Pre-registration for this event is full. A limited block of walk-in tickets will be available on site beginning 10 minutes before the event on a first-come, first-served basis.

Join us on a tour of Stephanie Syjuco: After/Images and Twilight Child: Antonia Kuo And Martin Wong with local poets, using Ekphrastic writing to explore the bond between language and art. The Frye's partnership with Unpoetry asks local writers to generate pieces based on current exhibitions, with the goal to inspire deeper engagement of the museum space and the artwork it holds.

This session will feature Justine Chan, Troy Osaki, Jenne Hsien Patrick, and Patheresa Wells, and will be hosted by Amy Hirayama.

About the Program

This quarterly program is organized by Eric M. Acosta and features a new lineup of poets for each event, providing a unique opportunity to experience the current exhibitions through their eyes, and the various ways one can approach, think, or feel through art.

About the Presenters

Amy Hirayama is a mixed-race Japanese and white writer and educator from Seattle. She teaches creative writing through Writers in the Schools and is the events and residency coordinator for Clarion West.

Justine Chan is a writer, poet, and singer-songwriter from Chicago. Should You Lose All Reason(s) (Chin Music Press, 2023) is her first book. Her work has appeared in Baltimore Review, Beecher’s, Booth, Poetry on Buses, and Midwestern Gothic among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington and has worked many seasons as a park ranger with the National Park Service. She currently lives in Seattle.

Namaka Auwae is a proud mixed-race Kanaka Maoli educator and writer living in Seattle, WA. She was the 2018 Seattle Youth Poet Ambassador and has been published in two editions of the South Seattle Emerald Poetry Anthology collections. She currently works as an elementary school special education instructor in the Seattle area.

Jenne Hsien Patrick is a writer and artist based in Seattle. She writes poetry and hybrid text/image works and is currently writing about motherhood, family history, and self-preservation and survival as an inheritance from the matriarchal lines of their family. Jenne is a current 2023-2024 Hugo House fellow, an alum of the Tin House Workshop, and their work has appeared in publications such as Hayden’s Ferry Reviews, Wildness/Platypus Press, and Honey Literary among others.

The descendant of Filipino and Japanese immigrants, Troy Osaki is a poet, organizer, and attorney. Osaki is a three-time grand slam poetry champion and has earned fellowships from Kundiman, Hugo House, and Jack Straw Cultural Center. He was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry fellowship from the Poetry Foundation in 2022. A former Critic-at-Large for Poetry Northwest, his poetry has appeared in The Margins, Muzzle Magazine, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the Seattle University School of Law where he interned at Creative Justice, an arts-based alternative to incarceration for youth in King County. He lives in Seattle.

Eric M. Acosta is a poet living in Seattle. He runs the curated twice-monthly performance / reading / whatever series Unpoetry. His debut collection Motion Flesh (2023) is out now through Chat Room Books. His follow-up Underbelly is forthcoming through Carbonation Press. Find all of his work at www.printcopiesavailable.com. Find more info on the performance series at unpoetry.net