PORT ANGELES — It’s a double harvest tonight of nourishment for our bodies and food for our souls.
The annual Reading for Hunger Relief, a Port Angeles tradition for 16 years now, brings together a group of seven local writers, offering widely varying points of view, in support of two local food pantries.
Admission to tonight’s reading — which starts at 7 p.m. in the Raymond Carver Room at the Port Angeles Library, 2210 S. Peabody St. — is $5 or a donation of nonperishable food items.
All proceeds benefit the Sequim and Port Angeles food banks.
The evening is a buffet of sumptuous stories and poems, said Carmen Germain, the poet and Peninsula College professor who started the whole thing 16 years ago.
Harvest of experience
“In keeping with the ‘share the harvest’ idea, the writers have such a variety of life experience,” she added.
“These are people who approach poetry and fiction and nonfiction in different ways.”
Listeners can plan on generous servings of humor, thanks to playful writers like Jim Fisher.
The Peninsula College English professor will read a few of his comic “sonnettes,” 14-line poems with a few choice words per line.
New to the lineup this year is Jen Gouge, coordinator of the college’s medical assisting program.
“I’ve been [teaching] here for 17 years; I’ve been writing all along,” Gouge said, adding she’s been trying to get in to the Reading for Hunger Relief for years, too.
“I’d boo and hiss from the back,” she joked.
Suddenly, this fall, “I write a weird poem, and I’m in.”
This particular piece is a dark one, she said, about heaven: who gains entry and what you have to do to get in.
Usually, “I’m more of an Ogden Nash-type poet,” Gouge added, nodding to the late American wordsmith with a penchant for the light and short.
Gouge said she’ll probably read one of her briefer works, a tribute to her late husband, Denver, titled “Cookies.”
Travelers
Elsewhere in the reading, Peninsula College writing teachers Michael Mills and Kate Reavey will offer their angles on various parts of the planet.
Mills said he’ll read a poem written while he was in Costa Rica last year; Reavey may reflect on her time teaching in Tuscany this past spring.
Adding creative nonfiction to the spread is Janet Lucas, an English professor originally from Port Angeles, who taught at China’s Guilin University of Electronic Technology in 2008. She’ll read an excerpt from her piece about the importance of creating empathy in writing.
Sharing more poems is Charlotte Warren, a Sequim writer who grew up in India. She’s author of a poetry collection titled Gandhi’s Lap and appears in anthologies such as Poetic Voices Without Borders.
Germain, who was chosen earlier this year for inclusion in the New Poets of the American West anthology, will also share a few of her newer poems tonight.
Those and the rest of tonight’s works will be bound into a chapbook to be sold during the event for a $10 donation.
The reading will last for about an hour and a half, with Port Book and News owner Alan Turner serving drinks and sweets as he does at many library events.
To Germain, the evening’s gathering is a way to strengthen community here.
Help others
Listening to poetry and prose is a way to open yourself up to the world beyond your own experience, she said, while contributing money or food helps fellow Port Angeles and Sequim residents who are struggling.
“I’ve been there,” Germain added. “Years ago, I was a student, and I was working. My husband had a serious medical condition and had to have surgery,” and their household income fell far enough that they became eligible for food stamps.
Germain remembers using them at the grocery store — and watching the cashier roll her eyes in disgust.
“I understand when people say things like, ‘I had it really rough and I never asked for help.’ But you don’t know until you’re faced with the situation” that you may need that help, perhaps from a local food bank.
“There are people in this community who’ve lost jobs or who are underemployed,” Germain said, adding that each year she watches basic expenses, such as utilities, increase as winter sets in.
Both local pantries will continue accepting donations after tonight’s reading.
The Port Angeles Food Bank, 402 S. Valley St., can be reached at 360-452-8568 while the Sequim Food Bank, 144 W. Alder St., is at 360-683-1205.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.