Schedule

Current

Drash is being released May 18, 2008 and contains my poem, "Visiting Auschwitz." It will be available at Temple Beth Am, Ravenna Third Place Books, Tree of Life Books and Judaica, and other area bookstores.

I will be reading with other contributers on June 1 at 4pm at the Ravenna Third Place Books, 6504 – 20th NE, Seattle.

Other Drash readings are: June 22 at 1:30pm at the Summit Senior Residence, 1200 University Street, Seattle. And June 29 at 4pm at Village Books, 1210 – 11th St., in old Fairhaven, Bellingham.

Drash contributers include: Robin Asher, Michael Bonacci, Linda Clifton, Suzanne E. Edison, Vishwas R. Gaitonde, Pesha Gertler, Murray Gordon, Esther Altshul Helfgott, Donald Kentop, Wendy Marcus, Tree McCurdy, Erica Michael, Jed Myers, Daniel W. Rasmus, Michael Schein, Ken Shiovitz, Mike Siegel, David B. Williams and others.



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Recent Activity

"Dream of Eden" is published in online whispers and shouts on the Washington Poets Association web site.

Saturday, March 15 at Greenlake Library, 7364 E Greenlake Dr. N., Seattle. PoetsWest features Priya Keefe, Sarah Love, Cathy Ross, Francine Walls. Open mic.

Friday, February 1
My poetry was in a radio program with music at 4:30 PST (7:30 EST for my friends in Ohio). PoetsWest from KSER 90.7 FM. Their shows are available on the web via streaming, but are not generally archived online.

Tuesday, December 18, 7 pm at U-Village Barnes-n-Noble - Poetry reading

Other readers include Murray Gordon, Rebecca Meredith, Holly Chiron, Reneene Robertson, Jim Meyer, J. Glen Evans.
Upstairs in the poetry section of the bookstore.
Hosted by Dobbie Norris

Spoken Word CD

I recorded a CD! with many thanks to David Rizzi.

CDs are $7. Write me at priyaunderscoreok at yahoo.

17 tracks, 24 minutes

From the Lips of Town Criers

1. Bluesmoon 4:01
2. Green field, unending 0:31
3. Mt. Vesuvius 1:33
4. Girls Like Jessica 0:49
5. Limbo 1:09
6. Vessel 1:28
7. High Wire Artist 0:57
8. In the Pink 1:27
9. If I lived across the mountains 1:07
10. Stain 0:38
11. Milkman's Holiday 2:18
12. Secret Name 1:24
13. Water's Stories 2:28
14. Losing It 0:58
15. Losing It version 2 0:58
16. Three Cheers for Dumb! 1:29 Listen
17. Bromelidad 1:10 Listen

Quotes on Poetry

Poems are just stories...with the boring parts left out.
--W. H. Auden

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
--T. S. Eliot

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
--Plato

A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.
--Salman Rushdie

I gave up on new poetry myself thirty years ago, when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens on a hostile world.
--Russell Baker

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.
--Robert Graves

Poetry is to philosophy what the Sabbath is to the rest of the week.
--Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare

Poetry is life distilled.
--Gwendolyn Brooks

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.
--Allen Ginsberg

Poetry Gets a Bad Rap, but Both are Spoken Words

Poetry isn't bad rap, good rap is poetry. I got the rap on poetry; life imprisonment.

Poetry began as an oral tradition, part of the lives of working people and ruling people. It was a part of relating oral history, stories, myths, genealogy, law, and liturgy. Gradually, it became a practice more common in academia than in everyday life. Despite rap and slam poetry (which have done much to popularize spoken word), poetry is now often said to be obsolete. That's just silly. It is as vibrant as ever.

I love poetry for the same reasons I love other art forms: the feelings it evokes; its ability to teach and uplift; the appreciation of human similarities and differences it gives; beauty; the sense of awe and community it fosters; its humor; the transcendence amidst suffering it offers.

I feel passionately that poetry can be as accessible as any other art form. As in music, movies, painting, sculpture, photography, and dance, there is great variety in spoken word; but, perhaps because of the way it is taught, or lack of exposure, many people believe they don’t like poetry and poetry is not relevant to them. I believe many people can appreciate poetry but have not yet found the kind they like.

That's a wrap.

Biography

Priya Keefe is a Seattle native who entered childhood through the magical door of the Pike Place Market. She left the Northwest for the exotic and strange American Heartland to study at Earlham College. After graduating, she lived in Columbus, Ohio, where she taught literary, performing, and visual arts to children at a recreation center. She and visual artist Heather Sinclair collaborated and exhibited their work at the 1997 German Village Arts Crawl. In 1999, Priya performed her poetry on stage at the Columbus Arts Festival. She did not trip getting on or off stage.

Since returning to Seattle, she has published or performed in a Seattle City Council Meeting, Bumbershoot 2005, Bart Baxter 2005, Pontoon 7, 2003 Metro Poetry Buses, Real Change, PoetsWest, GazoobiTales.com, and other local venues.

Currently, Priya is a technical writer/wage slave, writing poetry on her breaks to chase away the corporate daemons. This is her first experience writing about herself in the third person.

Writers on Writing

I'm interested in why and how other people write. Check out these resources for ideas on writer's block, allowing yourself to write badly and other struggles in writing and living.

• Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg.
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
• Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury.
• Writing the Natural Way by Gabriel Rico (my very first writing book, given to me by my mother).
• Starting From Scratch by Rita Mae Brown.
• The Artists Way by Julia Cameron.
• "Why I Write", essay by George Orwell, author of 1984.
• Jean Craighead George, author of Julie of the Wolves, a young adult book.

Writing Resources & Advice

Read!
To pick out a book to read that's appropriate to your current mood, try: Forager. Book Browse. All Readers. Bibloiomania. Read the dictionary, or, at least, look up new words: Oxford English Dictionary. Webster's Online Dictionary & Thesaurus.

Research
Use your local library. Use the internet (with salt and pepper); try Wikipedia. Avoid literary scams.

Find Community
Poets and Writer's Magazine. PEN. Poets.org. (See the sidebar for some of my local communities.)

Play with Language
World Wide Words. Translating Dictionaries.

Question Authority
Q & A.

Please Yourself
The Bulwer-Lytton Contest. Exquisite Corpse, the writing game. Poetry for Pleasure. Write erotica.

Open Mic - Poetry & Music

September 10
Features Michael, inspired trumpet player

Open Mic: Poetry & Music & ...? what will you bring?

Sundays at 7 pm
First Sundays of the month hosted by Robinson Bolkum
Second Sundays hosted by Priya Keefe
Third Sundays hosted by Jed Myers
Cost: purchase of drink or other item

Wayward Coffeehouse
8570 Greenwood Ave N
Seattle WA 98103

100% Organic, Fair Trade, Shade Grown Espresso
Vegetarian and vegan sandwiches