-informed expressive arts opportunities for youth and others leading difficult lives.

Emily Holt is the author of Though the Walls Are Lit (Lost Horse Press, 2020). Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Hinterland, and other publications. She received her MFA in creative writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and a Master of Letters in literature from Trinity College Dublin. She lives in Seattle, where she teaches writing.

Nadia Imafidon is an unapologetic Nigerian-American spoken word poet who hosts a virtual poetry series called Reclaiming Inside where she creates a community space for writers to explore what’s happening inside as we are forced to stay inside. She also cohosts The Table Podcast, where she and Isaac Sanders have table conversations about black, queer, and femme experiences.

Shaun McMichael, MAT, is Pongo Poetry Project’s program manager. He spent the last ten years teaching marginalized youth in the Seattle area. Forty of his short stories and essays have been published online and in print. He lives in West Seattle with his wife and son.

Ashley Noelle Skartvedt is a certified therapeutic recreation specialist, with experience working in residential psychiatric care for children and adolescents. She holds an MFA in creative writing and poetics from the University of Washington Bothell. Her creative work focuses on coping with mental illness, overcoming trauma, and healing through writing.

March 26, 2021 — J. I. Kleinberg (poet)

J. I. Kleinberg has twice been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. She is coeditor of 56 Days of August (Five Oaks Press, 2017) and Noisy Water: Poetry from Whatcom County, Washington (Other Mind Press, 2015), and coproduces the Bellingham-based SpeakEasy poetry series. Her poetry has appeared in One, Pontoon, Pedestal Magazine, Psaltery & Lyre, December, and elsewhere, and more than 400 of her found-word collage poems have been published in print and online. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, and posts frequently at https://chocolateisaverb.wordpress.com/“ and https://thepoetrydepartment.wordpress.com/ and occasionally on Instagram @jikleinberg.

July 30, 2021 — Dori Jones Yang (memoir)

Dori Jones Yang is an award-winning author who spent eight years as a foreign correspondent for BusinessWeek covering China during the 1980s. In her memoir, When the Red Gates Opened: A Memoir of China’s Reawakening, Dori brings to life this transformative time in history and in her personal life. Educated in history at Princeton and in international relations at Johns Hopkins, she worked in journalism for twenty years and has written seven other books. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, she has traveled throughout China and spoken about her books across the United States. Visit her website at https://dorijonesyang.com/.

August 27, 2021 — Mike Dillon (poet)

Mike Dillon, former publisher of Pacific Publishing Company, lives in Indianola in Kitsap County. He is the author of four books of poetry and three books of haiku. Several of his haiku were included in Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, from W. W. Norton (2013). His most recent full-length book, Departures: Poetry and Prose on the Removal of Bainbridge Island’s Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, was published by Unsolicited Press in April 2019. Finishing Line Press published his chapbook, The Return, in March of 2021.

September 24, 2021 — Matt Trease (poet)

Matt Trease is an artist and astrologer living on the Duwamish ancestral homeland in south Seattle, Washington, where he serves on the board of the Cascadia Poetics Lab, cocurates the Margin Shift reading series, and teaches at Hugo House. His poems have most recently appeared in small po[r]tions, WordLitZine, Phoebe, Fact-Simile, Hotel Amerika, and Juked, and in the anthologies, Shake the Tree Volume 3 (Brightly Press, 2018) and Make It True Meets Medusario (Pleasure Boat Studios, 2019). He is the author of the chapbook Later Heaven: Production Cycles (busylittle1way designs, 2013).

October 29, 2021 — Tom Prince (poet)

Thomas R Prince is known for writing and producing experimental no-budget multimedia stage shows in Seattle from the 1980s as well as political theater through the 1990s. His photocopy satire magazine Threadbare Rag was also known during Seattle’s grunge era. He has a newly created website, https://threadbarerag.com/. Prince is currently working on a documentary video project with a working title, “Red Sky Poetry Theatre: An Alternative Seattle.” When inspired, he writes poems.

November 19, 2021 — Jack Straw Writers:
Michael Overa, Paulette Perhach, and Abi Pollokoff (fiction, nonfiction, writer)

Michael Overa teaches composition at Shoreline Community College and Edmonds College. He has published more than thirty short stories and two collections. Michael is currently at work on his first novel, No Way Home.

Paulette Perhach’s work has been in The New York Times, Slate, Hobart, The Journal, McSweeney’s, and Vice. Poets & Writers selected her book, Welcome to the Writer’s Life, for its list of Best Books for Writers.

Abi Pollokoff is a writer and book artist with work in Denver Quarterly, Foundry, Poetry Northwest, and Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. She has held fellowships or residencies with Hugo House, Seattle Review of Books, and more.

December 10, 2021 — Holiday Paaaaaarty!

Wear your Santa hats and ugly sweaters. Bring your creative spirit and be prepared to win the Island Style Slam!