Win Alive At The Center: Contemporary Poems From The Pacific Northwest Imagined By Susan Leslie Moore Paper Copy

knew I was in for a good read when I finished the fabulous introduction by Robert Duncan Gray, The intricate language he used to create his absurd imagery, including his bizarre recipe for poetry, piqued my intrigue and pulled me into the collection in a matter of paragraphs.
The first poem of the book entitled “A Cursed Poem” set a hauntingly beautiful tone, What marks a great collection of poetry is when you can open the book at random and pick out a poem or two to read, but you can also read the book cover to cover and see a coherent theme.
Alive at the Center delivered on both these fronts, By bringing together the voices of their respective cities, this collection weaves the stories of the Pacific Northwest in a way that historical or even creative nonfiction cannot.
These are the words of the people who breathe, eat, sleep and love in these cities their words are shockingly

intimate, irreverent, cerebral, and humorous, This book is one that will stay at the forefront of my bookshelves, and it deserves a place on yours as wel I picked up Alive at the Center because I just moved to Pacific Northwest and I was curious to learn more about it.
I don't have a car so I don't have the freedom to explore as much as I'd like to nor have I lived here long enough to feel a true connection to this place, but reading this collection made me feel closer to it without having to travel around.
I enjoyed how meaningful and honest the contributors words are, I'd recommend this collection to anyone who wants to visit the Pacific Northwest, Featuring poets from Seattle, Vancouver B, C. , and Portland, ALIVE AT THE CENTER is truly a testament to the rich poetic community of the Pacific Northwest, Certain themes and images ran throughout the collection that struck me homelessness, the everpresent rain, the coast and nature and isolation and dredging through old memories,

Of course, some poems were outliers, and didnt remind me of the Pacific Northwest at all there were some that either went over my head or some that just didnt meet me in the middle, and thats okay.
Not all poetry is going to resonate in your heart, but I definitely found a few treasures within this collection, Some even had me pause and take them in slowly, their imagery and subject matter so eerily, incredibly similar to my experiences that I wondered if the poets had known me my whole life.


This book does justice to the living, breathing, community of contemporary poetry that is still alive and flourishing here in the top left corner of the states.
Even if you think poetry may be out of your comfort zone, dont let it intimidate you you might find something in the pages of ALIVE AT THE CENTER that speak to you regardless of your experience and familiarity with poetry.


To give you an idea of what youll be in for, I chose my favorite lines from within the book and constructed a found poem, Enjoy, and if you like any of the lines below you should definitely check out the collection!!


“please send me an alien”

my view has been narrowing since time began,
time: and its dimensions
until dirt was done.

Suddenly, I am hollowed out,
I commute but am not moved
What stitches mind to body
Who cuts the unraveling
I always become what I research.


In every dream I dream I am asleep
distracted by birds or agates or whips of seaweed
knifing a steelhead open like a cherished book
what the sea takes, gives back.


Pity the ghost shrimp, his heart on his sleeve
he resembles a small star,
sometimes there and others there
all other days occult
pink buds on branches and blouses,
cigarette smoke, bone china, milk,
the bird calling and calling and calling,
a sentence can be stepped into only once,
and never again

Now nod and vuln yourself raw before the Eucharist,
the holy ash scattered on the floor.

Ravens untie from your hair,
the roses, the tea, the microchips, and you,
expanding, you relax,
Never say you cant take this whole
world into your mouth,





Lines pulled from the poems of:
Silano title, Craft, Saklikar, Tenenbaum, Zieroth, Hoogs, Austen, McCaslin, Rankine, Shay, Bennett, Hughes, SnyderCamp, Larios, Sheffield, Wakefield, Reimer, Pereira, Barot, Leggo, Sunder, Currin, Gardiner, Sand, Balk, Petersen


I have always had a bit of a lovehate relationship with poetry.
In elementary school i thought it was Dr, Seuss, in middle school I thought it was boring, in high school I found it stuffy and pretentious and therefore spent the better part of four months trying to write my own, and in undergrad I found it simultaneously fascinating and intimidating and also hated it because it was required, and I couldnt just enjoy it, I had to find the meaning.
I never wanted it to mean just one thing, I still dont think it does, or should, Poetry is like music, when you like it, you love it, and when it speaks to you, you listen,

I was drawn to Alive at the Center because of the contentpoems written about the Pacific Northwest and by authors from the same area, I was specifically interested in the section on Portland, since Ive only lived here for a year, I still feel new to the area, to the culture and feel of the PNW and all it has to offer I love it here, I love the way the city sprouts up from the river and the way early morning clouds cling to the buildings like stubborn kids refusing to go to bed.
I love that it rains in December and that theres an art fair somewhere every Saturday, And what I got out of this anthology was that other people love that too, It was a beautiful and endearing collection all around! Two things I quickly noticed about this book midreading you dont need to be from the Pacific Northwest, nor a poet to appreciate the body of work presented here.
I am by no means a poetry lover, but enjoyed the variety of prose available in each section, The writing is accessible and lacking pretentiousness, I particularly enjoyed the chunk dedicated to Portland writers, It really did feel like these poems were engaging in a cultural conversation and they were letting nonPortlanders into their little world, This poetry anthology is the first in the Pacific Poetry Project PPP, and covers poems from three cities, "sister cities", as they are called by John Sibley Williams: Vancouver, British Columbia Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon.


I picked this book up as a personal challenge to myself, Poetry has never been pleasure reading for me, and probably never will be, Nevertheless, I wanted to push my boundaries as a reader and I thought this collection of poems was the perfect way to do so, able to be immersed in not only poetry but also the region that I now temporarily call home.


The first section of Alive at the Center is called Vancouver, and it was my favorite section, Vancouver opened with a poem that begins with a beautiful image of a mother and child but ends in a dark tone: the child "begs I take her back in time" and the sunset is a "pendulum" that is "counting down everyone's hours".
Other great poems one can find in this section warn of society's dependence on cell phones, and describes the zest and life of springtime in a hummingbird, One poem in particular, "Song for the Dead", is heartbreaking and though I have not experienced the loss of my father, this poem is full of that fear and dread that every child lives with since childhood, and these feelings were reaching up to grab me by the throat.
My favorite poem, "In Event of Moon Disaster", is dark and terrifying, describing their potential death as one of "weightless suffocation", The poem is contradictory throughout, describing the astronaut suits as being "padded casket comfortable" and "robot bodies" while at the same time reassuring the reader that they are the "smallest Eden we ever put an Adam inside of".
The poem reminds us not to take everyday beauty for granted and ends on a dark though positive note that mirrors the astronaut's potential death: the last lines instructs the reader not to feel "weighted by the lead clothes you wear" as "they are not as heavy as you think".


The second section of Alive at the Center is Seattle, One of my favorite poems from this collection is one that is a view of humanity as sees from an outsider: an alien, or perhaps an angel There are poems discussing insanity and others describing that which is hidden my favorite line, "But you are not hidden unless someone seeks you/and does not know where you are".
One poem gives us a new way to look at life by changing words and sayings from one thing to another that on the surface doesn't fit but when looked at in a new lightsquint your eyes, tilt your headyou see that "foxtrot" can in fact mean foreplay and "vampire bites", menstrual cramps.


The third section is named Portland, Here you will find poems dedicated to the moon, poems about grief and the different ways it is handled either "seeming so able outwardly" while struggling on the inside or speaking "of nothing else" and while their world was burning.
There is a poem about a mother's death that brings the same emotions forth in me as does the poem about a father's death in Vancouver, and there is a poem about endings.


And because this is Portland, there is, as there almost has to be, a poem about rain,

If you read this book and want to chat, write me a message! I would love to discuss some thoughts you had about Alive at the Center.
For those who say they don't enjoy poetry, or they don't understand it, I believe wholeheartedly that there is a poem out there for everyone, This is truly a diverse collection of poetry, and anyone is sure to find at least one style of poetry they enjoy in this collection, Though the vast majority of poems are nonrhyming, there are a small handful of poems that do rhyme, Some have rhythm, some are very experimental with form, some use concrete imagery, and some are entirely abstract, I wasn't a fan of every single poem in this collection, but I absolutely appreciate the broad spectrum of styles that were included, That being said, I wish more of the poems or all of them prominently featured the Pacific Northwest, as it's the one connecting theme across the collection, Prefaced by an incredible introduction by Robert Duncan Gray a dangerous move: his brief homage to Poetry may be the best part of the whole book, Alive at the Center is a collection of contemporary poetry from the Pacific Northwest, split between Vancouver BC, Seattle, and Portland.
While I was expecting a bit more focus on the Pacific Northwest as a place and had to reroute to compensate for the speculative science fiction themes and intimate closeups of lovers likened to plant life, it was overall a very good anthology.


Reading Alive at the Center was like digging for buried treasure, Most of the poetry made up the earth, rich and dull and heavy and full of possibility, I enjoyed running my fingers through these poems, kneading them, imagining what could grow from them if they were just given some time, But they were not the focus, not what I was looking for,

What I was looking for was the treasurethose moments of pure gold that appeared, hard and cold and solid and sparkling, in my fingers, Poems like "The End" by Andrew Michael Roberts, "Hollow" by David Zieroth, and "What I Will Tell the Aliens" by Martha Silano offer truth and humor intertwined unpretentiously.
They do not know they are poems, I'm not a big reader of poetry but I still enjoyed this book, There are a wide range of poetry forms included in the book and poets from Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland are featured, However, the poems themselves do not have a Pacific Northwest theme and that makes the title of book feel a bit misleading, hence the four star rating, My favorite poems, one from each section Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland, were "Desdemona Durga" by Joanne Arnott, "Nursemaids Elbow" by Peter Pereira, and "I am Pregnant with My Mothers Death" by Penelope Scambly Schott.
If you like contemporary poetry or are someone who would like to get a sampling of different forms by poets from the Pacific Northwest, I am sure you will enjoy this book.
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