An Evening of Poetry

Lynx House Press is proud to announce the release of Traverse by Kevin Craft as its 24th installment in the Pacific Northwest Poetry Series. Traverse is a book of family origins and discovery, an adoptee's journey toward self-knowledge, a son's journey toward becoming (and losing) a parent. It is also a history of walking, of moving through the world at human speed, and in it, Craft sifts through uncertainties, genealogies, and the geological record to find a deeper connection to both human and non-human nature, piecing together, step by step, a vision of expansive love and the fragile ecology in which our lives subsist.

Malone's Site of Disappearance is an investigation of memory and trauma, an intimate reckoning guided by an acute awareness of language's power to reveal and transform.

"Oakes' is one of the most original voices in contemporary American poetry. With no posturing or easy gimmicks, her inventive poems are grounded in the world we live in. Oakes leads us beneath the layers of violence, depression, and climate despair to remind us, ever so gently, 'the world is connected / by breath / and it's bodies that do / the breathing.' In each of these pieces, and especially her long poem, "In My Original Kansas, We Were Iron," she uses the everyday, often difficult material of life as fuel. This is a daring, risky, and tender new collection." —James Crews, editor of The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection & Joy

Kevin Craft lives in Seattle and directs the Written Arts Program at Everett Community College. For two decades he served as a faculty director of the University of Washington's Writers in Rome Program. His books include Solar Prominence, selected by Vern Rutsala for the Gorsline Prize from Cloudbank Books (2005), and Vagrants & Accidentals, published in the Pacific Northwest Poets Series of the University of Washington Press (2017). He has received fellowships and awards from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, MacDowell Colony, the Bogliasco Foundation (Italy), the Camargo Foundation (France), 4Culture, The Jack Straw Cultural Center, PLAYA, and Artist Trust. In 2022 he was Artist in Residence at Olympic National Park, and often volunteers as a lookout steward in the North Cascades. Editor of Poetry Northwest from 2009 – 2016, he now serves as Executive Editor of Poetry NW Editions.

Born in New Mexico and raised in Nebraska and Colorado, Erin Malone is the author of two full-length collections: Site of Disappearance, finalist for the National Poetry Series, and Hover, as well as a chapbook, What Sound Does It Make. The recipient of grants and fellowships from Artist Trust, 4Culture, Jack Straw, and the Colorado Council on the Arts, Erin taught in Seattle Arts &; Lectures' Writers in the Schools program, served as Editor of Poetry Northwest, and now works as a bookseller. She lives on Bainbridge Island in Washington State.
@erinmalonepoet

Jennifer Oakes is a poet and novelist. Her most recent book of poems, We Can't Tell If the Constellations Love Us (42 Miles Press) won the 42 Miles Poetry Prize. Her previous books of poems The Declarable Future and The Mouths of Grazing Things (University of Wisconsin Press) were awarded the Four Lakes Prize and the Brittingham Prize, respectively. Jennifer's novel, The Chief of Rally Tree (Skyhorse Publishing) won the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature. A frequent collaborator with visual artists, Jennifer's work has been inscribed on basalt and pressed into license plates. Jennifer is a recipient of the PEN Northwest Wilderness Writing Residency, was a Finalist for the Oregon Book Awards, and is a contributing editor for Solstice Literary Magazine. Jennifer lives in Seattle, WA, where she teaches literature and writing.