Social Whirl in Seattle and the Connection between Poets and Art

Yes, within ten days of moving back to Seattle I think I've done more socializing than I did in a typical month in Napa! Which is good! Because, it turns out, maybe I don't love being a recluse. I know, it sounds romantic, but I actually like getting out and interacting with people, especially wonderful poet people like at yesterday's event - poetry at the Frye Museum.
Here's a pic with Oliver de la Paz, Martha Silano, Kelli Russell Agodon, Jeannine Hall Gailey, and Susan Rich (who organized the reading.) Not in the picture but fun to see again: Peter Pereira, Kathleen Flenniken, Marjorie Manwaring, and lots of other old friends! We also snuck in to check out the "Seance" exhibit at the Frye Museum afterwards, which was pretty creepy. The reading itself was really interesting, and the readers discussed ekphrastic poetry, one of my favorite kinds of poetry, and the history of the pieces that inspired various poems, so it was educational as well as entertaining! Oliver de la Paz read a new piece called "Camera 11" after a series of photographs of snipers and such in Afghanistan and it was particularly haunting. Kelli told a story about Vincent Van Gogh walking past the grave of his dead brother with his name and Susan told a haunting tale of a German painter who brought impressionism to Germany and how his widow killed herself to escape the Gestapo.
Anyway, it struck me at how stable and warm the poetry community is in Seattle - there must have been a hundred people there to support the four readers, and they were not only supportive but enthusiastic. Everyone seemed to love the coming together of art and poetry.

Here's a link to me reading one of my own ekphrastic poems, "In the Faces of Lichtenstein's Women," in case you are interested. I love to write about art, though it tends to be contemporary art - Koons, Lichtenstein, and Rene Lynch have all been inspirations. There is a poem in Becoming the Villainess about a piece by Rubens. But it includes baby eating, so it's not for the faint of heart. (The painting is about Philomel, so it's not like I made up the baby eating part.) And I'm getting ready to meet up with local installment artist Amy Johnson to talk about an upcoming project based on the Snow Queen. I love artists!

I am trying to get ready for a class coming up at National in December and filling out my author's questionnaire for Kitsune Books for "She Returns to the Floating World." If you want to be on the list of people who are going to get a review copy of the book, let me know!