Steeped in Words
Steeped in Words: Lan Su Chinese Garden Poetry Reading Series
Poet Daniel Skach-Mills reading from The Hut Beneath the PineSaturdays in September
2:00 p.m.
As a part of the Scholars Art’s Month, Lan Su will host a weekly series of poetry readings every Saturday in September. Participating poets include Paulann Petersen, Oregon’s Poet Laureate; Ken Arnold; Margaret Chula; and Daniel Skach-Mills.
Poets
Margaret Chula - “The Smell of Rust”
Saturday, September 3
Margaret Chula lived in Kyoto, Japan for twelve years where she taught English and creative writing at Doshisha Women’s College. She also studied the traditional arts of woodblock printing and flower arrangement. Writing haiku, tanka, and haibun for more than thirty years, she travels internationally to promote these forms through presentations and workshops. She currently serves as President of the Tanka Society of America.
Her award winning collections include Grinding my Ink; This Moment; Shadow Lines; Always Filling, Always Full; The Smell of Rust; and What Remains: Japanese Americans in Internment Camps (with quilt artist Cathy Erickson). In 2009, she was inaugurated as Poet Laureate of Friends of Chamber Music in Portland, Oregon, composing poems while attending their concerts.
Visit Margaret Chula’s website at www.margaretchula.com.
Paulann Petersen - “The Voluptuary”
Saturday, September 10
Oregon’s sixth Poet Laureate, Paulann Petersen is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University whose poems have appeared in many publications including Poetry, The New Republic, Prairie Schooner, and Wilderness Magazine. She has four chapbooks; Under the Sign of a Neon Wolf, The Animal Bride, Fabrication, and The Hermaphrodite Flower. Her first full-length collection of poems, The Wild Awake, was published by Confluence Press in 2002. A second, Blood-Silk, poems about Turkey, was published by Quiet Lion Press of Portland in 2004. A Bride of Narrow Escape was published by Cloudbank Books as part of its Northwest Poetry Series in 2006. Kindle was published by Mountains and Rivers Press in 2008. Her latest book, The Voluptuary, was recently published by Lost Horse Press.
Visit Paulann Petersen’s website at www.oregonpoetlaureate.org.
Daniel Skach-Mills - “The Hut Beneath the Pines”
Saturday, September 17
Daniel Skach-Mills was born in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and raised in Portland, Oregon. He holds an undergraduate degree from Marylhurst University, Marylhurst, Oregon; and a graduate degree from St. Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington. His award-winning poetry has been published in a variety of publications and anthologies, including: The Christian Science Monitor; The Christian Century; Sojourners; Open Spaces; and Prayers To Protest: Poems That Center And Bless Us (Pudding House Publications, 1998). His chapbook, Gold: Daniel Skach-Mills’ Greatest Hits, 1990-2000 was published by Pudding House in 2001; and a full-length collection, The Tao of Now (published by Ken Arnold Books in 2008) was listed as one of the ” ... 150 outstanding Oregon poetry books” by Jim Baker, columnist for The Oregonian; David Biespiel, editor of Poetry Northwest; and Jim Scheppke, Oregon State Librarian.
Ken Arnold - “Circle of the Way”
Saturday, September 24
Ken Arnold is an award-winning playwright and poet, and author of books in spirituality. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines. As a Eugene O’Neill Fellow in 1979, he developed his play She Also Dances, which was cited in Best Plays of 1983. It has been produced in several US and European theaters. His current theater piece is Noh Garden, an experiment in combining traditional Japanese Noh drama with western myth, poetry, and music. His most recent book, Circle of the Way, is comprised of Haibun, a Japanese form that combines poetic prose and haiku. He will be reading selections of his work from the past forty years. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Visit Ken Arnold’s website at www.webworks.ken-arnold.com.