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We are a nation of self-righteous doormats — a country of knee-jerk nit-pickers and edgy diehards ever in need of someone to take the responsibility off our quivering shoulders, to make our distinctions for us, tell us what is and isn’t tolerable to our delicate constitutions.



You say that’s not you?



You say you’re a freethinker, smart and strong and able to leap complex sexual metaphors in a single bound? I suggest you scribble in red lipstick the Sex and Politics show Thursday at Fulcrum Gallery in your DayPlanner/iPhone/hand. Glass artists Molly Wolfe and Rebecca Chernow will go there — to the land of perverse juxtapostion and cultural icons and metaphors and pleasure principals.



Their Sex and Politics show opens tonight with a reception from 6-10 p.m.



Bitch-slap joy back into your lives.

[Fulcrum Gallery, Thursday, Jan. 29, 6-10 p.m., no cover, 1308 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, 253.250.0520]

 

You know those things you have always been secretly terrified of? There are those who seek them out (and I’m not just talking about sneaking out in the dead of night to hunt mysterious, alienesque life forms). These people are Brave. Or Crazy. But most likely Brave. You know how you’ve always been afraid of your heritage? This is why we should all go see Amy Johnson’s installation opening Feb. 6 at the Minnaert Center in Olympia. She will explore the tension between the myths and realities embedded in her Southern heritage and the cultural expectations for women, according to the Center’s press release.



Yeez. Johnson is Brave, Brave, Brave.

[Minnaert Center, opening reception Friday, Feb. 6, 6-8 p.m., 2011 Mottman Road S.W., Olympia, 360.596.5501]

Rear of House

Go ahead, jump on the bandwagon. Admit it — you’ve scribbled a few lines about Tacoma yourself, secretly on cafe napkins or extensively in ornate notebooks. You’ve written dreamy poetry about the Murray Morgan Bridge and McCarver Street and how many tears fit into a Black Water coffee cup.



You know you want to. Publish one of your poems, that is. You’ve got that half-finished poem on the Top of the Ocean Restaurant rotting away in a box in your basement and a house full o’ kids to look after. Or you’ve simply told yourself that you’d like to, but you just don’t think you have it in you. Rubbish! What you should do instead of self-deprecate is join a dynamic group of budding and established poets — 75 in all — in the roughly 150-page In Tahoma's Shadow, an anthology of poems by Tacoma area writers slated for publication in April 2009.



I tossed a few questions at the two local poets who are spearheading the project — Tammy Robacker and Tacoma poet laureate William Kupinse.



WEEKLY VOLCANO: How did the idea of an anthology of Tacoma-area poets originate?


WILLIAM KUPINSE: In my role as Tacoma’s poet laureate I was meeting all of these fantastic local writers at readings, arts fairs and schools, and it occurred to me that together we could put out a great anthology. Tacoma already has a thriving reading scene through organizations such as the Puget Sound Poetry Connection and the spoken word collective Speak Your Soul, but it struck me that a collection of Tacoma-area poets would help to highlight the fine work that’s being done here in a way that complemented the readings.



VOLCANO: Do you have to live in Tacoma to be a part of it?



KUPINSE: Because we are supported by a grant from the Tacoma Arts Commission, the primary focus of the anthology is on poets from Tacoma, but we will consider poems from writers from the greater Tacoma area: Ruston, Gig Harbor, Puyallup, Fife, and University Place. (As much as they might like to be, Seattle and Olympia are not part of the greater Tacoma area). We’re going to host several readings over the next year to give the poets in the collection the chance to read their work publicly, and these will all take place in Tacoma.



VOLCANO: How did you become involved with the project?



TAMMY ROBACKER: I had the opportunity to hear Bill Kupinse’s poetry when he read works at a few of his Urban Grace Poet Laureate events last year. I also attended his wonderful Ekphrastic poetry workshop at the Tacoma Art Museum in 2008. It was the first time I got to work with him at an instructor-student level, and I was impressed with the way he taught poetry and made it so accessible to the workshop attendees. In late 2008, he invited me to come be a board member and secretary for his new nonprofit venture, Exquisite Disarray Publishing, where I became co-editor for the anthology.



VOLCANO: Any poets out there that we should keep our eye on?



KUPINSE: Oh, all of them, I’d say. Poets are a troublesome bunch, always meddling in affairs both public and private. The poet Percy Shelley wrote that, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Who elected them? That’s what I’d like to know.



ROBACKER: People who want to get connected to the poetry scene here can find monthly Puget Sound Poetry Connection poetry readings at Kings Books. Writers groups like Tacoma Area Lit Enthusiasts and the Tacoma Writers Round Table encourage people to write and produce their works. Spoken word performance groups like Speak Your Soul are doing great things out there with poetry, performance art and integrating sound and video.



VOLCANO: Do you think in rhymes?



ROBACKER: Actually I do think in rhymes. All the beautiful variations of it. Inner rhymes. End rhymes. Internal rhymes. Slant rhymes. Do I sound like Bubba Gump?



Poetry submission must be received by Feb. 20, 2009. To submit your poetry for In Tahoma’s Shadow, see www.exquisitedisarray.org.