Poetry Parties, Windstorms and Power Outages, and Ursula Le Guin’s Dragons

Sylvia posing with my haul from Copper Canyon’s party

Poetry Parties, Windstorms and Power Outages

Yesterday we had quite an adventure! We had been planning to go to Copper Canyon‘s Holiday party and book release for Ursula Le Guin’s final poetry collection. But an hour before we planned to leave, I started hearing branches hitting the window, and the power went out. Then we had to eat dinner without power or light (hard), dress (harder), and do makeup (hardest by far), which was exciting. The Hugo House still had power (although I heard later 100,000 people ended up losing power throughout the area) so we set out in our car with branches and even whole trees down on both sides of us, wind whipping our car around on the Floating Bridge, and when we got there, I could barely stand up against the wind, let alone walk!

In the new Hugo House

When we got there, though, Hugo House was lit and heated (phew!) and full of people, Copper Canyon folks with their book tables, and locals looking to celebrate. This was the first time I’d been to the new Hugo House, which had difficult unflattering florescent downlighting (which is why I don’t have more pictures from the party) and felt a little more like a dot com office than an arts space, and they have no parking (!!) which was a drag because Capitol Hill sucks for the handicapped parking situation already (the old Hugo House had at least one handicapped space) but the ground-floor space was generally more handicapped-accessible than the old space, more bathrooms and fewer stairs, though it lacked the gothic, dingy charm of the old Hugo House. Glenn and I poked around and found one small nook with slightly better light and visible books and here it is. It could use some better lighting, some flowers, some art on the walls, maybe a display of local lit mags and author’s books? And some places – benches, chairs – where people could sit and socialize? Call me Hugo House, and I will help you “flip that space,” LOL! My qualifications include watching a lot of HGTV and drooling over British decor magazines with lots of innovative bookshelves and tea/reading areas, plus being a poet.

Jane Wong speaks of dragons and Ursula Le Guin

Tribute to Ursula Le Guin and Her Dragons

Copper Canyon always throws a good holiday party! The readers did a wonderful job with their tribute to Ursula, including Karen Finneyfrock, Jane Wong, and fellow Two Sylvias author Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. One person talked about a memorial where Margaret Atwood said Ursula had “the best dragons in fiction” and Jane Wong talked about feeding our inner dragons lettuce, which was such a wonderful image.

People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.

― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader and the Imagination

I was very moved, and remembered the gigantic windstorm that hit the night about ten years ago that I heard Ursula read poetry on the Oregon Coast and talk about science fiction poetry years ago in Oregon. She insisted women science fiction writers should not be placed in a literary ghetto, that speculative poetry should not be considered non-literary, and that poetry should not be ignored and women should not be ignored – she was very feisty! And there was a giant wall of glass facing the outdoors, and it kept banging with thunder and wind, but it seemed to accompany her, not compete. She was a force of nature that deserved the tribute of the storm.

Came home with lots of books I’m looking forward to reading, the lights finally came back on around eleven, and now I’m finishing up holiday cards, wrapping the last presents to ship to Ohio (when is my family going to just move to Seattle, LOL?)

Finish Your Holiday Shopping

If you are still holiday shopping, please consider a signed copy of PR for Poets for the poets in your life, or a signed copy of Field Guide to the End of the World, Becoming the Villainess, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, or She Returns to the Floating World for lovers of the apocalypse, comic book superheroes, robots, fairy tales, or Japanese anime, or just poetry!

I hope you are all un-exhausted this holiday season, taking time out to enjoy at least a few of your favorite things this time of year, facing the storms and feeding your dragons!