Drawing of a person standing under a red umbrella while colorful raindrops fall

Poetry in the Harbor

Annual National Poetry Month gathering at TCC's Gig Harbor campus.
Thursday, April 18, 6-9pm

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TCC CE is delighted to announce the return of Poetry in the Harbor, an event celebrating National Poetry Month. This year's event will feature four local poets, Asha Berkes, Kathleen Byrd, Josie Emmons Turner, and Michael Haeflinger, who will each share their work with the audience. Following the readings, there will be a panel Q&A session where attendees can engage with the poets and learn more about their creative processes. Join us for an evening of inspiration and appreciation for the power of poetry.

Class Fee: $25
Date: April 18, 2024
Time: 6pm-9pm
Location: Gig Harbor Campus

About

Join us for an evening of poetry!  Featuring readings by: 

Asha Berkes 

Asha Berkes is a poet and educator living in Tacoma, Washington. They are the Director for Educational Partnerships for Write253 and teach poetry at Tacoma School of the Arts. Find them riding his bike around town or sitting by the Sound gluing leaves into their journal.

Kathleen Byrd 

Kathleen Byrd was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest and has lived in Olympia for over 30 years. She is a mother, daughter, sister, auntie, and a teacher of writing at South Puget Sound Community College. She holds an MFA from Western Washington University. Her poetry explores insights garnered from deep relationships to place, attention to dreams, and a longing for matrilineal wisdom. She co-authored two chapbooks of postcard poems in correspondence with Dan Leahy, Hand it Over, 1st and 2nd editions. Her poems have appeared in Subjectiv, UnspokenNW, Crosscurrents, Pontoon, Works in Progress, The City of Olympia’s Bus Stop poetry, and Godiva Speaks. Her chapbook collection, Hold the Babies was a finalist for Finishing Line Press’s Emerging Women’s Voices chapbook contest. She was awarded a Sue Boynton Poetry Award in Bellingham in 2021 and is the current poet laureate of Olympia, Washington.

Josie Emmons Turner 

Josie Emmons Turner’s poems are most recently published in The Madrona Project IV: The Empty Bowl Cookbook, The Madrona Project V: Art in a Public Voice, and Now That You Are Gone from This World (Poet’s Choice). She has taught poetry workshops to youth and adults and is a contributor to West Sound Magazine. She lives on a beautiful estuary feeding into Gig Harbor with her show dog, Gabbie, gardens, practices French cooking, and is a former Tacoma Poet Laureate (2011-2013).

Michael Haeflinger

Michael Haeflinger is the author of Low Static Rage (Blue Cactus Press, 2019), the chapbooks The Days Before and Love Poem for the Everyday (Dog On A Chain Press, 2014 and 2011), and the audio book Let’s Don’tBe Crazy (2016). He lives in Tacoma.

Emcee: Allen Braden 

Allen is the author of A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood as well as Elegy in the Passive Voice. Allen has published in The Times Literary Supplement, Virginia Quarterly Review, The New Republic, The Hudson Review, Orion and elsewhere. His writing has received awards, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a writer’s residency at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has taught at Tacoma Community College since 2000.