Weekly Volcano

Poem-A-Tacoma: Poet Laureate of Tacoma

By weeklyvolcano on April 3, 2009

TAMMY ROBACKER: SOUL OF THE CITY >>>

Embellish-web-ad-April-2009 There’s no denying the soul of Tacoma is truly poetic. How many other surrounding cities can brag up the fact that they offer ambitious local poets an annual opportunity to earn a citywide poet laureateship title to share their craft and passion with the public?

That’s the dedicated spirit I’m talking about.

Urban Grace’s Soul of the City 2nd annual call for Poet Laureate of Tacoma is well underway. The deadline for local poetry applicants was Friday, March 27.  I imagine the judges are going through applicant packets to officiously determine who will be designated Urban Grace Poet Laureate of Tacoma for 2009-2010. Current Urban Grace Poet Laureate, William Kupinse, will be hosting an event Thursday, April 30 with poet Hans Ostrom at the University of Puget Sound to announce the winner of this year’s competition.

Stay tuned for more information on this celebration as it becomes available.

Urban Grace’s current pastor, Tad Monroe, is also a lover of poetry and a writer. I have had the great opportunity to hear him read his own work while attending some of last year’s Soul of the City poetry events. He makes his home in Tacoma and his business the activity of loving the soul of his city. Born in Montana but raised in Yakima, Monroe has spent the last 16 years in Tacoma. A graduate of Pacific Lutheran University in 1997, Fuller Theological Seminary in 2003, Monroe admits the first poem he fell in love with was the Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot. Here is a free-verse poem he penned and shared so generously with us:

DARK WATERS
By Tad Monroe

Morning percolates,
with an easy hum and gurgle;
cascades of water,
bubble and billow,
down through the roasted dust,
of many years
Drip by drip,
I’m saturated with your ancestors,
and by the sweat from your brow
 
Along the winding stream,
of liberation and exploitation,
that fills my cup to overflowing,
my eyes begin to open,
at the aroma of your creation,
so today I will live again
 
Staring deeply into your waters;
dark, morose, sweet cup
I drink and slurp,
while I read and write about the beauty
of your struggle;
a warm caffeinated buzz settles in,
called inspiration
It awakens the art that slumbers,
via the product of all your agony,
and your bitter hot survival.


That’s it for today. I'll bring you more poetry ditties Monday.

Poem-A-Tacoma is sponsored by Embellish Multispace Salon in downtown Tacoma.

TAMMY ROBACKER is a poet and writer living, breathing, typing and spitting words in Tacoma. She owns a freelance writing and marketing communications company called Pearle Publications. Her poetry has appeared in Plazm, Women's Work, The Wild Goose Poetry Review, and the Allegheny Review. A recent recipient of the 2009/10 TAIP grant, she will be publishing her first book of poetry, The Vicissitudes, through the generous support of this funding made possible by the City of Tacoma and the Tacoma Arts Commission.