Seattle's poetry scene is built upon a long-standing foundation

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Seattle's poetry scene is built upon a long-standing foundation

Thursday, April 20, 2000

By JOHN MARSHALL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER BOOKS REPORTER

April is the fifth annual National Poetry Month, with observances of various kinds across the country.

But April is hardly the only poetry month in Seattle, at least not anymore.

A remarkably active life of verse has sprung up in just the past few years, with readings and performances, within the city and beyond.

A look at the foundations of Seattle's poetry scene. Read more.

"Seattle has become a leading city for poetry," observes Linda Bierds, an award-winning poet who heads the creative writing program at the University of Washington. "This has been happening very gradually over the last 40 years, beginning with Theodore Roethke and leading to Elizabeth Bishop and David Wagoner, until this is truly a major city for poetry."

What had once been a subculture in Seattle has now gone mainstream. The most recent example was the 300 people who turned out each evening at a new four-poet reading series begun by Seattle Arts & Lectures and A Contemporary Theatre.

On May 2-7, the Seattle Poetry Festival, an upstart venture launched by poets Noel Franklin and Bob Redmond, settles into its third edition at nine venues and includes an appearance by Gwendolyn Brooks, an 83-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner.

Other contributors to this poetry outpouring have been the monthly Subtext reading series, the Roethke Memorial Reading at the UW, the Rendezvous Room Reading Series, The Elliott Bay Book Co., University Book Store and Richard Hugo House.

Also: "Poets Among Us," a 1998 series at the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park; the semi-annual Crab Creek Review published on Vashon Island; Pontoon, an annual anthology of work by Washington poets published by Floating Bridge Press of Seattle; Blue Begonia Press of Yakima, which publishes only verse; Bumbershoot literary festival; and one Seattle poetry fanatic named Jeffrey Cantrell who is sponsoring (with Sherman Alexie's financial assistance) his own series of public readings by national poets (John Ashbery, Marilyn Hacker, Thom Gunn).

There is also the Seattle Poetry Slam, now in its eighth year, which holds intense performances every Wednesday evening at Dutch Ned's in Pioneer Square, amid often-raucous crowds of 75 to 100 people.

All this activity has been built on the strong foundation provided by the pillars of poetry in Seattle -- people, places and publications that have been here for the long haul in exceptional ways. They have been crucial to what is happening now.

Poets have contributed to this sudden flowering, including such fine, established writers as Tess Gallagher of Port Angeles and Alexie (current national slam champ), Colleen J. McElroy and Madeline DeFrees of Seattle.

The epicenter remains the creative-writing program at the UW. Its small faculty includes, incredibly, two chancellors of the Academy of American Poets (Heather McHugh and David Wagoner, whose term just ended), an 18-person board that is seen as this country's poetry elite, and two poets who are recipients of MacArthur Foundation "genius" grants (Bierds and Richard Kenney).

So when California philanthropist Ravi Desai, went looking for a place to make a major donation on behalf of poetry, it is not too surprising that his search led him to the UW program. His recent $2 million gift is only one more confirmation that poetry has become a major force in Seattle.