Local poets read winning works
Published 8:29 pm Tuesday, April 27, 2010
To celebrate National Poetry Month, which takes place every April, the Shoreline-Lake Forest Park Arts Council will present its third annual Poetry Month Celebration at 7 p.m., April 29 at Third Place Commons in Lake Forest Park Towne Centre.
Student and adult winners of the organization’s annual poetry contest, juried by poets Belle Randall and Janee J. Baugher, will read their poems, while published poets Jared Leising and Kelli Russell Agodon will read and discuss their work.
Leising is an English professor at Cascadia Community College and author of the chapbook “The Widows and Orphans of Winesburg, Ohio.” His poems have appeared in various Washington publications. Agodon is a graduate of Shorecrest High School and the award-winning author of “Small Knots” and “Geography.”
Joanne Peterson of Edmonds, winner of the adult division, will read her poem “E-Z Livin’ Mobile Home Park: Thank you Jesus.” The work “evokes an American landscape which we all recognize from experience, although we haven’t necessarily seen it before in poetry,” contest juror Belle Randall said.
Peterson also was awarded third place for “After Ramona,” while M.C. Miller of Seattle took second with “Crazy Quilt.”
First place in the student division went to Edmonds-Woodway High School student Beatrice Garrard for “The Practice Room.” “I was especially impressed with the intriguing, contemplative narrative, as well as the vivid, imaginative details,” juror Janee J. Baugher said.
Hallie Dunham of The Evergreen School in Shoreline won second for “So Late, Too Soon,” and Shorecrest High School student Kathryn Hedges was third with her poem, “Galaxy.”
This event is sponsored in part by Friends of Third Place Commons and Humanities Washington.
