RON SWARNER: ANTHOLOGY OF POEMS BY TACOMA AREA WRITERS >>>

Go ahead, jump on the bandwagon. Admit it â€" you’ve scribbled a few lines about Tacoma yourself, secretly on cafe napkins or extensively in ornate notebooks. You’ve written dreamy poetry about the Murray Morgan Bridge and McCarver Street and how many tears fit into a Black Water coffee cup.

You know you want to. Publish one of your poems, that is. You’ve got that half-finished poem on the Top of the Ocean Restaurant rotting away in a box in your basement and a house full o’ kids to look after. Or you’ve simply told yourself that you’d like to, but you just don’t think you have it in you. Rubbish! What you should do instead of self-deprecate is join a dynamic group of budding and established poets â€" 75 in all â€" in the roughly 150-page In Tahoma's Shadow, an anthology of poems by Tacoma area writers slated for publication in April 2009.

I tossed a few questions at the two local poets who are spearheading the project â€" Tammy Robacker and Tacoma poet laureate William Kupinse. Check out the interview on the Weekly Volcano Web site.