Alina on Patreon: Debut Poetry Reading and Writing Discussion Podcast

 Downloadable Link of Audio: Debut Poetry Reading and Discussion May 28, 2020.m4a

This is a taste for what’s in store for my future Patrons!

In this Reading/Discussion:

• I read poems from my Poetry Reading set list at Central Book Exchange on September 27th, 2019.
• I talk about how I write my poems: revision techniques, poems that are really poetic prose, or the beginnings of creative non-fiction personal essays.
• I talk about the Utah Arts Festival, my poetry reading as a Literary Artist this year was postponed due to the spread of COVID-19 until 2021.

Link to my Poetry Reading at the Utah Arts Festival June 2018: alinahappyhansenwriter.com

Link to CBE Poetry Reading: Patrons-Only Post  or Blog Post Public-Access

I’d like to thank Central Book Exchange again for hosting this event and allowing me to read my poetry, Thank you so much! I hope you are all doing well and staying safe! I miss coming in and browsing for Poetry.

CBE on Facebook

Poems I read from the set list: 

Poem: blue jays flinting 

blue jays flinting from tree to tree

Electric blue feathers, screeching at dusk and sunrise

everything’s dying, everything’s dead.

OREGON COAST 2019

California Turkey Vultures

Kings

Chinooks

Hatchery

Fin-clipped

12lb braid, Mitchelle reel

The hundreds of white-ghost bodies of half-dead jellyfish

Floating, drifting through the cold pacific water

The rush of waves against the beach, upturning broken shells,

The cream crest of the waves, folding over, clashing with each other

A discarded empty beer bottle nestled in the exposed roots of a tree

Lonely elders, spilling their lives, when provoked, to any stranger.

Anyone who shows an interest.

The slick black body of the eel that swam to shore, weaving in and out of the floating seaweed

Disappearing under the massive stone I stood on

My hands wet from pulling off seaweed tangled on the hook of my lure

The azure water changing color with the currents, low-tide-high-tide-my-tide

The gray-black ball of baitfish swimming near the surface of the water, ripples when they jump and swim close to the surface, chased below

Poem: Teeth To Ear (originally published on alinahappyhansenwriter.com)

Teeth to ear 

words open and close

lips move, no sound

a gasp, escaped sentences

jump from teeth to ear

wide eyes to fists hitting flesh.

Wreck and Passenger

Nestled on a riverside

a minutes drive from the ocean

a sailboat heavy with age and time          Erodes

sailless mast, a ribcage

day-in-day-out

I am passenger

in my dad’s vehicle

we are fishermen and campers, here, in this minuscule town on the Oregon coast

his vehicle purrs, its roundish body coffin-like, bubble windows close me up

in his submarine machine

we drive over the bridge

a slight incline

to decline

day-in-day-out

we drive back and forth

over the bridge

into town for McDonalds hamburgers, for lures, for breaks between fishing

I look at the sailboat wondering if it is an abandoned dream or once a living token of memories

I am passenger

the day we drive over

the bridge

(into or out of

town I cannot

remember)

my Dad booms-arm-out-finger-pointing

“Look! The sailboat sunk!”

and I look and

the sailboat

is sunk

into

the river, the mast at an angle, an arrow

pointing

down

from

the

sky

Dad talks, says, it’s unusual, “boats don’t just sink—someone got pissed off,” and

that makes sense but doesn’t

it also makes sense

that the water ate up the boat, or tried to, stuck in its throat

I am a passenger

and we drive over the bridge

day-in-day-out

my eyes linger on the boat’s crippled body, until

one day, we see ropes attached to mast-and-bone-and-wood,

a spider’s tight gossamer, webbed, and pulling

dragging the wreckage of this maybe-dream-maybe-token-of-memories

up out of the waters throat

I am passenger

in my father’s land-submarine dispirited for the resurrection of this wreck

a watery grave, even partial is better than crucifixion by time, a wooden corpse forced to rot

in view of all passerbys and passengers.

Thank you all for reading and listening to my words, my poems, it means everything to me. I deeply appreciate your time and consideration. 

Stay safe and stay healthy!

Xoxo, 

Alina

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