LeAnn Bjerken shares debut poetry collection at Auntie’s Bookstore alongside Spokane authors Laura Read, Maya Jewell Zeller

LeAnn Bjerken wrote the oldest poems from her debut poetry collection, “Ordinary Omens,” during her time as an MFA candidate at Eastern Washington University, but the book found its focus when she attended a workshop at Spark Central with Spokane author Laura Read. The workshop was about tarot cards, and the participants picked a card and wrote based off the images found in their card. Bjerken pulled the “magician” card.

“I just kind of started thinking about other things that were happening in my life at the time, and just these moments throughout my life that kind of grew from memories of stuff that we do every day,” Bjerken said. “Blowing out a dandelion seed and other things that are connected with luck or wishing, like your birthday candles and things like that. And so I started to grow this collection of poems based around some of those memories and things from childhood and young adulthood.”

On Friday, Bjerken will read from “Ordinary Omens” at Auntie’s Bookstore, joined by Read and Spokane author Maya Jewell Zeller.

Bjerken currently lives in Minnesota, where she grew up, but visited Spokane for the Get Lit Festival, trying to figure out a plan to promote her book.

“So, I was like, I really do want to do something in that fall season to kind of capture that fall sensation and spirit,” Bjerken said. “I had reached out to Laura and Maya, just to kind of try to feel out what they’re up to, and if they might have some things to kind of work on that same theme. And both of them are wonderful poets, good friends. And they said to me, ‘Well, you know, we really want to showcase your book.’ ”

After completing her MFA degree, Bjerken stayed in Spokane for years, pursuing a gamut of professions. For a time, she was working for the Spokane Journal of Business; she was also a professional mermaid at Blue Zoo during the pandemic. This poetry collection came from a place in her life where she was trying to understand what it meant to stay connected to a creative process when no longer in graduate school.

“They were hiring mermaids, and that was something I had always wanted to do as well, because I kind of have this lifelong connection with swimming and water, and that kind of comes up in a lot of my poetry too, from early on through to now,” Bjerken said. “And so I had used that job as another kind of creative jump.”

Bjerken hopes that people reading “Ordinary Omens” will “take time, to always be looking for those little ordinary moments that might turn into something really meaningful. Or even in your quiet time, to kind of look back and think about moments that didn’t seem that big at the time, but have really become a treasured memory.”