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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

George & Mertie’s Offering Awards

Mertie Duncan and George Thomas, co-publisher’s of the monthly literary “microzine” George & Mertie’s Place (“Spokane’s only”) are now offering awards for best-of-issue submissions.

Winner of the Doctor Richard Diver Best of Issue Award for June is Scott Poole for his poem “The Spokane Angels.” Poole, a graduate student in creative writing program at Eastern Washington University, earned $10 for his efforts.

The award, not to mention the money, is justified. Unlike the majority of poetry, which so often indulges in either doggerel about nature or literary allusions that only Ph.D.s in Chaucer can understand, Poole’s poems (he has two in the issue) combine real-life issues (poverty, aging, insecurity, sadness) with such literary tools as irony, hyperbole and absurdist metaphor and simile.

Here’s an example:

“In front of the hotel, a knot of old men

lie against the cold brick and laugh

and I wonder why angels are young and fat

in oil paintings. If we could truly see angels

above this city of snow

perhaps they could be these old men

naked, swimming around each other

in the barren sunrise, their horribly strong bodies

slicing and cutting the air with

legs and arms like the hollow wings of dinosaurs.”

George & Mertie’s Place, which until now has been mostly a little newsletter worth a smile or two, appears to be developing a bit of ambition while still concentrating on publishing local writers. It deserves our support.

Individual copies are $1.50, available at Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington; subscriptions are a measley $12 a year, available from GMP, P.O. Box 10335, Spokane, WA 99209.

And, of course, you can submit your own poetry or (extremely) short fiction and hope to qualify for the monthly literary prize. Otherwise, GMP pays a penny a word.

A look at books

Seeing books as art is the focus of a forthcoming symposium/workshop, which will be held July 14-18 at Whitman College in Walla Walla.

On the schedule are seminars on the “intimacies of creating one’s own book,” through history and computer use in modern book-making. The one-day symposium, which costs $100, precedes a four-day workshop, which runs $300.

For further information, call Whitman College’s summer programs office at (509) 527-5251, or fax at (509) 527-5859.

The reader board

Robert Aros, author of “Beyond Courage,” will sign copies of his book from noon to 2 p.m. Monday at Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington.

Julie McKay, author of “Glimpses of a Mystical Affair,” will read from her book at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Auntie’s Bookstore.

, DataTimes