T
he spoken-word scene is thriving on the back of
monthly events like BootSlam, Spokane Poetry Slam and
3 Minute Mic, not to mention the weekly Broken Mic
event, which Anderson himself helped to launch. Groups
like Power 2 the Poetry and the Poetry Scribes of Spokane
are holding regular performances and meetings. Lit crawls
are becoming more common. And it’s not unusual to see
standing-room-only book releases.
“Now there are four or five reading series that occur pretty
regularly. Spaces like Spark Central and the libraries
are putting on more events like that. The colleges are
also doing such a great job of getting really high-quality
writers from all over the place. There’s just so much more
happening.”
Anderson attributes some of that momentum to an
ever-expanding culture of mutual support as well as his
predecessors’ efforts.
“Back when Thom Caraway was poet laureate, he opened
a lot of doors for cross-pollination between the slam
poetry scene and the ‘page’ poetry scene by going to both
places and introducing poets to each other,” he says. He
sees Read’s stint as being characterized by her ongoing
mentorship of area poets, particularly those who are just
starting out.
“She also did the ‘I Am a Town’ project, which was very
open to anyone who wanted to contribute. Pretty much
everyone in the workshops was published in the anthologies
that Spark Central put out. Some of the poems were selected
to be stenciled on the sidewalk around Spokane.”
During his own time in the position, Anderson has aimed
to combine and build on Caraway’s cross-pollination and
Read’s inclusivity.
“I really wanted to create more opportunities for
poets of all kinds to read in settings where they’d
get heard and get some exposure. I also wanted
to create pathways for people from all over the
literary scene. And I also wanted to go out and meet
everyone from all of the different arms of the poetry
and literary scenes,” he says. “One of my focuses has
been to find those smaller groups that might not have the
same voice, to find out how they’d like to be represented
and in what ways they would like support.”
But poetry, like any art form, exists to be shared. To that
end, Anderson has tried to cultivate an audience beyond
the poets themselves and people who already self-identify
as literary-minded.
REGIONAL REPORT
SPOKANE ARTS
HOW TO RIDE A BICYCLE
If I were a gazelle, I’d be
the first one cheetahs pick off,
running behind my friends
on their bikes. They’d tried
all Spring long to teach me
to ride with them, held me up
and let me fall on a hardened
dirt slope that peeled back
the skin on my knees.
They’d leave me. I’d slow
down the pack. But today
I teach myself the bicycle’s
flight, while no one is around
to laugh, making me feel
like a naked dream. I could fly
past the grain elevator that’s
a dinosaur’s jaw, past the line
of giants carrying powerlines
over fields and hills. I could
fly all the way to the ocean
where even if there are no
mermaids, I can still sift
my hand through the coastline,
scrounge up enough sand dollars
to buy my way onto a ship.
I could fly past Freeman Elementary
where my friend Ty-Ty said
if I couldn’t stop stuttering, he’d
tell the girl I like I have a crush
on her. And when he does it
I turn so red it’s like I don’t
have skin at all, and I can’t blame
him, or stop my tongue from
speaking wrong, so I look
at the ground, walking second
tile to the left to the cafeteria,
pretending it hadn’t happened.
I could fly fast downhill past
even this, the voice of the wind
so loud in my ears I can’t hear
anything else, no matter how much
they laugh, or how I stutter, or say
I love you. Or nothing. I love you.
Or everything at all.
March | April 2019
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