Jeff Encke

Poet Jeff Encke reads from the anthology, "Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama's First 100 Days," and discusses the process of writing political poetry on Thursday, August 19, 7 p.m. Poets Todd Fredson, Prageeta Sharma, Marta Silano, Pimone Triplett and Sarah Vap also read.

The reading is followed by a moderated discussion on the intersection of art and politics between the poets, politicians and community members including Nick Licata, Seattle City Councilmember; Kumani Gantt, executive director of the CD Forum for Arts and Ideas; and poet Elizabeth Austen.

More info here.

News & Announcements

“Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama’s First 100 Days”: A Reading and Conversation August 19
On August 19, 7 p.m., poets Jeff Encke, Todd Fredson, Prageeta Sharma, Martha Silano, Pimone Triplett and Sarah Vap will read selected poems from the anthology, “Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama’s First 100 Days,” and elaborate on their own experiences concerning the process of writing about and responding to the political world through poetry.
Seeking Youth Writers-in-Residence
Are you a teen with a passion for writing? Do you spend more time in front of books than TV? Are your idols dead poets or eccentric authors? Then, apply for our youth writer-in-residence position. The deadline is September 20, 2010. More info can be found here.

Welcome to Richard Hugo House

Hannah WoodHugo House now seems so familiar upon entering. I don’t see the little idiosyncrasies from the odd building design and low budget: the open, circular floor plan, the upward maze of hallways and stairs, a carpet that looks like the skin of a Shar Pei. These are familiarities I have collected in my heart, not an epiphany that struck me when I first stepped foot inside. There were a lot of people smiling at me. This I remember—everyone I saw that very first time I entered Richard Hugo House smiled broadly and earnestly at me.

It would be a tragedy if I recalled any memory of Hugo House and did not explain using all five senses, so here it is: Hugo House is quiet in a way that is soft, quiet in a way that invites the small noises of pens and paper; it is a quiet that is not silence, a quiet that does not forbid speaking, a quiet that is warm. Hugo House has many smooth surfaces, has many different kinds of paper, pens with a solid weight in your hands and light double-speed Bics. Hugo House is a space that invites bodies to be in it. It tastes like nail-chewing of ink-smudged fingers and hyphens-in-all-the-right-places. The smell of Hugo House—the smell of Hugo House is a sacrament: like old books and new paper and ink and graphite and cardboard and that church-smell that reminds you to sit down and shut up because you’re in the presence of the divine. Now I find that I walk in without a pious inhalation of breath, without seeing the newest announcements on the board and only glancing out of habit at the sign in the bathroom that has been defaced to read “Avoid Pregnancy.”

I do not notice these things, not because I love them any less, but because it is my home—I know it entering.

           Hannah Wood, 2009-2010 youth writer-in-residence

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