The Poetry Box LIVE – November Edition
Nov 14, 2020@ 4:00 PM (Pacific) / 7:00 PM (Eastern)
Enjoy the video from November’s show:
November Featured Poets:
• Doug Stone (Oregon), author of SITTING IN POWELL’S WATCHING BURNSIDE DISSOLVE IN RAIN
• Tiel Aisha Ansari (Oregon), author of THE DAY OF MY FIRST DRIVING LESSON—1st Place Winner of The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize, 2020
• Rebecca Smolen (Oregon), author of EXCORIATION and WOMANHOOD & OTHER SCARS
ABOUT THE POETS
Doug Stone is a fourth generation Oregonian and lives with his wife amid hop yards and vineyards near the Willamette River in Benton County, Oregon. In past lives he has worked on a county road crew, been a grocery store clerk, a case worker, and an analyst and a consultant on public policy issues to state governments, AARP, and the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice.
He has won the Oregon Poetry Association’s Poet Choice Award. His poems have been published in numerous journals and in the anthology, A Ritual to Read Together: Poems in Conversation with William Stafford. He has written two collections of poetry, The Season of Distress and Clarity, and The Moon’s Soul Shimmering on the Water.
Order Doug’s book HERE
Tiel Aisha Ansari is a Sufi warrior poet. She works as a data analyst and professional curmudgeon for the Portland Public School District and is President Emerita of the Oregon Poetry Association. She now hosts the Wider Window Poetry show, promoting the work of poets of color on KBOO Community Radio, (https://www.kboo.fm/program/wider-window-poetry)
Her work has been featured by Fault Lines Poetry, Windfall, KBOO, and an Everyman’s Library anthology, among others. Her collections include Knocking from Inside, High-Voltage Lines, Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare’s Stable, and Dervish Lions (forthcoming from Fernwood Press). She drinks coffee in the morning and tea at night.
Order Tiel’s book HERE
Rebecca Smolen is a writer based in Portland, Oregon transplanted from New Hampshire in 2014, and is a mom of two adorable little gingers. She grew up on a dead-end road exploring drainage pipes and pond life. She has a strong feminist voice that sometimes gets trapped within society’s confines, but vows to teach her son and daughter that there are no confines.
Smolen has a degree in creative writing and philosophy and works as veterinary technician. She is trained and certified in the Gateless Method and leads writing workshops employing this method, which was scientifically created to avoid provoking the fight or flight reaction generating a safe place to produce raw, new writing that will spotlight the strongest aspects of that material.
Her first chapbook, Womanhood and Other Scars was published by The Poetry Box in 2018. Her poetry and essays can be found most recently in Allegory Ridge, Feminine Collective, Tiny Seed, The Inflectionist Review, Unchaste Anthologies, Hip Mama, Mutha Magazine, VoiceCatcher: a journal of women’s voices & visions, The Poeming Pigeon: Cosmos, and the anti-fascist anthology, Shout.
Order Rebecca’s book HERE
Joanne Godley, author of Picking Scabs from the Body History (The Poetry Box, 2020) is a practicing physician, poet and writer whose work is informed by social injustices. She is a native of Detroit residing in Alexandria, Virginia. She is convinced she is a descendant of nomads because traveling is one of her great passions (along with art collecting, salsa dancing and cycling). She spent time working in Africa as a Peace Corps medical officer. Godley’s lyric memoir was a finalist for the Kore Press Memoir contest and the Sunshots Press Prose Contest, and it received honorable mentions in the National Woman’s Book Association Contest. She completed an online novel writing certification program through Stanford University. Her first novel was ranked finalist in Kimbilio’s annual novel writing contest. She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writing Association, the Author’s Guild and the NWBA.
Pamela Anderson-Bartholet, author of Just the Girls (The Poetry Box, 2020) is a poet, lover of blues music, traveler, hiker, and yoga practitioner who grew up in Warren, Ohio, in an area once known as The Steel Valley. Much of her writing focuses on the Holocaust, reflecting stories her father recounted from his service as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne during WWII. Her Holocaust poem “My Brother’s Coat” won the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Intro Journals Project Award. Her poetry also has appeared in Whurk, Mason’s Road, Atticus Review, Sky Island Journal, and elsewhere. She holds an MA in English Literature from Kent State University and an MFA from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program (NEOMFA), which awarded her a Bisbee (Arizona) Travel and Study Fellowship. She has been a ghostwriter, grants writer, and fundraiser for public radio. When she is not traveling with her husband to far-flung places to snap pictures of windows, doors, and lightbulbs, you can find her in Northeast Ohio; Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley; or Charlotte, North Carolina.
A poignant portrayal of love and forgiveness.
The #metoo story that took over 30 years to reveal.
