Island Portrait

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Island Portrait
April 24, 2005 Bainbridge Island Arts and
Humanities Council Public Art Committee
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• Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile
  things, but just look at what they can do when
  they stick together.
• Vesta Kelly

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Todays Program

• Welcome address
• Marilyn Turkovich, BIAHC Board President
• Awards Presentation
• Darlene Kordonowy, Mayor
• Poetry Readings
• by awardees and Paul McShane
• Closing Words
• Darlene Kordonowy, Mayor

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Our mission...

• Inspire the island community with extraordinary
  and creative experiences in public spaces

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Your poems will...

• ...inspire island inhabitants and
• visitors with word images of the Bainbridge
  experience

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Thank you!

• Scott Allen
• Rev. Amy Aspell
• Susan Bergen
• Ginny Brewer
• Michelle Burgess
• Sue Entress
• Debbi Lester
• Michael Lisagor
• Eric Logue
• Steve McMacken
• Bill Murphy
• Lauren Walsh
• Janice Shaw
• Kathleen Thorne
• (for Poetry Corner)
• AndBIAHC Staff!

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Public Display!

• Poetry around town (At various Island locations)
• Poetry on the move (Kitsap County buses with
  island routes)
• Lines on the ferry (Along the terminal walkway)
• Cinema poems (Projected before the movie)
• Published book (Distributed on the island)

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Our Wonderful Jurors

• Julie Houston
• Art Hanlon
• Mary Lou Sanelli

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And now the winners!
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Jake Brigham
City Music/Island Music The sound of cars
rolling over tracks, ferries honking, garbage
cans smashingcity music has a beat, I dance by
the dock where seagulls cry out The ferry is
coming, hurry up, back to the island where the
music is just the breeze going past your face. I
dance.
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Julia Denlinger

• The Tree Story
• The trees are the leaders of our island
• Stand up straight, reach out.
• Be kind and gentle.
• Sway when its windy.
• Give homes for animals, or a place to eat.
• Share your shade.
• Be glittery after it rains.

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Logan Dieterich

• Salmon
• A salmon is from
• the scent of skunk cabbage
• A salmon is from
• the small creek behind your yard
• A salmon is an
• adventure going in the wild with no guide
• A salmon is a
• dream that works hard to come true.

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Griffin Dunn
The Tree House I watch, as the world Of my youth
is destroyed My childhood tree house Torn down
for the new houses I watch, as the once endless
forests Become measurable in yards Then feet
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Jonathan Hallet

• Island Fir
• I step to it
• and pat its soft crust
• Oh it is friendly.
• With roots immersed in sumptuous soil
• and bark imbued with simple verve.
• A fertile breeze speaks
• and I look up to the crinkle of light through
  green.

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Laetitia Lehman-Pearsall

• We are all here
• They sat and the water was
• Still, for a second of a second they
• Watched the first leaf take its leave
• To the sound below
• And they too
• Wanted to fall without thought
• Just fall and rest upon the sound.

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Emily Safford

• August
• The clock stopped ticking an hour ago
• The sun has been at this angle for days
• My thoughts crawl by like possums
• Things melt in the sun, they drool
• Like dogs in the street on a hot day
• Or the clocks in that painting by Dali
• And they tear the calendars to shreds
• As each day falls to the floor
• the paper, dry like my tongue

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Grace Salisbury

• Dirt
• The hill that used to be
• Brambles and grass.
• Is cut into Shreds.
• Fine muddy ribbons
• Tumble down into the ditch.

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Ben Tully

• Our Beautiful Bainbridge
• The heart of the Sound
• Rests beneath a blossoming island.
• The cry of sea gulls echoes across the shore
• As the sea responds with a whisper.
• The amphibious rock contemplates its existence.
• A monument made by rebellious teens
• As trees listen to our conversations
• And tell them to the birds.

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Adam Warga
Salmon of Sakai Salmon of Sakai, fluttering,
twisting, jumping in the current, running the
race of time, flying with the ocean winds, dying
as if it was meant to be, silver fry approaching
the surface, Salmon of Sakai.
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Carol Ann Barrows

• Puget Salish Suquamish
• Lushootseed for Cedar Tree
• Deeply rooted here
• Reaching outward toward the light
• I am growing strong

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Miriam Byers Chandler
Summer Fall Winter Spring Above my garden The
green dragonflies hover Territorial. Listen to
the dusk Evening birds are singing Twilight
lullabies. The pond is frozen Where the Great
Blue Heron stood In summer splendor. Mother
Nature hums Happy birthday, dear Bainbridge The
island, reborn!
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Barbara Clark

• Blackbirds
• When the sun plays pink joining others, which
  take wing too,
• and tangerine notes to the Olympics four and
  twenty north to the bakery.
• black birds drink, tossing back shots. Theyll
  sit til noon and laugh,
• They fly then to the undressed alder, dreaming of
  pie.

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John Davis

• The Rock
• Always the rain the wind
• the stain of blackberry cobbler
• on cotton pants.
• Always the sweet new smell of nettles
• and always the eyes of back yard
• strawberry farms
• soft as dirt
• of the familiar earth.

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Amanda Delgado
No Sadness No sadness, just a way of walking
home That joins the lamplight to the shadows And
a meaning to alone. Choreographed queuing for
the ferry, Why must we stay so clear? Not own up
to being grown up Enough to miss your
shoulder. The way you brushed back my hair.
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Lisa Marie Droguett
The Ravens Visit Two Ravens perched side by
side, share the land with a passer by. Mosaics,
of wisp-twisty branches, with oval leaves of
green and gold, lending movement with the warm
breeze that blows. Laughter, shrill shrieks of
excitement permeate my ears from the distant
soccer fields. Zinnias, dahlias in the garden
plot, sunflowers, tomatoes, red little
dots. Yes, oh yes, it is a brilliant and
glorious mid-summers day. The Ravens rise up and
fly away.
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Joseph Fountain

• Proof at the Point White Pier
• She claims the Island sea-floor is a dirty skirt
• Rock-crusty ring of barren moon-snail nests
• Oily mussel-clusters and smothering silt
• Were mud-stuck.
• Her brazen lover smiles
• Pier-jumps and in a breath
• Returns with a shimmering handful
• See! We float on sands of gold!

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M. A. Grant

• Sea Horses
• We stampede onto the ferry
• shaking our heads, snorting,
• escaping the things in Seattle
• that have been swarming us like blackflies.
• We begin trotting home along our familiar
  twilight path.
• The rushing sounds of the blue pasture
• Soon relax our startled eyes.

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Kristen Hotchkiss

• Turning Point
• August withers. Burning days
• close like poppies. At dawn
• from the edge of mowed lawn, a doe
• crosses our road to reach the lower field.
• Between slow cars, each step a hesitation,
• she disappears in quack grass and broom.
• Ferry bellows. Big drops plash
• my red umbrella, cool our lips.

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B. Sue Johnson
Toward Winter Hear the river of evergreen pour
skyward. Listen in the night to the rain on the
roots. They channel wet tendrils,
rivulets, needlebranch tributaries, roaring
and pouring skyward. Feel the hump of tide
heave shoreward. Grasp the sun and moon in your
extremities. Solstice, and all things earthen,
saline, are heaving shoreward toward winter.
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Marit Krueger

• Her Woods Cant Hold Me Where I Am
• Her woods cant hold me where I am
• miles awayon hot, sandy soil.
• But, her forests cradle my memory.
• Above mossy limbs
• I float and dream.
• Fir and maple dance
• in silence, except for a solitary thrush.
• Soft winds caress my face.
• I close my eyes.
• I am home.

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cheryl latif
solitary blues your hopes are a standing pond at
glades edge feathered blues a solitary
heron your wishes pennies tossed with
abandon tarnished embedded across rain-slick
roads your dreams wend their way away from this
chosen paradise far from these trees holding
dew like tears ready to spill
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Kathryn MacDonald

• On Old Creosote Hill
• -- for Jim
• Tonight, we breathe in the dark to the sound of
  rain.
• Rain sinks through cracks in the cedar shingles,
  stains our windows
• With winter film. Tomorrow, a crow will watch us
  from the ivied water tower.
• Tonight, we breathe in the dark to the sound of
  rain.

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Dee MacKinnon

• Port Blakely Cemetery
• The need for fitness
• always walks me to this place,
• where lives are over.
• A place that smells of moss
• and reads of history.
• Where undetected spider webs
• snap across my eyelids
• and assault my nostrils,
• sending goosebumps up my arms.
• I gather my wrap closer around
• my pounding heart
• as my eyes sting with unstrained tears.
• My sanctuary has been violated,
• and I feel the victim.
• The act not so much
• one of disrespect,
• vandalism or hate,

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Marcia Claire Millican

• Remnants
• Rotted posts with dangling rusted wire, quietly
  lean towards the South,
• remembering the sweetness of the fruit that
  draped between them.
• Abandoned implements lie rigidly amongst the
  weeds,
• longing for the energizing grip of calloused
  brown hands.
• Neatly stacked crates rest patiently on a shelf,
• ignorantly awaiting the Farmers return.

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Garnett Morgan

• Night Runs
• Wenatchee and Tacoma pass each other
• Bright-lit enough for palace balls
• Trading destinations,
• One comes for home for supper
• The other heeds the citys call.

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Nancy Rekow

• 1974 InterviewRalph Anderson, 86
• A sparrow-boned man, he offers me gin
• 1885, by the half-built house, his mother
• planted a walnut shed carried by covered wagon
• from Illinois. Ralph, newborn, weighed three
  pounds,
• his nest a wooden shoe in the woodstove oven.
• And overhead a walnut tree flies high, like birds
  migrating.

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Teri Bellamy Shimmin

• Pregnancy and the T C Deli
• A beautiful Sicilian olive
• winks at me,
• knowing my mouth
• is shopping today.
• Pacing the deli counter
• I prioritize my appetites demands.
• One of everything please,
• No need for a bag.
• I rush to the car, lock the doors.
• My eyes mist with appreciation,
• A spoon full of paté on a California roll
• becomes my world.

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Cindy McDole Vandersluis
Dive In Relax, breathe in the potent mix
of sun-baked earth and kelp. Moss forms on the
hammock that awaits summer and you.
Live dangerously, read Sundays paper on a Monday
afternoon. Truly see a strangers eyes.
Fitzgerald said it the green light beckons,
but from the pier youre standing on.
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Bonnie J. Wallace

• Blue Island, Green Morning
• We bought this house for the trilliums
• growing in the driveway. Ten years later
• they still bloom, and the sheltering cedars
• have grown like our children, nearly out of
  sight.
• How do we measure our lives?
• In seasons of theatre, soccer, scotchbroom?
• In the widening circles we make, like trees.

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Closing Words

• Darlene Kordonowy, Mayor