The readings traveled between kitchens where cigarette ash dangled precariously over stew pots, to the segregated, red-lined neighborhoods of Atlanta and Detroit, to occupied territories where girls carry ladders to clamber over walls to school, to erroneously tripped-upon World War I memorials, and to assisted-living facilities where the carpets are replaced every time someone dies. The series-ending Favorite Poem was delivered by the sole, prose-writing WordsWest Co-Curator Harold Taw: "When My Brother Fell" by Essex Hemphill. We ended with the presentation of a framed copy of an "exquisite corpse" commemorative poem generated by audience members who randomly selected lines drawn from the work of WordsWest authors over the life of the series (you can read it on our home page or at C & P Coffee Company).
The WordsWest Co-Curators Katy E. Ellis, Susan Rich, and Harold Taw want to express deep admiration and gratitude to Cameron and Peter Moores for sponsoring and providing WordsWest Literary Series with a home at C & P Coffee Company. We also want to thank Tracy Record and Patrick Sand (who came to photograph our final event!) of West Seattle Blog for your support over the years and for being the most important news and community discussion forum in West Seattle. And we have been so fortunate to be able to pay our WordsWest authors for their time and talents due to generous grants from Poets & Writers, Inc. and Seattle's Office of Arts and Culture.
Friends of Ford Prefect might end this post by saying, "So long and thanks for all the fish." We shall say simply, "Farewell." For now.