Jonathan Brannen & Megan Kaminski

Sunday, March 5th
7:30 pm

New American Art Union
922 SE Ankeny Street

$5 suggested donation

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Jonathan Brannen is the author of twelve collections of poetry and three collections of visual literature. His most recent books are Deacessioned Landscapes (Chax Press, 2005) and No Place To Fall (Sink Press, 1999). He currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.

A recent transplant to Portland, Megan Kaminski just completed her MFA in Creative Writing at UC Davis. Before that she went back and forth across the Atlantic, mostly between Los Angeles, Paris, and Casablanca. She is a poet—as well as a sometimes finance director, dancer, writing instructor, and knitter extraordinaire. Her work has appeared most recently in the current issue of can we have our ball back? and forthcoming publications and performances include collaborations on a choral piece and a short film.

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Deaccessioned Landscapes 28

Is time really an aspect of experience?
Words come back to haunt us re-echoing
in the breathless sky as imprecise
as cantaloupes asleep in the sun.
"Oranges and lemons," say the bells of Saint
Clements. "Reconstituted or squeezed freshly?"
ask the bells of Saint Presley too hot to touch
in the warm Memphis sun. On the porch
we're all ears. Green is green and doing
is doing and what is certain is certain
because it's certainly impossible.
Throw out the much of muchness. A dog has fleas
say the bells that just sneezed to keep it
from brooding about being a dog.

—Jonathan Brannen

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an atlas of trees in far away fields

the table is not yet trembling
by the eastern hedge in the distant hills
contained in the atlas of memory and sky

leaves dissolve in my warm hands
in front of a grid of concrete and sun and blue

he told her about the importance of the absence of nothing
and sent some men to retrace the route with him

migratory birds do not return to the same tree

unable to distinguish between the burning and the burnt
we are only kept alive through repeated beginnings

I fell into their net of dust
—Megan Kaminski