Poetry of Collective Witness
What does it mean for a poem to witness, to testify?
Please join three Northwest poets with distinct visions of what it means for words to witness. John Sibley Williams, Tina Schumann, and Josh Fomon will read from their new books, each of which testified to unique struggles, be they American culture, history, immigration, or language itself.
This event is free and open to the public.
John Sibley Williams is the author of As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, 2019), Disinheritance, and Controlled Hallucinations. John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, The 46er Prize, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors’ Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of the Inflectionist Review and works as an educator and literary agent. Previous publishing credits include: the Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, TriQuarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and various anthologies.
Tina Schumann is the author of three poetry collections: Praising the Paradox (Red Hen Press, 2019), which was a finalist in the National Poetry Series, Four Way Books Intro Prize, and the New Issues Poetry Prize; As If (Parlor City Press, 2010), winner of the Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize; and Requiem. A Patrimony of Fugues (Diode Editions, 2016), which won the Diode Editions Chapbook Contest. She is the editor of the IPPY award-winning anthology Two Countries: US Daughters and Sons of Immigrant Parents (Red Hen Press, 2017). Schumann’s work received the 2009 American Poet Prize from the American Poetry Journal. She is the poetry editor for Wandering Aengus Press and assistant director at Artsmith.org.
Josh Fomon is a writer and political operative in Seattle. His book, Though we bled meticulously was published by Black Ocean in 2016, and his poems have appeared in jubilat, Caketrain, Yalobusha Review, DREGINALD, and others.
Related Classes
- Tina Schumann and John Sibley Williams will teach Step on It! Building Velocity in Poetry on Saturday, October 12th, from 2 – 5 pm.
