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Seattle poets invade Capitol Hill’s shops and art galleries for a series of readings this weekend.

First up, Vanessa Place and Doug Nufer will read at Vermillion Gallery (1508 11th Ave.) from 7:30 – 9 pm on Saturday, December 1.

Just around the corner, also on Saturday at 7 p.m., PageBoy magazine releases its fifth issue with a reading/party at Kaleidoscope Vision (1419 10th Ave.). Readers include Sierra Nelson, Jeremy Springsteed, Sarah Galvin, Alex Bleecker, Bill Carty and Paul Nelson, with photography from George Ciardi.

Sunday, December 3 at 1 p.m., Blindfold Gallery (1718 E. Olive Way, Ste. A) will host the second installment in its “Afternoon Poetry” series, with readings by Luke Johnson, Corinna Rosendahl, Jeanine Walker and Sarah Galvin.

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With the year wrapping up, it’s also time to look ahead to what’s up-and-coming in 2013. Appropriately, the Authors, Publishers, and Readers of Independent Literature (APRIL) literary festival just announced March 25-30 as the dates for its 2013 festival in this booty-shaking video:

In addition, APRIL posted the first installment in their fundraising series: “Reverse Fan Mail.” For each installment, the name of a donor is sent to a small press author who then writes a story or poem inspired by that name. First up is Richard Chiem’s “For M.H. Simmons.”

–Bill Carty & Crystal Curry

The last couple of weeks have been pretty awesome for Seattle poetry. Multi-poet events such as the City Arts Lit Crawl and the Greenwood Lit Crawl brought dozens upon dozens of poetry fans out despite inclement weather and readings and performances by Jaap Blonk and D. A. Powell were complimented by a book launch for Jaded Ibis author Elizabeth J. Colen. Coldfront and Coldfront sympathizers were on the scene at the events and we have, as evidence, highlights from some of the events.

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The City Arts Lit Crawl: Zachary Schomburg

Spectators and poets filled the streets to hear 60 poets and fiction writers read at 17 venues around the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. Different literary arts programmers curated “legs” of the festival and APRIL, a poetry organization that runs the APRIL Festival, was one of them. One of the highlights of APRIL’s readings was Zachary Schomburg at The Comet Tavern:

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D.A. Powell for Open Books “Open Elsewhere”

Seattleites had a chance to catch poet D.A. Powell performing (unplugged!) in a former chapel on the fourth floor of the Good Shepherd Center. As Open Books co-owner Christine Deavel introduced Powell, she pointed to the building’s history of housing “the fallen, the troubled, the incorrigible, the wayward” as a perfect setting for Powell’s poetry.

Powell read from his new collection, Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (Graywolf, 2012) and introduced a panorama of swamp coolers and hailstorms, sex in the coyote brush and “horrible missteps with fucked up chums.” Powell spoke of wanting to do with words what landscape artists do with paint, and his portraits of California’s Central Valley offered a place where people might find “each other / like lightning bugs, despite the pesticides.”

Because of the sound malfunction, we couldn’t get a video during the reading. Powell, however, graciously accepted our request for a Coldfront-only session:

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Jaap Blonk at Northwest Film Forum

Courtesy of poet/blogger Greg Bem, we also have video of Jaap Blonk’s sound and video presentation at the Northwest Film Forum:

–Bill Carty & Crystal Curry

Blonk video courtesy Greg Bem’s Stale Attitude

What do you do when visiting poets come to town and you can’t find a venue in time? Sunday’s Black Buried organizer, Greg Bem, fashioned a semi-spontaneous, location-undisclosed-until-the-last-minute reading in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle — that’s what. Poets Chelsea Tadeyeske, Cynthia Spencer, Amaranth Borsuk and Alex Bleecker read at chilly dusk, along with musical-poet guests Lobo Marino. Milwaukee poets Tadeyeske and Spencer, both with recent books out through plumberries press, read concise and painterly poems. Borsuk, a new transplant to Seattle, read from her new collection, Handiwork, from Slope Editions (2012), an erasure-derived procedural work. Bleeker read new work of intimate scenarios. Lobo Marino weaved a musical poetic interlude of harmoniums and percussion. Here is Amaranth Borsuk at the event, reading from Handiwork:

For more videos from the event, as well as Four Hoarsemen at Smoke Farm and a bonus poem by Bem, head over to Bem’s blog.

– Crystal Curry & Nico Vassilakis

Video used by permission

Welcome to Coldfront’s new video series, In Conversation. Each episode features excerpts of chats, asides, buzzed ruminations and/or simple shit-shooting with a particular poet, as well as short readings of new work, or work in progress.

In the premiere episode, we travel back in time to summer 2011 to have a drink with Ben Mirov, whose brand new full length, Hider Roser, will be released by Octopus Books in September. Filmed at The Richardson in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Mirov talks about the reality of Jack Spicer, his chapbook ‘Ghost Machine’ (Caketrain, 2010), living in San Francisco vs. Brooklyn, and his rather contemptuous relationship with poetry. Mirov also reads us some new poems from B.C. Edwards‘ kitchen table.

This episode is available in HD. Enjoy!

Ben Mirov in Conversation

Ben Mirov is the author of Hider Roser (Octopus Books, 2012), and Ghost Machine (Caketrain, 2010). He grew up in Northern California and lives in Oakland.

Thursday evening, art, performance and poetry lovers wandered in and out of the exhibit at Suyama Space, 2324 Second Ave., taking in Avantika Bawa’s response to the art space and four poets’ responses to Bawa’s “At Owner’s Risk.” A crowd of about thirty people circled around the large room, listening to a simultaneous reading by Seattle and Portland poets David Abel, Lisa Radon, Nico Vassilakis and James Yeary. Here’s a clip:

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In other news, Alice Blue Books editor Amber Nelson has put out word that the press is accepting chapbook submissions from writers living in the Pacific Northwest for the shotgun wedding chapbook series. Submissions should be 25 pages max and can be submitted here.

–Crystal Curry