Kathleen Flenniken On Coming To Terms With Hanford
In childhood, our allegiances, our loves, are often black and white, simplistic. One of the difficult parts of becoming an adult is reconciling ourselves to the failings and flaws in what we have loved and admired. Sometimes the task involves recognizing our own complicity in those failings.
Washington State Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken's most recent collection, “Plume” (University of Washington Press, 2012) reckons with her own childhood allegiances. She grew up in Richland, Wash., a town next to the Hanford nuclear site. Both she and her father worked at Hanford. She writes from an insider’s perspective, and uses all the poetic means at her disposal to express the complexity of her adult perspective in “Museum of a Lost America” and “Deposition.”
From “Museum of a Lost America,” by Kathleen Flenniken:
Country of short memory,
glass surfaces,
and fingerprints easily wiped off.
Flenniken’s first book, "Famous" (University of Nebraska, 2006), won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and was named a Notable Book by the American Library Association and a finalist for the Washington State Book Award. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Artist Trust, a Pushcart Prize, and grants from Artist Trust and the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs. Flenniken is one of Seattle Magazine's 2012 Spotlight Award winners.
Her reading was recorded in the KUOW Studios on March 23, 2012.
As the Washington poet laureate, she promotes the work of the state’s poets on her blog, The Far Field.
Hear Flenniken reading poems about the effects of Hanford on the Columbia River, and on families including her own.
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Elizabeth Austen
Producer
Former Washington State Poet Laureate Elizabeth Austen has been interviewing poets and producing poetry segments for KUOW since 2001. She began as an intern while in graduate school for an MFA in creative writing (poetry) at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Once she discovered the joy of blending her early background as an actor and director (Book–It Repertory Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Festival) with her passion for poetry as a spoken art form, she was hooked. She's been producing poetry for radio audiences ever since. Her collection, "Every Dress a Decision" (Blue Begonia Press, 2011), was a finalist for the 2012 Washington State Book Award in poetry. She is also the author of two poetry chapbooks, "The Girl Who Goes Alone" (Floating Bridge Press, 2010) and "Where Currents Meet," winner of the Toadlily Press Chapbook Award and part of the quartet "Sightline," published in 2010. Elizabeth's poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac and online at Verse Daily, the Bellingham Review and DMQ Review. You'll find Elizabeth's poems in anthologies including "What to Read in the Rain" and "Poets Against the War" and in literary journals. She's performed at venues including Poets House in New York City, The Loft in Minneapolis, the Austin ArtSpark Festival, and locally at the Richard Hugo House Literary Series, Bumbershoot, and the Seattle and Skagit River Poetry Festivals. An audio CD, "skin prayers," featuring 26 original poems recorded with a live audience in the KUOW studios, is available on her website, www.elizabethausten.org. Elizabeth was the 2007 Roadshow poet, bringing poetry to underserved rural communities in Washington state under the auspices of the Washington State Arts Commission, Humanities Washington, and the Washington Poets Association. She is committed to fostering a broader understanding and appreciation of the literary arts in general and poetry in particular. She teaches frequently at Richard Hugo House, a literary arts center in Seattle, and she has been a visiting artist for western Washington school districts and colleges.
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