Monday, 22 July 2019
The open mike starts at 8:00 (with sign-up prior to that). Ian and Jennifer will come on between 8:40 and 8:50 and give us 20 minutes or so of work.
Jennifer Boyden by Dean Davis
Jennifer Boyden is the author of the novel The Chief of Rally Tree, which was awarded the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature (Skyhorse Publishing). She is also the author of two books of poetry, The Declarable Future, which won The Four Lakes Prize in Poetry and The Mouths of Grazing Things, winner of The Brittingham Prize in Poetry (both with University of Wisconsin Press). Prior, she was a PEN Northwest Wilderness Writing Resident, a residency which invites one writer per year to live in unparalleled seclusion for a year in a remote region on the Rogue River in southern Oregon. Her work can be found in numerous journals and anthologies.
Jennifer serves on the faculties of Spring Street International School and Eastern Oregon University in their low-residency MFA program. She lives on an island in Washington state with her husband, daughter, and donkeys, who enjoy listening to daily installments of The Odyssey.
Ian Boyden
Ian Boyden—artist, writer, translator, and curator—investigates relationships between the self and the environment, in particular how art and writing can shape our ecology. Consistent across his productions are his interests in material relevance and place-based thought, as well as a deep awareness of East Asian philosophies and aesthetics. He studied for many years in China and Japan, and holds degrees in the History of Art from Wesleyan University and Yale University. In addition to his independent projects, he also collaborates with scientists, poets, composers, and visual artists. He has exhibited widely, including a solo exhibition in China at the I.M Pei-designed Suzhou Museum. His books, paintings, and sculptures are found in many public collections including Reed College, Stanford University, the Portland Art Museum, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. In 2019 he was awarded a $12,000 NEA grant for translating the dissidnt Tibetan poet Tsering Woeser.