Radio Pictures: Aural Anxieties Reading Extravaganza June 20, 2009

Join us for an Open Mic followed by a reading featuring Michael C. Ford & Christopher J. Jarmick with Robert Lashley, Jack McCarthy and Nashira Priester. The event will be hosted by Connie Walle and is co-sponsored by PEN - Washington.

Michael C. Ford's debut spoken word vinyl, Language Commando, earned a Grammy nomination in 1986. His book of Selected Poems, Emergency Exits, was honored by a 1998 Pulitzer Prize nomination. His latest work is The Demented Chauffeur & other Mysteries, an inflammatory book of American vicissitudes of violence and a nation of alienation (the final in a trilogy which includes Nursery Rhyme Assassin and To Kiss the Blood off Our Hands. He also has worked on the film The Signature of All Things: Kenneth Rexroth Centenary and the spoken word CD Radio Pictures: Aural Anxieties with Christopher J. Jarmick. Ford has been called into service to teach in LA area middle and high schools through the PEN in the Classroom program and BIG READ project.

Christopher J. Jarmick had his first poem published in a national magazine when he was 12 (the editor thought he was 16). Born on the East Coast, he spent two decades in LA writing screenplays under pseudonyms, working on Emmy-winning PBS documentaries, and producing for Hard Copy and Entertainment Tonight. Jarmick has lived in Seattle since the mid-90s where he curates and hosts several area poetry readings. He's the co-author of the suspense thriller The Glass Cocoon. Jarmick is the President of PEN-Washington, the former executive vice president of Washington Poets Association. His spoken word CD Radio Pictures: Aural Anxieties, featuring Michael C. Ford, is moments away from being available for your listening pleasure

Robert Lashley grew up in Tacoma and attended Western Washington University in Bellingham. A semifinalist for the PEN/ Rosenthal fellowship and a finalist for the Cave Canem fellowship, he often performs at Northwest spoken word venues and has helped Bellingham, where he lives, develop one of the nation's finest poetry slam scenes. He has published two chapbooks: Songs My City Taught Me and Songs My City Taught Me II (revised editions of both soon to appear). Lashley writes a blog and his essays appear in various journals, including Blogcritics Magazine.

Jack McCarthy calls himself a "standup poetry guy". He began writing and performing poetry while living in the Boston area, where he was a member of Boston's 1996 National Poetry Slam team. Now based in the Seattle area, he performs at local venues and tours nationally. His publications include two chapbooks, Actual Grace Notes and Too Old to Make Excuses (But Still Young Enough to Make Love), and his critically-acclaimed full-length collection Say Goodnight, Grace Notes. He has also produced two audio recordings, Poems for Hannah and Breaking Down Outside a Gas Station.

Nashira Priester is a veteran producer of public broadcasting programs both in the Bay Area and Seattle. She was a founder of KPOO-FM community radio (San Francisco) and Women in Film/ Seattle. Priester was a charter member of I.A.T.S.E. LOCAL 488 - Studio Mechanics of the Pacific Northwest. As a crew person, she works as a Set Decorator/ Dresser/ Buyer for films, both on features and independent projects: music videos and industrials. Priester is also a published writer of poetry and essays. Her work has appeared in anthologies, such as The Next World and has written for a variety of publications, including Ishmael Reed’s online magazine “Konch” and "Audience" magazine. Preister's first solo book, a collection of poems entitled Mystic Glyphs from Onyx Larynx, will be available soon.

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