Galleri Faire, downtown Seattle, with poet Tom Nivison (a gem of a man) on drums and Perry Emge on sound board, my last show with the marvelous Floating Mountain Poets.
Mike O'Connor: My editor, publisher, mentor, and dear dear friend. I will always miss him, this Chinese linguist/translator, extraordinary poet, and story teller. His books are available from Wisdom Publications, Pleasure Boat Studio, and Empty Bowl Press.
Northwind Gallery, Port Townsend, 2017, Saying, "Hey buy my book! I don't need the money, but my self esteem is desperate."
2018 private salon/soiree
at Ms. Carmichael's, Capitol Hill, Seattle. Plenty of terrific performers that night!
In San Francisco at the corner of Columbus and Jack Kerouac Alley, one of my many pilgrimages to the mecca of the Beats: Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Rexroth, Kenneth Patchen, Denise Levertov, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, William Carlos Williams. But it was Lawrence Ferlinghetti, City Lights proprietor and publisher of the Pocket Poets Series that set me on fire with his Coney Island of the Mind (New Directions, 1958). Over 32 printings, over one million sold, in fourteen languages. Not only did he introduce so many brilliant poets to the world, he won a landmark First Amendment case when authorities attempted to ban Allen Ginsberg's HOWL as obscene (Pocket Poet Series No. 1, City Lights Books, 1958). More than anyone, He inspired my life long interest in poetry. In San Francisco, he died February 2021 at 101.
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Floating Mountain Poets, 2006. Just don't press me. Paco-Michelle Atwood of Los Angeles; Lydia Swartz of Wheeler, Oregon; Tom Nivison and David Jones of Tacoma, Dobbie Reese Norris (deceased) of Bellingham, Noelle Parkinson of Bainbridge Island; Tito Titus; and Kerry Lee, FMP Instigator-in-Chief; and others too numerous to mention.
C&P Coffee Company, West Seattle, January, 2020, POETRYBRIDGE 10th Anniversary celebration, presenting featured poets from past ten years.
Thanks to San Diego's Verbatim Books for your warm and generous welcome. December, 2019