What always strikes me about Spokane's poetry is the range. We are fortunate to have so many excellent writers in our community: poets, essayists, memoirists, biographers, translators, historians, novelists, historical novelists... the works! It's an embarrassment of riches, really. And in the past, when the Inlander has asked me to edit a poetry issue, we have opened the call to all writers, known or unknown, and those have been really fun issues to put together.
This time, though, I wanted to hang out with old friends. In this time of uncertainty and transition, when we may never again find the old normal, I reached out to poets I knew or had seen perform around town in the Before Times. I admit it was partly selfish: I wanted my favorite familiar voices. And invitations are so fraught, which I soon realized. Who was I leaving out? For every familiar voice I wanted to hear from, which unfamiliar voices were still implicitly silent? Have I further reinforced the not-unjustified charge that the arts in Spokane can behave cliquishly? Perhaps I have. I wonder if in the two years we have been hunkered down in pods, we have enclosed ourselves too tightly, and I look forward to a version of our lives where those circles can loosen again, and I can walk into Neato Burrito and hear the bright new voices of the poetry community, wander in and out of readings at Get Lit! (coming back during National Poetry Month!), and just revel in the great communities that make up the arts in Spokane.
Back to this issue, though. As always, narrowing the selections is difficult, but I'm quite pleased with the range of voices we hear from in this issue. From the intertextual innovations of Nance Van Winckel to the prose forms of Janelle Cordero, the elegant precision of Kat Smith, John Whalen, and Maya Jewell Zeller, and the heartfelt lines of Chris Cook and Shann Ray — this issue demonstrates the vast depth of what these writers offer to our city. I'm pleased to publish Caleb Mannan, a descendent of Vachel Lindsay's itinerant outsider tradition, and Spokane pole stars Mark Anderson and Laura Read.
The only "theme" we charged the poets with was "written during COVID," and I marvel at what they have done. For vast stretches of the last two years, I felt incapable of writing, estranged from language and community. I've sometimes felt that words were insufficient to the ongoing traumas we've collectively and privately experienced. Within that context, current Spokane Poet Laureate Chris Cook's emotional tribute to Spokane fixture Dennis Held pairs well to the metaphorical loss in Caleb Mannan's "I lost my knife in the Flathead River." Both Held's and the knife's sentimental value take on mythic proportions in an era in which so much has been lost, and neither feels forced or inauthentic. In these years, we've hopefully become more connected to the inner workings of our communities and our selves and identified what is truly important.
The previous poetry issue came out in early April 2020. I was still thinking this whole COVID thing couldn't last more than a couple weeks. Now, two years later, we're opening things back up more fully. We may never return to the Before Times, and in many ways, that's good and right. I can chart many positive changes in the last two years, awarenesses raised, solutions found. We are reconfiguring around things that matter, shaping new processes for things we previously took for granted. Some things remain, and among the most important are our artists and writers. I hope you enjoy these beautiful voices, reckoning as only poets can, with the world we find ourselves in. ♦
CONNECT THROUGH WORDS
On Saturday, April 2, at 12:30 pm, a crew of Washington's most prominent poets is gathering for a free celebration of National Poetry Month. "Poetry and Civic Life" will include readings and conversation and features current state poet Poet Laureate Rena Priest, Spokane's Tod Marshall (a former state poet laureate himself), Seattle Civic Poet Jourdan Imani Keith and Seattle Youth Poet Laureate Zinnia Hansen. The group will discuss the power of poetry to explore social change, and while you'd have to be in Seattle to take part in person for the event at the Hugo House, you can livestream "Poetry and Civic Life" at tvw.org. (DAN NAILEN)
