Hoa Nguyen & Jesse Morse 5/14 @ 6:30 p.m.

The Switch Reading, Art, and Music Series is happy to announce the successful result of our Kickstarter fundraising campaign! Thanks to generous donations from members of the community, the poet Hoa Nguyen of Austin, Texas, will be reading with local poet Jesse Morse on May 14 at 6:30 p.m. 

Nguyen was born in the Mekong Delta, raised in the DC area, and studied poetics in San Francisco. With poet Dale Smith, she edits the journal and book imprint Skanky Possum. She is the author of eight books and chapbooks including Chinaberry (Fact Simile, 2010), Kiss A Bomb Tattoo (Effing, 2009) and Hecate Lochia (Hot Whiskey, 2009). She currently lives in Austin, where she curates a reading series and teaches creative writing.

Jesse Morse lives in Portland, Oregon. His work has recently appeared in Past Simple, Slack Lust and Unheimliche. He'll have two chapbooks out this year: Rotations (C_L Press) and paragraphs for dolphins (Thuggery & Grace). He runs the Smorg reading series. He plays guitar and sings in The Whirlies. He spends a lot of time outside with his dog Hank.

As far as we know, this is the first time ever that a reading series has attempted to raise funds in advance to bring a poet to town. We are grateful to our literary and artistic community for supporting the effort to bring exciting poets to Portland. We especially want to thank the following people (as well as others who asked to remain anonymous):

1.     AmigoAmiga

2.     Andrew R. Grow

3.     Carol Ciavonne

4.     Christopher Ashby

5.     Elaine Fawcett

6.     Evans

7.     James

8.     Jen C

9.     Jesse Morse

10. Joel Bettridge

11. John Morse

12. Kaia Sand

13. Kathryn Carr

14. Kris Doty

15. Maryrose Larkin

16. Sam Lohmann

17. Sonya Philip

18. Stacy Elaine Dacheux

 

by Hoa Nguyen: 

LOVE AND LEVEL


Love and level     the sleeves

            Eating is a hand

here       Leave laughing if you must

like leave this creamy celery root


We push out              jerking

a sleeve of we    & I cover you

horses sourced in sea


(weave in waves and manes) 

By Jesse Morse: 

low, deep

                        (for ryan and jackie)


are the tunneled

hoots of great-horned

owls, easy silhouettes.


love is overrated,

i think, but

to prove otherwise

you both sink low

and deep into the

evidence of night,

change what follows.


you two

are one and one

but not one -

a thing real and naked,

casual and undone.