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Poetry Reading: Margaret Chula & Joe Wilkins
About Margaret Chula's Weeding the Labyrinth:
Margaret Chula's lyrical poems bear witness to the devastation caused by floods, wildfires, and man-made disasters. But they also transport the reader into an appreciation of nature's beauty—the song of the blackbird, the grandeur of elk, and the healing power of plants. In Weeding the Labyrinth, Chula kneels down to inhale the essence of trillium, traces her fingertips "along scars of petroglyphs," and wails "the sorrow in my throat" to a cougar. These poems remind us that we are "on the threshold—unsteady feet pausing then inching forward, like the clematis on its tentative spiral to the sky."
Born in Massachusetts, Maggie Chula has traveled overland through Asia, lived in England and Japan, and now makes her home on the Portland skyline. She has published more than a dozen collections of poetry including, most recently, Weeding the Labyrinth. Her haibun memoir, Firefly Lanterns: Twelve Years in Kyoto, was awarded a 2022 NYC Big Book Award in Multicultural Nonfiction. Maggie has given readings and lead workshops throughout the United States, as well as in Poland, Canada, and Japan. She has also served as president of the Tanka Society of America, Poet Laureate for Friends of Chamber Music, and on the Advisory Board for the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University.
About Joe Wilkins's Pastoral, 1994:
Joe Wilkins' Pastoral, 1994 calls compellingly into the lyric quietness, labor, and rituals of the rural West and its communities, bringing readers close to the earth, to the ditches, to the "flowery stink of alfalfa / hot breath of wheat." Enfolding its reader in a living, breathing landscape, this collection tenderly approaches the lives—of humans, of sheep, of cottonwood, and barn owl—that collide and entangle with each other. With a gentle yet appraising regard for the richly layered concepts of childhood and masculinity, Pastoral, 1994 leans in and listens to the prairie and those living there.
Joe Wilkins was born and raised on the Big Dry of eastern Montana and now lives with his family in the foothills of the Coast Range of Oregon, where he directs the creative writing program at Linfield University. He is the author of two novels, The Entire Sky and Fall Back Down When I Die, both of which have garnered wide critical acclaim. Wilkins is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers, winner of a GLCA New Writers Award, and five collections of poetry, including Pastoral, 1994 and When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award. You can find him online at https://joewilkins.org/ and https://joewilkinswriter.substack.com.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2965046-0
