[my introduction 12.06.09]


Big Pelt came about when the thought of putting on a series of poetry readings had the feeling of a plateau or a dead end - it would give pleasure without provoking a culture to any new growths. To follow out a metaphor from Rosmarie Waldrom - it can always snow and still never accumulate.

I wanted to occasion a series of events that would be entirely outside the three sites of poetic production available in Seattle at the moment. Big Pelt is not:

a) a 'poetry community' whose only role is blind support

b) a celebration of individualistic killjoys that criticize everything while producing as a means to self-congratulation.

c) a colony for some fetishized elsewhere to be followed closely via the web.

But after excluding comfort mongers, village explainers and sneers from nowhere, Big Pelt warms to the spectrum of poetic practices by presenting the contentious and articulate social bonds that grow in and around poetry here and now. These come in the form of talkies, theoretico-critical essays alongside poetry readings, so that, discernibly, the conversation pushes forward.

[improvised from notes, changed when I realized I was wrong]