Tagged: poetry

In "Fooling Around," poet and translator Alice Derry considers the implications of the artistic life — whether it is chosen, or thrust upon us.

Many Pacific Northwest artists feel compelled to respond to the drama of the salmon fighting their way upstream to spawn. In "Finding the Poem," Port Angeles poet Alice Derry sees in the salmon's efforts a parallel with the way we learn to accommodate each other in a long marriage — and how often it is loss that teaches us, finally, how to do it.

Why do we make art? and Is it worth the personal cost? are two of the central questions in Christine Deavel's poetry collection "Woodnote" (Bear Star Press, 2011). Deavel is the co-owner of a poetry-only bookstore in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood, and a graduate of the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop. "Woodnote" has even won the Washington State Book award for poetry. But even so, Deavel describes herself as someone who is almost constantly in crisis about why she, or anyone, writes. KUOW's Elizabeth Austen spoke with Christine Deavel about that ambivalence and how it plays out in her work.