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The Skagit River Poetry Foundation made the crowd holler as they hosted their summer party, Make Me Wanna Holler, on a cool Sunday afternoon at Pioneer Park on July 21. Every summer we host a music and poetry event to honor and thank our community for their support and raise awareness for our organization. As the grill and band heated up, board members and volunteers took food orders and chatted with guests as they arrived. Guests relaxed with their lunch in the amphitheater surrounded by towering firs with views of the Swinomish Channel and...
The Skagit River Poetry Foundation celebrates the summer sun by "making you wanna holler" at its free, fun and family friendly "Make Me Wanna Holler" from 1-5 p.m. Sunday, July 21, in beautiful Pioneer Park. Come for live music, a barbecue and poetry open mic. The delicious food for purchase includes burgers, hot dogs, ice cream, beverages and vegetarian options. Rock the afternoon away with the Delta Promenade Band. Enjoy acoustic delta, country, ragtime and hokum blues songs on guitar,...
"The Force" was with the Skagit River Poetry Foundation on Saturday May 4th, Star Wars Day, as 125 community members gathered to support our nonprofit at our fourth annual auction at historic Hillcrest Park Lodge in Mount Vernon. We want to thank everyone who celebrated with us and our donors who could not attend as we hosted our Star Wars-themed fundraiser – even Darth Vader made an appearance. We are happy to announce that in only three hours the love and support of our guests raised over $...
The Skagit River Poetry Foundation invites our community to a galaxy far, far away and presents an evening fit for a Jedi at their annual auction, A New Hope: “May the 4th” (Force) Be With You from 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday, May 4 (Star Wars Day), at Hillcrest Park Lodge in Mount Vernon. This “Star Wars”-themed extravaganza will appeal to young and old alike as they take a trip through the Foundation’s history and share their mission of supporting literacy through poetry. The featured event will be the live and silent auction where attendees will bi...
Last week the Skagit River Poetry Foundation revealed its 2024 Poetry Festival poster art by Fidalgo Island artist Anne Schreivogl in a ceremony at the La Conner Rotary Club's weekly meeting (Weekly News, Jan. 31). The whimsical poster sets the stage for the festival and invites people to "feel that magic ... that spark is always right there when I've attended the festivals," Schreivogl says. The festival is community driven and not a standalone event. The Foundation puts into action learning...
Monday's weekly La Conner Rotary Club meeting at the Farmhouse Restaurant was brightened from its bleak midwinter darkness by its guests and the occasion: The poster reveal for the 2024 Skagit River Poetry Festival. Artist Anne Schreivogl is championing October's biannual gathering with the title "A bird is a poem with feathers." Perched on the keyboard of a big black Underwood typewriter in the lower corner of the poster is a puff of a green bird. Swirling in the bright red commanding the cente...
For more than two-thirds of his life, Doug Jones has been a Rotarian. The 95-year-old Channel Drive resident joined Rotary when he was 31. He has been a Rotarian longer than the 52 years he was married to his late wife Ruth and almost, but not quite, longer than he has been a father. "Rotary has been a way of life," Jones told an appreciative crowd at the Dec. 18 La Conner Rotary Christmas party, as his 64 years with the service club were celebrated. The club has been a constant throughout his...
Even in the dog days of summer, there is no shortage of events to satisfy diverse entertainment cravings over the next couple of weeks. The Anacortes Arts Festival runs Aug. 4-6. The annual show attracts up to 90,000 guests. It fills several blocks of Commercial Avenue in downtown Anacortes with some 200 arts and crafts vendor booths, plus jazz and main performance stages, art demonstrations, a kids’ discovery area, beer and wine gardens, food vendors and more. Info: anacortesartsfestival.com. The Chamber of Commerce hosts the 23rd annual La C...
The Skagit River Poetry Foundation held its third annual auction June 24 at Hillcrest Park Lodge in Mount Vernon. One hundred and twenty five supporters gathered to raise funds for their mission of cultivating literacy and changing lives through the power of poetry. It was indeed midsummer. The theme was Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The whole place sparkled and shimmered with fairy dust as the decor, those who wore costumes and auction items imbued the evening. As guests arrived, they were greeted by volunteers, then had many ch... 
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The April 15 poets reading in celebration of National Poetry Month at 7 p.m. at Pelican Bay Books are Claudia Castro Luna, Kathleen Flenniken, former Washington poet laureates, and the wonderful Susan Rich, all coming up from Seattle. They participated in last October’s Skagit River Poetry Festival in La Conner. If you missed that you have a great chance to hear them here. Pelican Bay Books: 520 Commercial Avenue, Anacortes. Source: Madrona Last Saturday Series...
April is National Poetry Month and Pelican Bay Books in Anacortes has a full line up of poets coming every Saturday, along with music and some local student poets. Start time is 7 p.m. and lasts through about 8:30 p.m. The line up: April 8th: Alice Derry and Kate Reavey are crossing over from Port Townsend on the ferry, both reading from new books. April 15th: Claudia Castro Luna, Kathleen Flenniken, both former Washington poet laureates, and the wonderful Susan Rich, all coming up from Seattle. They participated in last October’s Skagit R...
Join Will Hornyak on a storytelling journey 7 p.m. March 14 at the Tim Bruce Performing Arts Center on the La Conner School District campus. Hornyak will share the Celtic story of "Erin's Daughters: Ireland's Hag's, Heroines, Warriors, Saints & Sorceresses" with Celtic musicians Jan Peters and Dale Russ at his side. Celebrate with us for a little St. Patrick's Day fun. Presented by the Skagit River Poetry Foundation. Donations are appreciated at the door. The event is for mature audiences age...
Join poet Jeffrey Morgan and paper artist Nancy Scagliotti to create love poems and valentines 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday in Mount Vernon. Fee of $10 includes supplies. Families welcome. Register: [email protected]. Sponsor: Skagit River Poetry Festival...
Rachel Haley, a senior at La Conner High School, is the January Honored Student of the Month for Soroptimist of La Conner. Rachel is a member of the McCauley family and attributes much of her artistic leanings to her family. The late Curt McCauley, her grandfather, was an artist and was very involved in MoNA, the Museum of Northwest Art, as both a docent and a supporter. Gretchen, her grandmother, served on the board. Her aunt Eve is an accomplished painter. Rachell wants to represent all of...
Skagit Valley poet Georgia Johnson reads poetry at Pelican Bay Books accompanied by Roberto Ascalon and Natalie Lahr Friday, Jan. 28, 7 p.m. Johnson has published “Just Past Dew Point” and other volumes of poetry. Ascalon, winner of the 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize, is program manager of the Bureau of Fearless Ideas. Lahr is the Skagit River Poetry Festival student poet laureate. Other poet friends may also perform....
Listening to Javier Zamora sing one of his poems at Maple Hall to a Meringue beat during this month’s Skagit River Poetry Festival, you would be surprised to learn he had traveled more than 3,000 miles on foot, by bus and boat, across rivers, deserts, through barbed fences to reunite with his parents. At nine years old. Solito. Alone. Two months of travel, abandoned by his “coyote,” held at gunpoint by a farmer while gulping water from a hose after crossing the Sonora desert, peeing orange, living in cages, his backpack of clean clothes, tooth...
Early morning fog and mist lent a magical twist Thursday to streams of students hauling books from the old to the new La Conner Swinomish Library. The rumble of wheels along Morris Street from carts packed with books began three days of magic – the spell of the written word. Though not part of the Skagit River Poetry Festival itself, it seemed a fitting start. The festival, canceled twice due to COVID-19, brought in dozens of poets from as far away as Argentina and Scotland, hundreds of s...
Tickets are still available for the Skagit Poetry Festival, which starts Thursday evening at 7:30 p.m. While a full Festival pass costs $300, you can purchase daily passes. Pick and choose and chase favorite poets and sessions on your schedule. For $50, you can attend the “Welcome to Indian Country” reading at 8:00 pm Thursday, featuring Washington state Poet Laureate Rena Priest, Upper Salish poet Sasha LaPointe, and Meskwaki (Red Earth People) tribal member Ray Young Bear from Iowa. Swinomish carver Kevin Paul and his daughter Katherine Pau...
Some of the 37 guest poets and artists participating in this year’s Skagit River Poetry Festival are crossing oceans to reach La Conner. Others just have to cross the Rainbow Bridge. Canadian poet Karen Solie, flying in from St. Andrews, Scotland, is coming the farthest. Katherine Paul of the band Black Belt Eagle Scout can just stroll down the street. Her dad Kevin Paul can commute from Swinomish Village. Father and daughter will open the festival’s Thursday, October 6 program, “Welcome to Indian Country: A Reading to Celebrate our First Natio...
A million details make the Skagit River Poetry Festival happen – and they are all coming together. Before the Festival takes place in La Conner Oct. 6-9, there are 34 poets to match to housing, pick up at the airport shuttle and feed. There are half a dozen school buses to arrange so Skagit and Whatcom County high school students can attend for free on Friday, October 7. Not to mention 220 chairs to distribute to Festival venues for a four-day whirlwind of setting up, taking down, setting up a...
By Anna Ferdinand When Rena Priest stood before a crowd at the Lincoln theater Sept. 3, she asked attendees to answer this question: “Where do poems come from?” A theater took pen to paper, writing to the prompt for five minutes, each person free to travel the pathways down which their brains chose to meander, tracking thoughts on the page. The Skagit River Poetry Foundation, a co-sponsor of the poetry reading with Priest, Washington state’s poet laureate, helps us answer the question: For students in and around the Skagit Valley who benef...
“When you are poeting, you are making the world, creating the universe out of nothing,” Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest said last Saturday at the Lincoln Theatre. That’s because the word poet comes from the Greek word poesis or “maker,” she explained. During the 90-minute reading and workshop, Priest introduced herself and her work to an audience of about 50. Several La Conner-area residents were among those listening as she shared stories from her own life, wisdom from other poets and her own work. Dr. Seuss’s “Red Fish Blue Fish” w...
Could there be a more beautiful spot for poets and poetry than the sylvan glade of Pioneer Park? Georgia Johnson doesn’t think so. “For 37 years I’ve driven across the bridge and past the park thinking, ‘we’ve got to get poetry happening here,’” she told listeners from the bandstand at the free “Make Me Wanna Holler” celebration sponsored by the Skagit River Poetry Foundation. “And now it’s happening!” About 100 people of all ages enjoyed live music, live poetry and lunch in the park on Su...
Most of the poems 4-year-old Lenore Micka-Foos dictates to her dad find homes with her admiring relatives. The first-place poem she wrote for the Great Hunt for Magic Skagit Stories will find a home in print. Lenore’s “The Great Skagit List” was one of 61 entries in the Skagit Historical Museum’s debut writing contest. Youth, teen and adult winners in the poetry and essay categories were announced last Friday during a Facebook Live broadcast from the Museum. “A big part of this contest w...
Every April, organizations across America celebrate National Poetry Month. It is a great opportunity to focus on this genre of literature. One of poetry’s great contributions is that it works to expand everyday words to hold more nuance, emotion and meaning. It helps us to share our deepest feelings and connect with others in our sadness and joy. Poetry contributes to shared understanding and helps us communicate with those around us in ways that can be difficult, especially in a time of social distancing, remote learning and canceled c...
