For the Reporter

Poetry at the Rainbow Café presents the works of Geri Gale and Priscilla Longon on Monday, March 7.

The program is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the café, 112 E. Main St.

Coffee and conversation follow readings. It is an open mic opportunity. The public is invited.

About the poets

Gale is the award-winning author of “Patrice: a poemella” and “Waiting.” Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous publications.

For more details about past and future works, visit gerigale.com.

As Gale describes:

“Art is a sacred form of expression. My art is made of words. My words come from a deep place in my being. I gather words. I hunt for words on the streets, in cafés, in books, on the bark of a tree, and in my dreams. I string words together with commas and periods as if tying small, invisible knots between pearls. Sometimes my sentences are raw and hard, sometimes aged and soft.

“Language is my landscape of expression. My words are my skin, my history, my struggles, my wounds, my love, my hate. I collect images, color and stretch and transform words into metaphors, layer each word with another word, with repetition and pause. I create sound, sometimes riff an improvisational line of jazz.

“I write poetry. I write prose. I write prose poems. My writing style—like my writing practice—is a hybrid of linear lines and a fluid, elliptical flow.”

Long is a Seattle-based writer of creative nonfiction, poetry, science and fiction. Her book of poems, “Crossing Over: Poems” is forthcoming (2015) from University of New Mexico Press. Her book on writing is “The Writer’s Portable Mentor: A Guide to Art, Craft, and the Writing Life”.

Long also teaches courses on writing.

Her weekly column, Science Frictions, appeared 90 times on the website of The American Scholar (2011-2013). The complete set may be found at theamericanscholar.org

Long received a National Magazine Award for Feature Writing for her creative nonfiction “Genome Tome” in The American Scholar. The Winter 2010 edition of that magazine includes her piece “My Brain on My Mind.”

She is author of “Where the Sun Never Shines: A History of America’s Bloody Coal Industry” (1989).

Special Thanks to the Rainbow Café, Striped Water Poets, the NorthWest Renaissance, the Auburn Arts Commission, City of Auburn, and King County 4Culture.