April is National Poetry Month. As a part of that celebration, I am participating in The Big Poetry Giveaway, curated this year by Susan Rich, a wonderful Northwest poet. I will give away two books of poetry at the end of the month to two of the readers (one book each) of Gillnet Dreams who leave comments saying they're interested. the first book is my own chapbook: Swimming with Fish and Other Animals, first published in 2004. It is divided into two sections - 'Fish': poems, essays and a short memoir on the commercial fishing life, and 'Other Animals': poems about family, growing up and more.
The second book is Craving Water, by Mary Lou Sanelli, a collection of "Poems of ordinary life in a northwest village."
For those readers who are interested in life in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, either of these should both satisfy their curiosity and pique their interest to know more. I will be selecting (at random) the winners and contacting you by email the week of May 1st.
For those of you who are visiting Gillnet Dreams for the first time, welcome! Thanks for stopping by. A retired educator, I moved to Alaska in 1975 where I taught for 23 years. I commercial fished for salmon on Cook Inlet from 1977-1997. My writings and photography have been published by The Smithsonian, Oregon Coast, Cirque Literary Journal, The Oberon Poetry Magazine, The Waterman’s Gazette, and Pacific Fishing magazine, among others. Now living in Olympia, Washington, I read my poetry, essays and memoirs and exhibits his photographs throughout the Pacific Northwest. I have performed at The Fisherpoets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon each year since 1999, and curate their website Fisherpoets.org, and created and manage the archive of Fisherpoets' work at inthetote.com.
If you are a blogger and want to give away two poetry volumes yourself, you can join in! If you are not a blogger, you can sign up for drawings on participating blogs as often as you'd like. Susan has guidelines for participating and a running list of blogs that are involved on her site HERE. Thanks to Susan for all her work on this!
