August 20, 2008. The Poetrynight Poets of Bellingham hit town. This dynamic 5-Some brings their energetic tour from the borderlands of NW Washington, where they've hosting readings for over a decade, to Olympia. Olympia's version of the tour will feature: Anna Wolff, who writes, teaches and firmly believes that poets will someday regain their rightful status as rockstars; Ray Arani - a superhero-in-training and goat-farming enthusiast who spends most of her time in the woods playing with stinging nettles, studying Muay Thai, or researching the art of war; Eva Suter, who lives, drinks, writes and rides her bike in Bellingham – but, she says, "don't hold her to it"; Chris Gusta teaches high school, occasionally plays guitar and sings in a band called deerseekingheadlights; and Sarah Goodin, who first performing at 2, serenading her mother with Lionel Ritchie renditions; she's since washed dishes in a nursing home, hand-delivered groceries over the cobblestone streets of Boston, and represented the environmental research group WashPIRG. She released her first CD, Goodnight Noises Everywhere in July. The anticipation is palpable.

July 16, 2008. Michael Magee of Tacoma has been published in Poetry, Epoch, Poetry Northwest, Real Change and The Seattle Review. He has three chapbooks: Ireland’s Eye, A Trip to Jerusalem and Duo. His work has won the Seattle Eisteddfod Competition and the Wellberry Prize. One of plays was produced as a film which won the Best Actor Award at the Bare Bones Script-2-Screen Indie Film Festival.

June 18, 2008. Lohmann Poetry Prize Reading. Three winners have been announced for the 5th annual Jeanne Lohmann Poetry prize sponsored and judged by Jeanne’s poetry friends in California, and facilitated by OPN. The winners (with their hometowns and poems) are Shin Yu Pai (Seattle, Footprint), David Rizzi (Seattle, emergence), and Sean Brendan-Brown (Olympia, Otaka the Cat). Also, contest sponsor Valerie Berry, hopes to be in town "to say a word or two about each winning poem..., what caught the eye/ear/imagination." We hope Jeanne Lohmann will read as well.

May 21, 2008. Rebecca Loudon is the author of two collections of poetry, Tarantella and Radish King from Ravenna Press, and a chapbook, Navigate, Amelia Earhart’s Letters Home from No Tell Books. Her third collection of poetry, Cadaver Dogs, is forthcoming, also from No Tell Books. She is a violinist with Philharmonia Northwest Chamber Orchestra and teaches violin to children. Her work has appeared in Seattle Review, Portland Review, Texas Poetry Review, Crab Orchard Review, Forklift Ohio, among other places. She is the librettist for composer Roupen Shakarian, and is currently writing the libretto for an opera, Red Queen, based on the relationship between Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell.

April 16, 2008. In honor of National Poetry Month, Board members of the Olympia Poetry Network, will channel the works of favorite dead poets, proving that those who came before us still come alive when their works are read. This year should, again, prove interesting. Jane Kenyon is expected to show up as is Linda Hull. Other possible luminaries? The notorious Charles Bukowski, the light-footed e.e. cummings, inovative drinkers John Berryman and Richard Hugo, and a cross-over from the visual arts: Morris Graves . After these illustrious poets have performed, the audience will be invited to share their own favorite dead-poet poems in the Open Mike session. Rumor has it the Denise Levertov and several flood-water blues singers may be represented. Please join us for an entertaining evening among old, but not forgotten, friends.

March 19, 2008. Susan Rich is the author of Cures Include Travel and The Cartographer's Tongue, Poems of the World, which won the PEN USA Award and the Peace Corps Award. Her poems appear in Massachusetts Review, New England Review, New Orleans Review and Witness. She teaches at Highline Community College and lives in Seattle.

February 20, 2008. Lana Hechtman Ayers runs Night Rain Poetry, which offers poetry editing, a manuscript organization service, and writing and publishing workshops. Lana is the publisher of the Concrete Wolf Poetry Chapbook Series and Poetry Editor of Crab Creek Review. She is the author of two full-length books of poetry and a chapbook. An award-winning poet and Pushcart nominee, her work appears in numerous journals and anthologies. Lana curates a monthly poetry reading series at SoulFood Books in Redmond, WA.

January 16, 2008. Carolyn Maddux left her post as managing editor of the Shelton-Mason County Journal five years ago. She teaches a creative writing class at Olympic College Shelton where she is co-convener of Write in the Woods Writers Conference. Carolyn has also lead several OPN workshops. She and her husband have an antiques shop in Shelton. In 1998 she earned her master of arts from Antioch University’s McGregor School. Her poetry books are Remembering Water (1996, Bellowing Ark Press) and a letterpress chapbook, Voluntary on a Flight of Angels (2003, Hypatia Press), and has a book of poetry and one of essays in progress. Carolyn is a member of the board of Hypatia-in-the-Woods, whose Holly House recently opened its doors near Shelton providing residencies for women in the arts. She'll have information on that program at her reading.

December 19, 2007. OPN's Traditional Season's Readings. Bring your favorite mid-winter poem as we celebrate short days, the chill, a range of religious and secular traditions, and the promise of eventual sun.

November 6, 2007. A reading by and for Craig Oare in celebration of his 60th year. Also featuring — poetry guests Bonnie Jones and Jean Turnbow, and music from Josh Amberson. Craig is the author of five chapbooks, including the newly-published Oh My God, I’m 60! His work has been anthologized in Earth First! Campfire Poems and The Last Adventure of Life: Sacred Resources for Transition. He has lived and worked in Olympia since 1981, including a ten-year stint at Orca Books. He plans to set up roadside stand with a big sign that says Fresh Poetry.

October 17, 2007. Jerry Martien is the author of Pieces in Place, poems drawn from a thirty-seven-year residence on California’s northern coast. His work is included in Poems for the Wild Earth, The Geography of Home: California’s Poetry of Place, and the forthcoming Working the Woods, Working the Sea. He has also written a history of economic exchange, Shell Game: A True Account Of Beads And Money In North America. He has worked as a carpenter, book store clerk, poet-teacher in rural schools, editor of bioregional magazines, a writing teacher at Humboldt State University in Arcata, and has been an active participant in Humboldt County’s nature and culture wars.

September 19, 2007. Allen Braden has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, an Artist Trust fellowship, an Artist Trust grant, the Emerging Writers Prize from Witness magazine, the Grolier Poetry Prize and other honors. His work is anthologized in Best New Poets 2005, Spreading the Word: Editors on Poetry, and Family Matters: Poems of Our Families. A former poet-in-residence for the Poetry Center and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he now teaches at Tacoma Community College.

August 15, 2007. John Burgess Is a Seattle poet who grew up in upstate New York, worked on a survey crew in Montana and taught English in Japan. His influences include 1970’s punk music, Montana bars, haiku and his family; while his poet-heroes include Whitman, Dickinson, Kerouac and Bob Dylan. John’s poems have appeared in the King County Poetry on Buses project, Sidecar Anemone, Cranky, Pontoon, elimae and Chrysanthemum. John has further imbedded himself in the PNW poetry scene as a 2006 Jack Straw writer, a co-founder of the Washington Poets Association’s Burning Word Festival, and editor of Snow Monkey (an eclectic literary journal). His first book was Punk Poems (2005) from Ravenna Press, who will publish a second collection, A History of Guns in the Family, in 2008.

August 11, 2007. The Olympia Poetry Network presents the “Farm Reading” at a new time (Saturday at 7 PM) and new location: Batdorf and Bronson Coffeehouse, 516 S. Capitol Way, Olympia. Featured readers will be Allen Braden, Paul Hunter and Jeanne Lohmann. This special reading brings together three northwest poets and their connection to the land. Donations for Thurston County Food Bank Awareness month are encouraged.

July 18, 2007. Jane Alynn’s first collection of poems, Threads & Dust, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2005. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, such as StringTown, The Pacific Review, Quercus Review, Manorborn, Snowy Egret, and Switched-on Gutenberg, as well as in anthologies. In 2004 she was awarded a William Stafford Award from Washington Poets Association. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and currently lives in Anacortes.

June 20, 2007. Lohmann Poetry Prize Reading. Three winners have been announced for the 4th annual Jeanne Lohmann Poetry prize sponsored and judged by Jeanne’s poetry friends in California and facilitated by OPN. The winners (with their hometowns and poems) are Sally Albiso (10 miles west of Port Angeles, Water Witching), Jim Bertolino (Bellingham, My Sister's Daughter), and Matthew Campbell Roberts (Bellingham, Some Waters, Some People, Some Time Ago). Also, contest sponsor Valerie Berry, hopes to be in town "to say a word or two about each winning poem..., what caught the eye/ear/imagination." We hope Jeanne Lohmann will read as well.

May 16, 2007. Peter Pereira is a family physician in Seattle, and was a founding editor of Floating Bridge Press. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, New England Review, Journal of the American Medical Association, and have been widely anthologized, including in the forthcoming 2007 issue of Best American Poetry. His books include The Lost Twin, Saying the World, and What’s Written on the Body, which was newly released by Copper Canyon Press in February, 2007.

April 18, 2007. In honor of National Poetry Month, Board members of the Olympia Poetry Network, will channel the works of favorite dead poets, proving that those who came before us still come alive when their works are read. This year should prove to be interesting. Woody Guthrie is expected to show up as is James Wright. A lady poet (maybe one with multi-personalities or schizophrenia) who came to a tragic ending has put in a bid to appear. And a pyrotechnic display of quick-changing personalities might appear through the corporeal presence of Jim Bill. Marina Tsvetaeva, William Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda and Robert Frost are some of the names mentioned. After these illustrious poets have performed, the audience will be invited to share their own favorite dead poet poems in the Open Mike session. Please join us for an entertaining evening among old, but not forgotten, friends.

March 21, 2007. Kathleen Flenniken began as a civil engineer and hydrologist, then added the skills of a poetry and the teaching of creative writing. She was born in Richland and worked on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, but is now a poet, teacher andco-editor and president of Floating Bridge Press, which is dedicated to publishing Washington State poets. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Iowa Review, The Southern Review, Mid-American Review, Farm Pulp, Prairie Schooner, and Poetry Daily. Her first collection, Famous (2006, University of Nebraska Press) won the 2005 Prairie Schooner Prize.

February 21, 2007. Open Mike from 6:30 to 8:00. Bring your best.

February 7, 2007 - Note: This reading is on the 1st rather than the 3rd Wednesday of the month. Derek Sheffield won the James Hearst Poetry Award judged by Li-Young Lee, and David Wagoner chose nine of his poems for Poet Lore’s “Poets Introducing Poets”. His work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Ecotone, Crab Creek Review, Margie,Cranky, The Bellingham Review, several anthologies, and one chapbook (A Mouthpiece of Thumbs, Blue Begonia, 2000). In ddition, his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, featured on National Public Radio, and earned him grants from Artist Trust and the Seattle Music and Arts Commission. He lives in the foothills of the Cascades and teaches at Wenatchee Valley College where his courses include Creative Writing and Northwest Nature Writing, a learning community with ornithologist Dan Stephens.

January 17, 2007. Born in Spokane, Thomas Aslin (who lives in Seattle) has lived nearly all of his life in the Northwest. Aslin holds a B.A. from the University of Washington and an M.F.A. from the University of Montana where he studied with Madeline DeFrees and the late Richard Hugo. His poems have appeared in Natural Bridge, INTRO 12, and Artful Dodge, among others. Recently (2006) Red Wing Press published his chapbook Sweet Smoke, and in the fall of 2007 Clark City Press (Livingston, Montana) will bring out a full-length collection entitled A Moon over Wings & Other Poems.

December 20, 2006. OPN's Traditional Season's Readings. Bring your favorite mid-winter poem as we celebrate short days, the chill, a range of religious and secular traditions, and the promise of eventual sun.

November 15, 2006. Holly Hughes' poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and have appeared in the anthologies, American Zen: A Gathering of Poets and Family Matters: Poems Of Our Families as well as in the Alaska Quarterly Review and The Midwest Quarterly, among others. A graduate of the low-residency MFA program, Rainier Writing Workshop, she teaches writing at Edmonds Community College and co-directs the Convergence Writer's Series. She lives in a log cabin built in the 1930s in Indianola.

October 18, 2006. Thomas A. Thomas originally hails Midwest but for 24 years has adopted western Washington as home and lives now in Olympia. He worked as Detroit correspondent for a St. Louis based rock and jazz magazine, Concert News, covering many of the major acts of the mid-1970's. In 1981, he camped his way West, to Washington State, where he has lived happily ever since, doing infrequent readings at local colleges and universities, and working on poetry in the background while he pursued a civil service career, marriage, and family. His collection Getting Here was published by Trafford Publishing.

September 20, 2006. Three of Olympia's younger poets (Sam Lohmann, Gaia Thomas and Rob Ross) will be featured. Sam Lohmann recently published a chapbook (The Summer Rooms and the Base of the Mountain), and is currently wrapping up another (Listen and Run). Rumor is Sam likes swimming in lakes. Gaia Thomas has recently published a chapbook: Cut from the Body: How I Survived High School. Rob Ross is an owner of Last Word Books. Come see what the future holds.

August 16, 2006. Joseph Green’s poems have appearing in magazines since 1975 and have been collected in His Inadequate Vocabulary (1986), Deluxe Motel (1991), Greatest Hits: 1975--2000, and The End of Forgiveness, which won the Floating Bridge Press Poetry Chapbook Award for 2001. He was PEN Northwest’s Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writer for 2000, in residence at the Dutch Henry Homestead in Oregon’s Rogue River Canyon; and in 2002 he held a residency at Fundación Valparaiso, in Mojacar, Spain. He lives in Longview, Washington, where he has taught English at Lower Columbia College for the last twenty years.

July 12, 2006. [Note that this date is the 2nd Wednesday of the month.] Thomas Hubbard moved from his sloop to Seattle's Lower Queen Anne neighborhood last winter, and is still re-exploring city life, Which is basically just life you can walk to. Thomas is a retired freelance feature writer and writing instructor who became active in Seattle's Slam and other venues in 1993, winning the Grand Slam in 1995. He has been published in various poetry anthologies and his first chapbook, Nail and other hardworking poems, was published in 1995 by Year of the Dragon Press. He has since published Children Remember Their Fathers, an anthology of mostly performance poets from across the country. His book reviews have appeared in Square Lake and Raven Chronicles. He runs gazoobi tales publishing, a very small imprint currently offering work by John Kulm, M. Anne Sweet, Dave Caserio and Tiffany Midge. He currently serves on the board of Washington Poetry Association.

June 21, 2006. Lucia Perillo has published four books of poetry -- Dangerous Life, which won the Norma Farber Award from Northeastern University Press, The Body Mutinies (Purdue, 1996) which also won a number of awards, The Oldest Map With the Name America (Random House, 1999), and her new book, Luck is Luck, which been included in the New York Public Library’s list of “books to remember” from 2005and has just received the prestigious Kingsley Tufts prize. Her poetry, essays and short fiction have appeared in many magazines and have been reprinted in the Pushcart and Best American Poetry anthologies. In the year 2000 she received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. She has taught at Syracuse University, Saint Martin’s University, Southern Illinois University and now "decomposes" in Olympia, Washington.

May 18, 2006. Lohmann Poetry Prize Reading. Three winners have been announced for the 3rd annual Jeanne Lohmann Poetry prize sponsored and judged by Jeanne’s poetry friends in California and facilitated by OPN. The winners (and their hometowns and poems) are Claire McQuerry (Richland, Poem for the Paris Metro), Janet Norman Knox (Bainbridge Island, The Beauty of a Husband in Fall), and Kelli Russell Agodon (Kingston, I Stay Up All Night and Grieve for the Future). Sadly, the winners will not be attending to read their poems, they will be read by board member Phil Peters. Also Jeanne Lohmann, Olympia’s wonderful, prolific, and most special poet will read.

April 19, 2006. A Reading of Dead Poets. Once again, experience dead poets in OPN's annual celebration of April as Poetry Month. These poets (including Rumi, Allen Ginsburg, Hart Crane and Tu Fu) come alive when their work is read. See for yourself, when local poets from the Olympia Poets Network – some in costume - read aloud from the works of favorite dead poets. Resurrect the spirit. After a short program, the audience will be invited to follow suit at an open mic, so bring the work of your favorite dead poet, and feel the magic.

March 15, 2006. Last month's Weathered Pages reading - which was postponed due to the electrical fire at Traditions - has been rescheduled for March 15. Weathered Pages is an anthology containing the works of 132 diverse poets and published by Blue Begonia Press (Yakima). Its poems were selected from postings on The Poetry Pole in a central Washington garden. The editors of these weather-worn pages are Terry Martin (“The strength of the Poetry Pole is its resistance to formula.”), Dan Peters (“It is a way to testify.”), Rob Prout (who makes images), and Jim Bodeen (Keeper of the Pole , “The Pole arrived in a vision.”). The editors will testify; as will at least 4 Olympia-area contributors (Sky Crosby, Kevin Miller, Bill Ransom, and Bill Yake). Explore the mystery.

January 18, 2006. Laura Puryear Finnell lives in Tumwater, Washington. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles in 2004 and has been published widely in print and on-line journals, including Olympia 4th Street, Maize, Arnazella, Banyan Review and Rock Salt Plum Poetry. She is on the Board of Directors for Gertrude Press in Portland and teaches poetry workshops through community education at South Puget Sound Community College and Inkberry.org. She works for St. Martin's University.

December 21, 2005. OPN's Traditional Season's Readings. Bring your favorite mid-winter poem as we celebrate short days, the chill, a range of religious and secular traditions, and the promise of eventual sun.

November 16, 2005. Zhang Er was born in Beijing, China and moved to US in 1986. The full length collections of her poetry, Seen, Unseen, was published by QingHai Publishing House of China in 1999 and Water Words was published by New World Poetry Press in 2002. Her poems have also appeared in many poetry journals. Her five chapbooks were published in recent years. Verses on Bird, Ms. Zhang’s selected poems, was published from Zephyr Press in the summer of 2004. She has read and lectured at international festivals, conferences, reading series around the world. She currently teaches at The Evergreen State College.

October 19, 2005. Tim Kelly was born and bred in the Midwest, but has been an Olympian since 1981. He has an MFA from Boston University, and has had three books published, most recently Toccata & Fugue, which won the 2005 Floating Bridge Chapbook competition. He has new poems forthcoming in Willow Springs, Field, and Healing Muse. He works in Olympia as a physical therapist, and teaches occasionally at the Evergreen State College.

September 21, 2005. Lyn Coffin is currently a Writer in the Schools for Seattle Arts and Lectures, an actor with EffectiveArts, and an experienced certified social worker. She is the author of seven books, three of original poetry, four of translation from Russian and Czech. One of her stories appeared lifetimes ago in Best American Short Stories, edited by Joyce Carol Oates.. She moved to Seattle a little over a year ago, and has read at Bumbershoot, Burning Word House of Open Mics, Elliott Bay Bookstore, and elsewhere, and launched Hugo House's series, "Writers and Work" last year.

August 17, 2005. Don Frease is an Olympia poet, writer, artist, and craftsman – specializing in woodwork and furniture design. He has published five chapbooks of poetry and his poems have appeared in journals including The Asheville Poetry Review, Rosebud and The Sulphur River Literary Review. He has served as poet-in-residence for men’s gatherings and has conducted numerous writing workshops. Don earned a BA in Art from The Evergreen State College and an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Bennington College.

July 20, 2005. Anita K. Boyle is a co-director of the Whatcom Poetry Series: The Poet as Art, and the publisher/editor of Egress Studio Press. She won the 2004 Red Sky Poetry Theatre statewide competition and is included in the anthology Red Sky Morning. Her poems have appeared in StingTown, The Raven Chronicles, Spoon River Poetry Review, Indiana Review, Stories with Grace , Jeopardy, Margin, Arbutus.com and Crab Creek Review.

James Bertolino has taught creative writing at Cornell University, Washington State University, University of Cincinnati, Linfield College and Western Washington University. He will be the Hallie Brown Ford Professor of Creative Writing at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon for 2005-06. Bertolino is author of nine volumes and fourteen chapbooks of poetry and prose, including New & Selected Poems (Carnegie Mellon) and First Credo and Sanil River (both from QRL).

Together their collaborations are forthcoming in the anthology Saints of Hysteria: a Half-Century of Poetry Collaboration in America (2005, Soft Skull Press).

June 15, 2005. The Boston Phoenix named Jack McCarthy “Best Standup Poet,” The Boston Globe said, “In the poetry world, he's a rock star.” Poet Stephen Dobyns calls him, "one of the wonders of contemporary poetry." He’s an engaging minor character in the film Slamnation and was a semifinalist for the Individual Slam Championship in 2000. His work appears in the anthologies The Spoken Word Revolution, Poetry Slam, and Complete Idiot's Guide to Slam Poetry. His most recent book, from EM Press, is called Say Goodnight, Grace Notes. Check out his website .

May 18, 2005. Lohmann Poetry Prize Reading. Three winners will soon be announced for the 2nd annual Jeanne Lohmann Poetry prize sponsored and judged by Jeanne’s poetry friends in California and facilitated by OPN. The winners (and their hometowns and poems) are Lyn Coffin (Seattle, Ned's Aria), Kevin Miller (Tacoma, When My Mother), and Ocean (Olympia, Octopus).The winners will each read several poems, including the winning poems. Jeanne Lohmann, Olympia’s wonderful, prolific, and most special poet will also read.

April 20, 2005. A Reading of Dead Poets. Once again, experience dead poets in OPN's annual celebration of April as Poetry Month. These poets (including Amy Clampitt, Robert Sund and William Stafford) come alive when their work is read. See for yourself, when local poets from the Olympia Poets Network – some in costume - read aloud from the works of favorite dead poets. Resurrect the spirit. After a short program, the audience will be invited to follow suit at an open mic, so bring the work of your favorite dead poet, and feel the magic.

March 16, 2005. Carolyn Maddux left her post as managing editor of the Shelton-Mason County Journal two and a half years ago and has since been teaching, editing, traveling a bit and selling antiques. She is co-convener of the Olympic College Shelton Writers Conference, Write in the Woods. In 1998 she earned her master of arts through the McGregor School of Antioch University in Ohio. Her first book of poetry, Remembering Water , was published by Bellowing Ark Press in 1996. A hand-printed, limited-edition letterpress chapbook, Voluntary on a Flight of Angels, was published in 2003 by Hypatia Press.

February 16, 2005. Libby Wagner was born in Madrid, Spain, and grew up with her military family traveling the United States. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from Eastern Washington University where she also began working in the Writers in the Prison program. In between her moves, she’s taught writing, waited tables, sold clothing at Lord & Taylor, and worked on backcountry re-vegetation crews. In 2004, she directed the Vagina Monologues production in Port Angeles, and currently, she lives in Olympia where she continues her work as an educator. Like This, Like That is her first collection of poems. Recent work has appeared in Willow Springs, Redactions and Writers Harvest.

January 19, 2005. Lucia Perillo has published three books of poetry --Dangerous Life, which won the Norma Farber Award from Northeastern University Press, The Body Mutinies (Purdue 1996) which also won a number of awards, and most recently The Oldest Map With the Name America (Random House 1999.) Her poetry, essays and short fiction have appeared in many magazines and have been reprinted in the Pushcart and Best American Poetry anthologies. In the year 2000 she received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. She lives in Olympia, Washington.

December 15, 2004. OPN's Traditional Season's Readings. Bring your favorite mid-winter poem as we celebrate short days, the chill, a range of religious traditions and the promise of eventual sun.

November 17, 2004. Peter Pereira divides his time between work as a family physician at High Point Community Clinic in West Seattle, and volunteering as an editor at Floating Bridge Press. Winner of the 1997 "Discovery"/The Nation Award, his books include The Lost Twin (Grey Spider Press 2000) and Saying the World (Copper Canyon 2003), which won the Hayden Carruth Award, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the Triangle Publishing Award, and the PEN USA Award in Poetry.

October 20, 2004. Bethany Reid teaches literature, poetry, and composition at Everett Community College and is a 2004 co-winner of the Lohmann Poetry Prize. She holds degrees in poetry and American Literature from the University of Washington. Her poetry has been published in Prairie Schooner, The Bellingham Review, The Duckabush Journal, Chrysanthemum, The Seattle Review, Santa Clara Review, Calyx and other literary magazines. Her chapbook, The Coyotes and My Mom, was published in 1990 by Bellowing Ark Press. She is currently at work on a book about life in Puritan America.

September 15, 2004. Judith Skillman is a teacher, widely published poet, and co-editor of Fine Madness – the Seattle-based literary magazine. She has received numerous grants and awards, including the Eric Mathieu King Fund from the Academy of American Poets, and her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Northwest Review, Poetry, Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, JAMA, and other journals. Her poetry collections include Red Town – a finalist for the Washington State Center for the Book award, as well as Worship of the Visible Spectrum, Beethoven and the Birds, and Storm. Her latest book is Latticework from David Robert Books; Tic Douloureux: New and Selected Poems 1985 – 2005 is forthcoming from Silverfish Review Press in late 2005.

August 18, 2004. Judith Roche is author of two collections of poetry Myrrh/My Life as a Screamer and Ghosts. She also co-edited First Fish, First People: Salmon Tales of the North Pacific Rim, which won an American Book Award.She has worked in collaboration with visual artists and the Seattle Art Commission to install a suite of salmon poems at the Chittendon Locks (the "Salmon in the City" project), and is Literary Arts Director for the Bumbershoot Festival.

July 21, 2004. Olympia Poetry Network’s own Bill Yake will read from his new book This Old Riddle: Cormorants and Rain (Radiolarian Press). Bill’s poetry springs from place, wild nature and water and has been published widely in literary magazines (Willow Springs, Puerto del Sol, and The Seattle Review), in magazines serving the environmental community (Wilderness, Wild Earth, and The Bear Deluxe), and in anthologies (Under a Silver Sky – An Anthology of Pacific Northwest Poetry and March Hares – Best Poems from Fine Madness).

--- The Paul Gilley Memorial Reading ---

June 23, 2004. (Note that this is a change of date!) Christopher Howell is the author of eight collections of poems, including Memory and Heaven (1997) and Just Waking (2003). He has received the Washington State Governor's Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a fellowship from the Artist Trust, and the Vachel Lindsay and Helen Bullis prizes. His work has made three appearances in the annual Pushcart Prize publication, most recently in 2002, and may be found also in many journals and anthologies. Since 1975 he has been director and principal editor for Lynx House Press and is now also senior editor at Easter Washington University Press. He is on the Master of Fine Arts faculty of the Inland Northwest Center for Writers. Howell lives in Spokane with his wife, Barbara, and son, Evan. His most recent book is Light's Ladder.

May 19, 2004. Lohmann Poetry Prize Reading. Three winners have been announced for the 1st annual Jeanne Lohmann Poetry prize sponsored and judged by Jeanne’s poetry friends in California and facilitated by OPN. The winners (and their hometowns and poems) are Vita Laume (Olympia, Nest of Silence), Bethany Reid (Edmonds, Such Good Work) , and Ann Gerike (Coupeville, Earthquake, Cyprus, A.D. 365). Poets will read several poems, including the winning poems. Jeanne Lohmann, Olympia’s wonderful, prolific, and most special poet will also read.

April 21, 2004. A Reading of Dead Poets. Once again, experience dead poets in OPN's annual celebration of April as Poetry Month. These poets of the past come alive when their work is read. See for yourself, when local poets from the Olympia Poets Network – some in costume - read aloud from the works of favorite dead poets. Resurrect the spirit. After a short program, the audience will be invited to follow suit at an open mic, so bring the work of your favorite dead poet, and feel the magic.

March 17, 2004. For the past fourteen years, Sharon Hashimoto has been a literature and writing instructor at Highline Community College. Her poems have appeared in American Scholar, Poetry Northwest, POETRY, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner and others. She was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her chapbook, Reparations, was published in 1992 by Brooding Heron Press. In 2003, her first full-length book of poetry, The Crane Wife was chosen co-winner of the Nicholas Roerich Prize and published by Story Line Press.

February 18, 2004. Jody Alieson started her FBI file in Birmingham, Alabama in the late 1960s and added to it as media representative with the Vietnam Moratorium Committee in Washington D.C. and Chicago. Deeply involved in the early second wave of feminism in the Pacific Northwest, she continues to work for justice and against war. Her most recent of ten books, Loving in Time of War, was published in 1999 by Blue Begonia Press. Her poems, stories, articles, essays, reviews and songs are found in national periodicals, anthologies and recordings and have earned grants and awards including a literary fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Currently she serves as contributing editor for The Raven Chronicles and directs the PCC Farmland Fund, a non-profit land trust saving farmland from development.

January 21, 2004. Tacoma (Old Town) poet Kevin Miller is halfway through his thirty-second year in public education in Washington. Recent poems have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Crab Creek Review, Raven Chronicles, and Gingko Tree Review. Blue Begonia Press published his two poetry collections: Everywhere Was Far and Light That Whispers Morning.

December 17, 2003. OPN's Traditional Season's Readings. Bring your favorite mid-winter poem as we celebrate short days, the chill, a range of religious traditions and the promise of eventual sun.