YOU'RE INVITED
I’ve been invited to read poetry for the Olympia Poetry Network, as their featured reader for February. MARK YOUR CALENDAR February 20, 2019 - 7pm Traditions Fair Trade Cafe 5th and Water Street downtown Olympia
I already have some requests and will be reading new poems along with old favorites. Here’s a new one I’ve been working on.
JOB DESCRIPTION FOR A POET
We need scouts, just a few. The job requires a willingness to live rough in wilderness, and make your own way. We can supply a few tools and a vague idea of where we want to go. The country is unknown. Others have gone in; most have not returned. There are wild animals. Some are dangerous. We’ll be behind, widening your trail, building outposts and the foundations for towns. We will no doubt wonder why you blazed the trail where you did, but we can’t know what you’ll come up against. We’ll count on you. Do your best. With luck We’ll find you at rest by the fabled sea. -Don Freas
Learn more about the Olympia Poetry Network.
11/10/2018 The Poetry of Sculpture
Initiation, View No1, wood, leather cord, 22” x 16” x 13”, $1800
The piece called “Initiation” began with wonder and a pile of black walnut scraps. I glued them together on a curve, then faired the faces and edges smooth. That gave me an intriguing form I hadn’t imagined at the outset. It reminded me of a piece of body armor, protection for the left half of the chest.
1/4/2017 Poetry and MusicClosing Time Performance Salon Refu, Susan Christian’s gallery and event space in Olympia is hosting another series of closing-time intimate readings and performances this January. They were so well received (and so much fun) in December that the gallery didn’t want to stop. Father and Daughter This time I’ll read a few poems and my daughter Erica Freas will sing a few of her amazing songs. We’ve been wanting to do this together for a long time. We hope you can join us. Saturday, January 7, 2017
|
I offer a book of poems, new and selected—the result of nearly three decades of imagination and contemplation—real and better than real in 186 pages, from me to you. Happy Holidays, Don |
6/23/2015
I had the announcement for Swallowing the World all ready to go, but decided to wait for the new moon to launch it. It was just a day and a half away, on a Tuesday. In agriculture (as in everything else) superstitions develop. An old one says for best results plant on the waxing moon. The book was already available on Amazon, but I hadn’t told anyone. Why not wait to “plant” awareness until after that new moon? The unforeseen value of that decision was that suddenly nothing had to be done. A pause rolled in, an unplanned reflective retreat—two nights and the day between. I had nothing more to do and no one was asking any questions about it. I could knock around, tinker, and wonder. The moment reminded me of one of my older poems. I could remember the feel, and a few lines, but I couldn’t remember the title: Deep breaths, relaxed and alert,/ the work approaching, the deluge--/or is it already complete? Are we finished--/simply waiting for the curtain,/ for what has been stored in potential/ to play out in release? | That’s the feeling I remembered. I’m tempted to call it “imminence” but it might more accurately be “immanence.” |
2/19/2015
12/21/2012
10/19/2012
10/4/2012
4/24/2012
|
1/3/2019
0 Comments