Stephen Thomas' rare gift is to take what we have been given--the tangible, physical world--and track its origins to the mystical and the intangible.

Join us for a poetry evening with Stephen Thomas and Dennis Held.

Thursday, June 15th at 7pm at Auntie's Bookstore (402 W Main Ave).

This event is free and open to the public.
RSVP at our website.

About the book

...in one fine grained surface, brown
as cinnamon, a fossil trail, perhaps a crab's,

a track of comprehensible intent,
shaped by hunger and by chance,
God's two great instruments.

About Stephen Thomas

Stephen Thomas was born into a working class Catholic family in Auburn, Washington in 1950. At 12, thanks to an inspired teacher, Mrs. Sable, he heard a recording of Emily Dickinson poems. His fate was sealed. He played his role in Seattle's poetry scene of the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. In 1984, he founded and built The Cabaret Hegel, where now an off-ramp leads I-5 traffic into the Industrial Flats. There he presented and performed with many other Northwest writers and musicians, including Jesse Bernstein. He has published his work in many ephemeral magazines, as well as in Exquisite Corpse, Poetry Northwest, The Malahat Review, Windfall, Malpais Review, and others. His book, Journeyman, was published by Charles Potts' Tsunami Inc. He currently lives in Germany's Black Forest, where he co-founded Gemeinschaft Sonnenwald: a sustainable, regenerative agriculture community, that is, a big family farm.

About Dennis Held

Dennis Held lives in the Vinegar Flats neighborhood of Spokane, Washington where he is a book editor and community organizer. He is the 2022 Pushcart Prize winner, and author of Not Me, Exactly. His first book of poetry, Betting on the Night, was published by Lost Horse Press; his second, Ourself, by Gribble Press. He lives along Hangman Creek and watches for kingfishers.

Review

"Stephen Thomas is one of our finest poets and to read him is to be carried into realms both difficult to imagine and...impossible to deny." --Dennis Held, Pushcart Prize winner 2022, and author of Not Me, Exactly.