The Poetry Box LIVE – May Edition!
May 14, 2022 @ 4:00 PM (Pacific) / 7:00 PM (Eastern)
Featured Poets:
- Nathan Fryback (OR) – author of Shells in the Sieve
- Tara L. Carnes (TX) – author of Built to Last
- John L. Miller (OR) – author of Olympic
Enjoy a Video from the Show:
ABOUT THE POETS
Tara L. Carnes is a musician, writer, teacher, and spiritual director. She has an MA from the University of North Texas and spent over thirty years working as a music educator and church musician. In 2012, as part of her coursework for the Haden Institute (Niagara, Ontario) spiritual direction program, she began writing poetry.
She loves using the rhythms of words to embrace both the dark as well as the light in her work.
Besides tough issues such as domestic violence, she writes poetry about nature, spirituality, and motherhood and utilizes them in her spiritual direction practice. Brené Brown stated, “When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending.” Tara looks forward to many years of sharing her experiences, and “living a brave new ending“ through the music of poetry!
Tara’s poetry has appeared in Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, SageWoman, Cholla Needles, The Poeming Pigeon, and The Very Edge Poems (Flying Ketchup Press). She lives in Texas with her daughter and their handsome, plush, tuxedo cat, Orion.
http://www.taralcarnes.com/poetry/
You can order Tara’s new book HERE
Nathan Fryback was born in 1972 onto a small farm in the Rogue Valley outside Medford, Oregon. His parents were schoolteachers, his father also felled timber in the summers for extra money. By 1977 Nathan’s family had relocated 270 miles north, to Eugene, Oregon. Nathan developed an interest in creative writing around the age of 13, writing short stories and poetry. During high school he experimented with photography and acting but always found writing as a more reliable means of expressing himself.
At the age of 18, Nathan took a job as a bread baker in Eugene while attending college. That would be a fateful turn as he has dedicated himself to that profession ever since. Even though the world of academia held components of what interested him, he had developed a passion for the craft of artisan bread baking that had to be explored. Mastering the mechanics of grain fermentation had become the Golden Fleece. Nathan withdrew from college to find opportunities to hone his skill, working at several bakeries in Eugene, sometimes holding 2 jobs or moonlighting as a pastry chef.
Eventually moving to Portland, Oregon, in the mid-90s, he spent long stretches at some of the best bakeries on the west coast, where he works to this day, at a little bakery in Northwest Portland. Still very close with his family (his brother and parents all live nearby), he draws from all of them for his sense of self and outlook on life. All the while, writing, writing, writing… Along the way Nathan’s sons were born in 2000 (Beckett) and 2012 (Leroy). They are the fire in his heart. Nathan lives today in Beaverton, Oregon. with his wife Tina and son Leroy.
You can order Nathan’s book HERE
John L. Miller’s poetry was featured at the Elisabeth Jones Art Center’s 2021 Festival of Feelings. His poetry has also appeared in West Trade Review, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Wingless Dreamer, Wax Poetry and Art, Third Wednesday: A Literary & Arts Journal, Not a Pipe Publishing’s anthology Shout, River Heron Review, catheXis northwest press, The Esthetic Apostle, the 9Bridges anthology Over Land and Rising, and Glass Facets of Poetry. His short fiction has appeared in Tethered by Letters.
John is a founder of Portland Ars Poetica, a literary poetry collective serving the U.S. Pacific Northwest and when virtual, anywhere. Portland Ars Poetica’s activities include generative workshops, a book club and performance events. More information can be found at https://www.meetup.com/Portland-Ars-Poetica/.
John has lived in Portland, Oregon since 2012, where he started to write poetry after writing almost nothing in verse for 20 years. A writer from as far back in childhood as he can remember and has files on, John was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He wrote his first poem at fifteen, on the New York City subway, on a bookmark that he placed in a copy of Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory, which remains on his shelves. He has a degree in English from Amherst College.
You can order John’s new book HERE
