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WordsWest Literary Series

Thanks for five glorious years! From September 2014 to June 2019, WordsWest hosted monthly literary events on the third Wednesday of the month at C & P Coffee Company.

Our guests included some of the finest poets and writers in Seattle and the nation. Every event also featured a community member presenting a Favorite Poem.

Below is an "exquisite corpse" poem assembled by the audience on June 19, 2019, from randomly selected lines by WordsWest authors (seasons 1 to 5). A framed version of this poem hangs on the walls of C & P Coffee Co. and the PDF file may be downloaded below.
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WordsWest Literary Series Co-Curators Susan Rich, Harold Taw, and Katy E. Ellis. (Photo: Patrick Sand)
You Must Love What Is Raw and Hungered For
January Gill O'Neil, Season 1


Meanwhile, the sunlight off broken glass is everywhere
Oliver de la Paz, Season 2

I make a box of darkness with a bird in its heart
Terrance Hayes, Season 3

…you will see my name become a little kite dancing in the wind
Daemond Arrindell, Season 4

Tonight we don't die and don't die
Ilya Kaminsky, Season 5

I learned to hear her voice as a kind of map
Kate Lebo, Season 1

This is the place where my baby bones, still soft, were cast into the river
Jourdan Imani Keith, Season 2

There are several ways to talk about the haunted
Imani Sims, Season 3

What does a fifteen-year-old girl know of patience?
Aimee Nehukumatathil, Season 4

Don’t bury me under briars called romantic
Joannie Stangeland, Season 5

Razed down to the quick, her roses promise to return. Prolific. Invasive.
Allen Braden, Season 1

I was trapped by my own reflection
Dana Simpson, Season 2

Our new bodies obliterate old frontiers
Laura Da', Season 3

That we can know what it is for a fox to be happy
Elizabeth Bradfield, Season 4

In the sibilation of its leaving it says what air would say
Bruce Beasley, Season 5

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