Paul Nelson, President

Co-founder of the Northwest SPokenword LAB, Paul Nelson is author of an epic poem re-enacting Auburn history, entitled A Time Before Slaughter. A professional broadcaster for twenty-six years, he worked at KPLU (Saturday Jazz Matinee), KMTT (The Mountain Green Report) and other local stations. He's interviewed Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Wanda Coleman, Jerome Rothenberg, Eileen Myles and Victor Hernandez Cruz, has facilitated over 200 poetry workshops, and now teaches Office Skills at the Muckleshoot Tribal College. Paul earned his M.A. from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA on Organic Poetry and writes at least one American Sentence every day. Really.

Lorri Lambert-Smith, Eastern Regional Vice President

is a Washington poet whose work has been performed by the Milagro Theatre Group in Portland, Oregon, and featured on Northwest Public Radio. Her poetry is also available in print and on line.

Christopher Luna, Secretary

is a poet and collage artist with an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. He hosts a monthly open-mike poetry reading in Vancouver, WA. His collaborations with musicians have been broadcast on Dr. Demento and Vin Scelsa's “Idiot's Delight.” Luna's poetry has appeared in The Lion Speaks: An Anthology for Hurricane Katrina, eye-rhyme, Exquisite Corpse, and the @tached document. Chapbooks include tributes and ruminations and On the Beam (with David Madgalene). Luna is the author of Literal Motion, featuring three interviews with filmmaker Stan Brakhage, and is editing the correspondence of Brakhage and Michael McClure.

A. K. Allin

produces poetry, text-art and poetry-driven performance. She recently completed a year-long performance for which she sat at a small desk, every Sunday from 9-5, for one full year on the lawn of an urban park in Seattle, WA. Her mission - to interject poetry into public places and to open a dialog about poets, poetry and the search for the human spirit. Her journals can be found at thepoetessatgreenlake.blogspot.com. Allin holds an M.A. in Writing from City College of New York. Her work has been published on tote bags, t-shirts and matchbooks. She has work online and in journals, including The Argotist, Crab Creek Review, How2, Ibbetson Street Review, La Petite Zine, and one three eight. She lives aboard a 24' sailboat and works in a boatyard.

Todd Johnson

Born and raised on the site of Lewis and Clark's Missouri River portage, Todd Johnson lives in Auburn, WA, and teaches GED for Muckleshoot Tribal College. He also teaches English for Green River Community College and Northwest Indian College. He holds an M.A. in English literature from The University of Montana, where he developed interests in Richard Hugo's work and the literary west. He writes and reads poetry primarily set left of the 105th Meridian. Participating in a poetry postcard exchange gives him greater appreciation for spontaneous verse and supports his work on a book of poems, entitled Ross's Point.

Angel Latterell

Originating from a land colder than Siberia on the shores of Lake Superior known as Duluth, Minnesota but now stationed on the hills of Seattle overlooking Puget Sound, Angel Latterell is a poet and performance artist who pushes the boundary of poetic expression through incorporation of dance, music, story and collaborative energy into her creations. Her first full-length stage production combining all these elements entitled Intersection: a spoken word opera debuted in December 2007 at the Richard Hugo House, and her second My People Never Grew Corn is in process. Angel's written word appeared in Chanter and Banshee literary journals and she has performed spoken word vignettes with jazz and modern dance artists around the country. Angel is an attorney for artists and a devoted practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism. In her native habitat she can be spotted enjoying jazz music, walking around Pike Place Market, holding a notebook and enjoying life.

Dan Peters

lives in Selah, Washington, and teaches English at Yakima Valley Community College, where he founded the Writers and Ideas lecture and reading series. Dan has published two books through Blue Begonia Press: In the Easement of Absent Ties, a chapbook, and The Reservoir. Recently, he coedited Weathered Pages: The Poetry Pole, an anthology published by Blue Begonia.

Jeremy Richards

is a writer, actor, and radio producer living in Seattle. His work appears widely, including The Spoken Word Revolution Redux, The Poetry Foundation, McSweeney's, The Morning News, The Bullfight Review, and on National Public Radio's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. In tours and competitions, Richards was a two-time member of Seattle's National Poetry Slam team, a three-time winner of the Bumbershoot Poetry Slam, and was invited to perform on HBO's Def Poetry. He recently won the 2007 Bart Baxter Award in Performance Poetry.

Raúl Sánchez

Raúl is currently working on a collection of Street Poems. These are snippets of visions in the Seattle streets. Keeping the ties to his Native Mexico, Raul's poems may be splattered with words in Spanish, Spanglish or Caló adding a touch of flavor. Raul was the Representative of Los Norteños from 2002 - 2007. Raul has been published in a few journals and on-line. Most recently on Bookmarks published by the Seattle Public Library. 2007 Poetic Art Project Lines on a spine: Poems by the book. Raul occasionally volunteers as a DJ on Sabor! for KBCS 91.3 FM, a community radio station.

Michael Schein

of Ballard is recognized as a 20th Avenue Northwest Treasure by a guy who hangs out in Salmon Bay Park. He is Executive Director of Tieton Arts & Humanities, an organization dedicated to sponsoring events in Tieton that unite artists East and West of the Cascades. His work appears in many fine rags, including Slow Trains, Chrysanthemum, Ledge, Pontoon, American Drivel Review, Elysian Fields, RockSaltPlum, Runes, and Lilies & Cannonballs. Michael has received honors, including a Pushcart nomination. When feeling masochistic, he writes novels.

Edward L. (Ed) Stover

comes to poetry via journalism where he eked out a living for 40 years on daily newspapers throughout Washington State. He also taught English and journalism at CWU and Yakima Valley Community College. He is retired and lives in the Yakima Valley where he grew up and is now active in the regional poetry community, including the annual Allied Arts Coffeehouse Poetry Event.

Michael Dylan Welch

is editor/publisher of Tundra: The Journal of the Short Poem and of award-winning haiku and tanka books published with his press, Press Here. Serving for many years as the vice president of the Haiku Society of America, he also founded the Tanka Society of America, founded and directed the Poets in the Park conference, and is cofounder/director of the Haiku North America conference. He also curates the Haiku Garden summer reading series in Seattle's Japanese Garden, as well as the monthly SoulFood Poetry Night in Redmond, Washington. His poetry has been published in hundreds of journals and anthologies in more than a dozen languages, and he is also an active ambassador and teacher of haiku and related genres of poetry. Michael lives with his wife, two children, and an excessive library in Sammamish, Washington.

Tom Erdman Jr, Board Member Emeritus

co-founded Washington Poets Association in 1971. Tom has won awards from the poetry associations of Arizona, Florida, Oregon and Washington, the most significant being the Ben Hur Lampman Award given by the Oregon State Poetry Association. His work has been published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies. He has two chapbooks published by Folly Press of Tacoma. After thirty years as a member of the WPA board he moved to Arizona with his new wife, Dyan. During his Seattle teaching career, Tom's students won over 300 local, state and national writing awards.

Your WPA board in action at its November 11, 2007 meeting in Tieton, Washington: Clockwise from far left: Clarice Keegan, Michael Schein, Ed Stover, Jeremy Gaulke, Paul Nelson, Lorri Lambert-Smith, Leonard Orr (guest), A. K. Allin, and Dan Peters. Photo by Michael Dylan Welch.