Sunday mid-morning. I have just completed my first “write,” and am now casting about for some way down.
I’ve had Raul’s e-reading tabbed on Facebook for some time. It looks like that time is today.
You know you’ve made it in Latinx Seattle when an Alfredo Arreguín painting is associated with your work. I doubt I will ever have such an honor, but what’s not to like about coyotes?
Here is the recording of the reading. I particularly liked the poem “Brown Angels.”
Word Enough Writers Poetry Book Release Reading
Raul and I have been friends since the mid-90s when we were both in the Seattle Latinx writers group Los Norteños. It has been a pleasure following his art and his career as a poet and, more recently, Poet Laureate of the City of Redmond (2019-2021). He manages and stocks a poetry box in North Seattle and a Thursday midday poetry reading in the park.
The idea that there is justice in the world resonates through my entire being when I marvel at the through-line of his accomplishments.
A poetry reading is not an easy art. To hold an audience accustomed to rapid-fire visual stimulation in rapt attention for an hour with only the spoken word takes considerable practice and expertise. Thus this particular event is a superb example of the entertainment genre poetry reading.
Fellow reader C. W. Emerson rounds out the event with a polished set of pieces featuring lyric descriptions of his life in the heyday of gay San Francisco, the era we old timers remember, the real A.I.D.S. epidemic that is probably playing out in poorer parts of town even now. Those of us in the arts all lost friends to it.
Steam Spiegel 
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