Voices of East and West Meet July 12 in Stayton Poetry Reading
The July reading in Stayton’s Second Sundays Series of Poetry Readings, to be held Sunday, July 12, will feature a poet from western Oregon, Margaret Chula of Portland, and one from eastern, David Memmott of La Grande, both reading from unusual new books and, as part of the series’ continuing celebration of Oregon’s sesquicentennial, from past or elder Oregon poets who have influenced them. The reading will take place from 3 to 5 p.m. in the studio of artist Paul Toews at 349 N. Third Ave., where it shares space with the Stayton Friends of the Library Used Bookstore. Admission will be free; donations are appreciated. Books by both featured poets will be for sale at the reading, and they will sign copies. Audience members are invited to bring one or two short poems to share during an open part of the reading.
Margaret Chula will read poems in the voices of Japanese Americans in World War II internment camps—poems written in a cross-arts collaboration with quilt artist Cathy Erickson. These poems are collected, and the corresponding quilts by Erickson are beautifully reproduced, in their book What Remains: Japanese Americans in Internment Camps, just released by Katsura Press. The book also contains historical photos and texts, as well as accounts by Chula and Erickson of the inspiration and process from which their works emerged. Chula is steeped in Japanese culture, having lived for 12 years in Kyoto, where she studied the Japanese traditional arts of woodblock printing and flower arranging, as well as teaching creative writing. Her work in the Japanese poetic forms of haiku and tanka has garnered many awards and is collected in several earlier books—Grinding My Ink (1993), This Moment (1995), Always Filling, Always Full (2001), The Smell of Rust (2003). She also co-authored, with Rich Youmans, a collection of linked haibun, Shadow Lines (2000). With the support of grants from Literary Arts and the Regional Arts and Culture Council, she has worked collaboratively with visual artists, musicians, and dancers.
David Memmott will be reading from Giving It Away, a comprehensive collection of poems written over many years, published this spring by Wordcraft of Oregon. The book’s cover art is a swirling and colorful digital work by the poet, and black and white digital pieces by him serve as frontispieces for each of the book’s eight parts. Included within those parts are poems of family, and poems of place, political poems and environmental poems, lyric poems and long narrative poems, all reflecting an expansive vision. Memmott writes and publishes both poetry and fiction, including speculative as well as realistic works. Recent work includes a chapbook of poems, Watermarked (Traprock Books, 2004); a short story collection, Shadow Bones, and a postcyberpunk novel, Primetime. Poems and stories appear in both mainstream and genre magazines and anthologies, and his speculative work has been recognized with a Rhysling Award. Memmott is editor and publisher of Wordcraft of Oregon, which has been awarded three fellowships from Literary Arts.
Now in its eighth year, Stayton’s Second Sunday Series of Poetry Readings is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Marion Cultural Development Corporation, which also provides funding for donation of featured poets’ books to the Stayton Public Library. The July 12th reading will be the last of this season. There will be no reading in August, when the series takes its annual summer vacation. Monthly readings will resume in September. For more information, contact series coordinator Eleanor Berry at 503-859-3045 or eberry@wvi.com.