(This post has been updated to include Tay Stafford, who has just been added to the bill. There WILL be streaming on Facebook for those who can’t make it down to Belltown.)
I am delighted to read at Margin Shift again, again with the legendary Lorna Dee Cervantes, Tay Stafford and award winning Los Angeles based Poet, Music Producer and Activist, Christopher Siders. June 16, 2022 at 7pm at Common Area Maintenance (2125 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA.) Here are some of the details:
Coming to You from the ancestral and physical homeland of the Duwamish, Muckleshoot, and other Coast Salish tribes, we’re bringing that 3rd Thursday magic once again to Belltown. This reading will take place at Common Area Maintenance (2125 2nd Ave).
And in your living spaces via our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MarginShift/live
We’ll open the doors at 6:30 and start the reading/livestream at 7pm
Depending on Covid case-counts, we may ask people to mask, so please bring yours (though masks will also be provided)
Check out this month’s lineup:
Lorna Dee Cervantes, a Native Californian (Chumash), is an award winning author of six books of poetry. The former Professor of English at CU Boulder, Creative Writing Program, lives and writes in Seattle.
Buy her new book, April on Olympia, at: https://www.lornadeecervantes.com/
Poet & interviewer Paul E. Nelson is the son of a labor activist father and Cuban immigrant mother. He founded the Cascadia Poetics LAB (formerly SPLAB (Seattle Poetics LAB)) & the Cascadia Poetry Festival. Paul’s books include Haibun de la Serna, A Time Before Slaughter/Pig War: & Other Songs of Cascadia, American Prophets (interviews 1994-2012) American Sentences, A Time Before Slaughter (2009) and Organic in Cascadia: A Sequence of Energies (2013). Co-Editor of Make It True: Poetry From Cascadia (2015), 56 Days of August: Poetry Postcards (2017) and Samthology: A Tribute to Sam Hamill (2019) Make it True meets Medusario (2019), he’s presented poetry/poetics in London, Brussels, Los Angeles, Nanaimo, Qinghai & Beijing, China, has had work translated into Spanish, Chinese & Portuguese & writes an American Sentence every day.
Find him on Instagram @splabman
and on his website at: www.paulenelson.com
Through the content of his work, award winning Los Angeles based Poet, Music Producer and Activist, Christopher Siders, encourages his audience members to think critically about social norms and how we subconsciously affect one another through our everyday behaviors. Within his own experiences as an activist, he is able to share his successes and failures, and guide future activists at any institution, to make positive decisions for the community to flourish and teach students to become a better ally for movements or areas of interest. Siders graduated from California State University Monterey Bay with a B.A. in Human Communications with a concentration in Creative Writing and Social Action. Siders’ been involved with theater/acting as an undergraduate since Spring 2012. He directed the MENding Monologues Spring 2013. His involvement with the MENding Monologues production has led to him to join the feminism movement as an ally organizing events such as One Billion Rising, Slut Walk with Title IX at California State University Monterey Bay. Siders ran an award winning column from 2014-2016 entitled Memoirs Of A Male Feminist via Lutrinae formerely known as the Otter Realm Newspaper. From 2015-2017, he administered feminism workshops at Soledad Correctional Facility with Richie Reseda, who was featured on CNN’s “The Feminist on Cellblock Y” documentary. Siders also directed A Race Through Time play in Spring 2017. Between 2013-2017 he was a cast member for various productions such as Almost, Maine, and Check, Please. Siders professionally performed alongside poets such as Rudy Francisco, Shihan The Poet, Ebony Stewart, and have graced stages such as Dominican University, Seaside High School, Beyond Baroque, and many more. His new book, “Culture Shock” will be available March 2022 published through Boukra Press.
Tay Stafford — “I’m a first year Master of English Program at Western Washington University (WWU), in addition to a first generation graduate. It is through the art of writing that I was able to heal from childhood trauma, and gather an understanding of how the trauma I was subjected to as a child is synonymous among all black/brown people of the African Diaspora. I intend to perfect the craft of writing creatively, all while teaching, and publishing my own works of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, then, creating a publishing company that teaches those of the African diaspora, and from all walks of life, simply how to heal through the medium of art. Up to this moment, I have completed five poetry chapbooks, and several short stories in the genres of fiction and nonfiction. This summer, I’ll be working on my book (my thesis) which will be multigenre and focus on (but not limited to) transgenerational trauma, identity, the impermanence of relationships, and spirituality.”