Poetry Bridge Poetry & Storytelling Readings

NEXT READING

(Updated with both bio's.)

The October 27th the Poetry Bridge sponsored storytelling and poetry reading will feature two regulars at C&P Open Mic, Steve Shay and Kathleen Baginski. They will start at 7:00PM followed by Open Mic at 8:00 PM.
The monthly event features one or two speakers the first hour, then offers open mic to anyone who wants to share a story or poem. The public is welcome to this, and every monthly Poetry Bridge event.

STEVE SHAY of Alki has been a photographer and reporter for 27 years, working the past three years full time for the Robinson Newspapers, including the West Seattle Herald. He also freelances. He spontaneously moved from Chicago to La Conner, 65 miles north of Seattle, five years ago to live aboard a 34-foot wooden diesel tugboat named the Otter after seeing the quaint 1942 craft for sale online. It served as a vessel for meeting the love of his life, Laura Wold, a Ballardite with a legacy of brave fishermen in her Nordic heritage.

Steve was raised in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield. Nobody too famous is from Deerfield, unless you include Cindy Paradise, a four-foot, 11-inch professional wrestler with a diamond-studded front tooth who attended kindergarten with Steve.

Steve’s father, Art Shay, 88, is a former Life Magazine photographer, and current biographer of Chicago author, Nelson Algren who wrote “Man With the Golden Arm.” Steve’s mother Florence has a rare bookshop near Chicago where they still live. Musician and poet Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins is her regular customer, apt this time of year.

Steve was raised in his father’s darkroom. He was utilized as an unpaid model for textbooks and a guinea pig whenever the family home was blessed with a new arrival, the latest Nikon lens.

KATHLEEN BAGINSKI was born in Tacoma, raised in Chehalis, and schooled in Biology at Seattle University, She considers not just W. Seattle her neighborhood but the entire N.W. She wrote her first poem in 4th grade on a birthday card for her Dad without knowing it was a poem. He is a favorite subject of her writing to this day.

She wears many hats and produces poems and stories out of all of them: mother, grandmother, native plant gardener, former massage practitioner and Metro bus driver. An avid reader she volunteers as a transcriber with the Talking Book and Braille Library.

Among her publication ventures was the Bus Poetry Program. What could be better than a poem with wheels! In it's day, Red Sky Theater was her primary venue for performance poetry. More recently she joined the 50+ Reader's Theater; and to be in the company of writers, that essential incentive, nothing preempts the monthly Poetry Bridge just around the corner at C&P's coffee house.

Sign-ups for Open Mic starts at 6:45 PM and is from 8-9 PM. Given the one hour time limit, Open Mic will accommodate the first ten people that sign up with about 5 minutes each.

C & P Coffee
5612 California Ave SW
West Seattle
(206) 933-3125

C & P is the place that looks like a house with bright orange pillars at its entry, and is across the street and just south of Rite Aid.