Join us for a tour of Dawn Cerny: Portmeirion with poet and event organizer Eric M. Acosta, along with a dynamic lineup of local artists, writers, and poets. Using ekphrasis, a detailed response to a work of art, participants will explore the bonds that exist between various art forms. 

In collaboration with Unpoetry, writers and artists are invited to generate new work inspired by current exhibitions, with the goal to deepen engagement with the museum space and the artwork within, while challenging traditional definitions of poetry and language. 

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About the Presenters

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Quenton Baker is a poet, educator, and Cave Canem fellow. Their current focus is black interiority and the afterlife of slavery. Baker’s work has appeared in The Offing, Jubilat, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. They are a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, the recipient of the 2018 Arts Innovator Award from Artist Trust, a 2019 Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence, and a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. They are the author of we pilot the blood (The 3rd Thing, 2021) and ballast (Haymarket Books, 2023).

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BLUEs.Weave is a guitarist, producer, and improviser seamlessly stitching soundscapes, beats, and acoustic compositions into experimental poetic forms. Drawing from a deep well of Black American performance styles and compositional approaches, their genre-defying work meditates on the infinite potential for Black creativity to transmute past and present pain into hope and love.

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shyanne snaʔcups steele (she/her) is a syilx storyteller who grew up tagging along with her grandparents as they visited everyone from Omak, WA to Vernon, BC. As an adult, she left the Colville Reservation to begin her journey to become the President of the United States, before realizing the sheer volume of moral compromise necessary for the job. Today, she teaches and writes poems that she forces her roommate (who really is just a friend) and their two cats to listen to in Seattle, WA.

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Raised in Tennessee but rooted in Seattle, sullivan forderhase works in the liminal spaces of poetry through word and movement. They are interested in desire, shame, dream spaces, lineage, the unconscious, grief, and joy. They chose the question over the answer, allowing curiosity and tenderness to move them. You can connect with them on social media via @softservesully.

Eric M. Acosta is a Seattle poet and the founder of Unpoetry, a curated, twice-monthly series that blends performance, reading, and more. His debut collection, Motion Flesh (2023), is available through Chat Room Books, with his follow-up, Underbelly, forthcoming from Carbonation Press. Explore his work at www.printcopiesavailable.com and learn more about Unpoetry at unpoetry.net