To view or print a one-page summary of the Confluence schedule, use the link below. The full schedule, with complete program descriptions and participant bios, follows.
Friday, October 3
7:30 pm
Confluence Opening Reading
North Studio
Stephanie Adams-Santos, Janice Lee, & Anis Mojgani
Saturday, October 4
9:00 am – 6:00 pm
Book Fair
Lobby
10:00 am–11:15 am
Makerspace
North Studio
Program partner: First Matter Press
Makerspace offers an open, collaborative space for poetry-making with Collage, Erasure, and Exquisite Corpse. Join us to slice text into new shapes, uncover hidden meanings, and build poems together through chance, play, and unexpected connection. No prior experience required — just bring curiosity and a willingness to explore.
10:00 am–11:15 am
Spare Room Reading #297
South Studio
Program partner: Spare Room Reading Series
Readings by Jordan Dunn, Richard Meier, Chris Piuma, & Jen Denrow
11:30 am–12:45 pm
At the Confluence: Writers Confronting the Present
North Studio
Program by Confluence Organizing Committee
Joan Naviyuk Kane, Mick Powell, Charity Yoro
Readers will foreground a writer whose work feels particularly resonant in responding to the catastrophes that mark our moment, as well as presenting their own work. There will also be time for discussion and conversation, considering how poets and literary organizations can responsibly confront issues including political violence, oppression, structural racism, and genocide.
11:30 am–12:45 pm
Tributaries
South Studio
Program partner: Buckman Publishing
An interactive workshop comprising short-form prompts/exercises that correspond to the six “flow zones” that describe the features of hydrodynamic behavior at a confluence. Nontraditional methods of generating poetry are introduced in the interest of stirring stagnation and encouraging new flows. The activities will involve low-stakes creation and inspiration, all are welcome! Participants will leave with the draft of a new, polyvocal poem.
LUNCH BREAK
2:15 pm–3:30 pm
Growing the Writing Community You’ve Been Waiting For: A Panel Discussion
North Studio
Program partner: Constellation Reading Series
Panelists: Eric Tran, Christopher Rose, Jaye Nasir, Melissa Amstutz, No “Noli” Reyes, & Jessica E. Johnson
Join a panel of literary organizers and poets-about-town for a conversation about literary communities from a range of positions and perspectives. How can we start growing the communities we’ve been waiting for? What does literary community even mean? What does it mean to be an active participant? What does community care and responsibility entail? Discussion will range from ethos to ethics to practicalities. Q & A to follow.
2:15 pm–3:30 pm
Echidna: A Graft Union Generative Workshop & Reading
South Studio
Program partner: Graft Union Reading Series
Readers from CHIMERA Zine Issue 1: Annie Kim, Sara Engdall, Maxwell Kline; emceed by Aly Morris
We will begin with a short reading from zine contributors that will showcase what Graft Union has been working towards and represents (the event will roughly follow Graft’s monthly reading form, beginning with “invited readers” and ending with an open mic). Zine readers will provide a prompt after their reading. A workshop time will commence, in which attendees can work either collaboratively or independently to create a small poem. At the end, there will be a short time for participants to share works. If desired, participants will provide their mailing address and Graft Union will collect the created works crafting a unique (monstrous) zine that will be sent out to the participants. Echidna is the mother of Chimera and Greek monsters; likewise, Echidna is the connective point between our zine CHIMERA and the collective zine that will come out of the workshop.
3:45 pm–5:00 pm
Dialogues with Trees
North Studio
Program partner: De-Canon
Join us for a reading of a collective poem braided from the voices of local BIPOC writers in dialogue with trees—trees of place, of memory, and of imagination.
Participating poets & readers include: Alma García, april joseph, Armin Tolentino, Dao Strom, Déy Rivers, Ebony Frison, Eric Tran, Christpher Diaz, Given Davis,Jae Nichelle, Jaye Nasir, Jen Shin, Joan Naviyuk Kane, JP Perrine, Lisbeth White, Makayla Terrell, Sandy Tanaka, Steph Adams-Santos, Tehlor Kay Mejia, Teresa Doherty, Vanessa Micale, & Zoë Gamell Brown.
3:45 pm–5:00 pm
Sense vs. Sound — Listening Party & Panel Discussion
South Studio
Program partner: Fonograf Editions
Panelists Charles Valle, Rae Armantrout, and Endi Bogue Hartigan will discuss the importance of music in poetry, with Fonograf Editions editors Jeff Alessandrelli and Adie B. Steckel serving as moderators. The program will include a short listening party, featuring vinyl recordings of well-known and not so well known poets.
DINNER BREAK
7:30 pm
Confluence Closing Reading
North Studio
Rae Armantrout, David Seung, & Jane Wong
Program Partners
First Matter Press is a non-profit press in Portland, Oregon founded in 2018 to dissolve publication barriers for first-time poets and genre-breaking writers.
Spare Room, a rotating collective of poets interested in experimental work, has organized nearly three hundred readings in Portland over the past two-plus decades.
The Portland Poetry Confluence Organizing Committee consists of Portland writers and readers John Beer, David Abel, Rachel Berrington, Dao Strom, Consuelo Wise, and Karolinn Fiscaletti.
Buckman Publishing is an unorthodox operation that continues the daredevil tradition of literature, printing new sparks that ignite imagination. We print a twice-a-year literary journal and books of all genres. Proudly independent and regionally-focused, Buckman’s defiant attitude aims to inspire and increase readership in the greater society.
Constellation Reading Series is a celebration of local and visiting writers of all genres and a regular gathering place for Portland’s reading and writing communities. The series is committed to justice and inclusion and prioritizes writers with identities underrepresented in institutional spaces. Recent readers include Wayne Bund, Anthony Hudson, and Jane Marchant.
Graft Union Reading Series is a community-driven collective for students and emergent writers in Portland with an emphasis on celebrating new voices. A “graft union” is the junction between the rootstock and the scion of a grafted plant—where two different plants fuse and unify into one. Likewise, the Graft Union Reading Series envisions itself as a locality of interconnectivity and new growth.
De-Canon is a literary social practice art project that centers the works and voices of writers and artists of color. Founded in 2017 as a “pop-up library” installation, with a mission to challenge and unsettle notions of the (Western) literary canon while also questioning precepts of canonization itself, De-Canon encourages new paradigms of writing and reading.
Established in 2016, Fonograf Editions is a nonprofit press and literary record label based in Portland, OR. Their books and records have been featured, reviewed, and called best of the year at outlets such as The New York Times, Artforum, Frieze, Harper’s, and The London Review of Books.
Participant Bios
Stephanie Adams-Santos is a multidisciplinary artist working across poetry, screenwriting, illustration, and ritual. Their work draws from the ancestral, mythological, and dream realms of inner life. They are the author of several poetry collections and chapbooks, including Dream of Xibalba (winner of the 2021 Orison Poetry Prize) and Swarm Queen’s Crown (2016 Lambda finalist). Stephanie is currently developing Ojo de la Selva — a mythic, animist tarot deck for divining ancestral and ecological memory. Stephanie believes in art as a vital force of transformation and liberation — and stands for a free Palestine, the abolition of ICE, and the undoing of the fascist imagination.
An editor at Fonograf Editions, Jeff Alessandrelli lives in Portland. His latest book is And Yet (Future Tense Books, 2024).
Melissa L. Amstutz is a writer, musician, & owner of Bishop & Wilde, a queer bookshop in Portland. She received her MFA from NYU & her work has appeared in Tin House online, Smartish Pace, & The Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions. Her music videos have been featured on Interview, Nylon, & Bust.
Describing the poems in Rae Armantrout’s latest book Go Figure, Library Journal says, “she has honed enduring art on the ephemera that constitute a consciousness in motion through the present.” Charles Bernstein says, “Her sheer, often hilarious, ingenuity is an aesthetic triumph.” Armantrout’s 2018 book Wobble was a finalist for the National Book Award that year; in 2010 Versed won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies and journals including several editions of The Best American Poetry. She is Professor Emerita at UC San Diego.
Zoë Gamell Brown is an East Coast–born, Gulf Coast–raised storyteller, educator, and founder of Fernland Studios. She carries intergenerational Boviander knowledge of plants, rivers, and ritual care from the Jishikibo and Bouruma Rivers to Wapato Island. Zoë’s offerings are grounded in reciprocity, imagination, and devotion to Earth as ancestor, teacher, and kin.
Given Q Davis (he/they) is a Black queer poet and trans-disciplinary artist whose work is an ongoing love letter to our beautifully complicated past/present selves and the people we are always already becoming. He placed 1st in the 2023 OPA Contest and hosts Queer Poetry Takeover open mic.
Jen Denrow is a poet and mental health counselor who lives in Portland, OR. She runs 1122 Gallery and teaches writing classes at Clark College. Her books and poems can be found online.
Christopher Diaz is an indigenous Chamoru from Guåhan. As a writer, performer, and photographer, he has been featured by NBC, Poets&Writers.org, and more. He is a two-time grand slam champion, won the 2023 Bigfoot Poetry Slam with his team tbd, and owes everything to his writing communities.
Teresa Doherty is a Colombian-American artist, poet, and experimentor. They hold a BA in Philosophy and are currently completing their MFA at Pacific Northwest College of Art. When they aren’t writing, Teresa enjoys playing guitar, street-typing, and scavenging. Their art can be found at @exteresatrial on Instagram.
Jordan Dunn is the author of Notation (Thirdhand Books), Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (Partly Press), as well as various chapbooks and ephemeral prints including Common Names, Reactor Woods, and A Walk at Doolittle State Preserve. He lives with his family in Madison, WI, where he edits and publishes Oxeye Press.
Sara Engdall is a poet and visual artist studying archives and library science. They love eating plums and dancing with their dog.
Ebony Frison is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Portland’s historic Black Belt. Her work draws from personal and ancestral memory, African American visual culture, and the lived experiences of Black communities navigating resilience and erasure. Through painting, printmaking, photography, and prose, she explores themes of healing, generational trauma, and collective transformation.
Alma García was born and raised in Huehutenango, Guatemala, before moving to Oregon in the late 70s. She is a gardener, a lover of animals, and a secret poet. She is the mother of Stephanie Adams-Santos.
Endi Bogue Hartigan’s latest full-length book oh orchid o’clock came out from Omnidawn in 2023. She is also author of Pool [5 choruses] through Omnidawn, One Sun Storm from CSU Center for Literary Publishing; the chapbook the seaweed sd treble clef from Oxeye Press; and work in journals and collaborations.
Jessica E. Johnson is a poet, essayist, educator, and co-founder of the Constellation Reading Series. Her works include the book-length poem Metabolics, the chapbook In Absolutes We Seek Each Other, and the memoir Mettlework.
april joseph is a poet clarinetist and educator. They practice sound poetics as a pathway to express multi-verses and transform ancestral memory. They earned their MFA in Writing and Poetics from Naropa University and their writing has been featured in Bombay Gin, TAYO, Morning/Mourning, and collective.aporia.
Joan Naviyuk Kane’s books include The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife, Hyperboreal, Milk Black Carbon, Dark Traffic, and with snow pouring southward past the window (forthcoming). Her honors include United States Artists, Guggenheim, Radcliffe and Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Fellowships. She raises her children in Portland and teaches at Reed College.
Annie Kim is a recent graduate from Reed College who likes to write in small notebooks about big things. Their thesis was a collection of short stories about traditional Korean crafts, family, and the epistolary.
Maxwell Kline is an interdisciplinary artist/writer who started growing in Boise, ID, and continues to grow in Portland, OR.
Janice Lee (she/they) is a Korean American writer, teacher, spiritual scholar, and shamanic healer. She is the author of eight books of fiction, creative nonfiction, & poetry, most recently Imagine a Death (Texas Review Press, 2021), Separation Anxiety (CLASH Books, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Oregon Book Award, and A roundtable, unanimous dreamers chime in, a collaborative novel coauthored with Brenda Iijima (Meekling Press, 2023). She is the Operational Creative Director at Corporeal Writing and an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Portland State University.
Richard Meier has published six books of poetry, most recently A Companion and A Duration (Wave Books, 2025 and 2023, respectively). In recent years he has practiced and taught workshops on writing and walking and other daily and durational writing practices. He is Writer-in-Residence at Carthage College and lives in Somers and Madison, WI.
Vanessa Micale is a Uruguayan American multidisciplinary writer and performer. Their Pushcart-nominated work appears in Guernica, The Hopper, Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, and more, with support from VONA, Anaphora, Latinx in Publishing, and the Randolph College MFA Blackburn fellowship. They offer somatic coaching, facilitation and creative collaboration through Poderosa Voz. www.vanessamicale.com.
Anis Mojgani served as Oregon’s tenth Poet Laureate. A two-time champion of the National Poetry Slam, and winner of the international World Cup Poetry Slam, Anis is the author of six books of poetry, an opera libretto, and a forthcoming children’s picture book. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and amongst numerous literary journals. Originally from New Orleans, Anis lives in Portland, where he can be found making art in his studio and occasionally reading poems from out its window at sunset to others.
Aly Morris is a writer, artist, and dancer engaged in somatic practices. They write about the body’s experience and release of grief through Earth’s current, and like big and little things alike.
Jaye Nasir is a cross-genre writer based in Portland. Her work has recently appeared in Strange Horizons; The Night Heron Barks; Passport of Witness, a handcrafted anthology of Palestinian voices; and the anthology Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry. Her first chapbook, Full of Eyes Within, is available from The Fabulist. She has also written poetry for video games.
Jae Nichelle (she/her) is the author of God Themselves (Andrews McMeel, 2023) and the chapbook The Porch (As Sanctuary) (YesYes Books, 2019). She was a finalist for a 2023 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship and won the inaugural John Lewis Writing Award in poetry from the Georgia Writers Association. She believes in all of our collective ability to contribute to radical change. Learn more: www.jaenichelle.com.
Jen (she/they) is a Korean diasporic writer, baker, and mental health advocate with more than a decade in recovery from alcoholism and bulimia. She is the author of Have You Received Previous Psychotherapy or Counseling? (zines & things, 2021) and her essays can be found in Provecho, The Rumpus, Memoir Magazine, and elsewhere.
Jennifer (JP) Perrine is the author of five books of poetry: Beautiful Outlaw, Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. JP lives in Portland, where they cohost the Incite: Queer Writers Read series and work with the Parks and Nature department.
Chris Piuma is (a) one of the founders of Spare Room; (b) one of the hosts of the literary podcast The Spouter-Inn; (c) one of the poets who had a chapbook published by Airfoil back in the day (Bell-Lloc, 2011); (d) one of the readers who had to cross the border into the US to be here (from Toronto, Canada); (e) all of the above; (f) one of the people included in this category; (g) one who was drawn with a fine camel-hair brush; and (h) other.
m. mick powell is a queer Black Cabo Verdean femme, poet, artist, Aries, and the author of DEAD GIRL CAMEO (Random House/One World Books, 2025). www.mickpowellpoet.com
No “Noli” Reyes (she/he) is a Filipino and Mexican writer, performance artist, community organizer, event producer, cultural worker, and budding earth tender. She is the cofounder of the PNW based queer and trans Asian led writing and movement project Liminal Bodies, a group that organizes a variety of queer and BIPOC centered events and performances.
Déy Rivers is a gender non-conforming Black american navigating mental health challenges while writing fictional worlds, poetry, painting, and collective dreaming. Their work is in conversation with the past and present to imagine futures, and has thus far appeared in KHÔRA. Find more at deyrivers.com
Christopher Rose is a Black-Filipino writer originally from Seattle, Washington, and currently residing in Hillsboro, Oregon. Chris has received grants from the Oregon Arts Commission, Jade District/Midway Artist Placemakers Project, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council. In 2019, he was a recipient of an Oregon Literary Fellowship. He’s completed fellowships at Voices of Our Nations Arts (VONA) and Cave Canem. His first collection of poetry, Afropunk Blues, will be published by Airlie Press in the Fall of 2026.
David Seung is a Korean-American writer, educator, tour guide, comedian, and line cook from Portland, Oregon. He has performed for the St. John’s Comedy Festival, the RIP City Comedy Festival, the New York Asian Comedy Festival, and Don’t Tell Comedy. His debut book of poetry, Silkworm’s Pansori, was released in 2025 by The Song Cave, and focuses on the traditional Korean sijo form.
Adie B. Steckel is a writer living in Portland, Oregon, where they co-edit the small press and literary record label Fonograf Editions and work at the HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ health and social services organization Cascade AIDS Project. Their writing on sound can be found in Annulet, Tagvverk, and Variable West.
Dao Strom is an artist who works with three “voices” — written, sung, visual — to explore hybridity and the intersection of personal and collective histories. Her most recent hybrid project is Tender Revolutions/Yellow Songs, a song-cycle and set of four chapbooks.
Sandy Tanka is a writer, artist, and designer. She has been working in the comics industry for over ten years. Before that, she was an art director, music supervisor, and band manager in Los Angeles. She has a B.A. in film from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College. She was a nominee for the Pushcart Prize. In 2021, she received the Oregon Literary Career Fellowship. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her family.
Makayla Terrell is a Black & Filipina poet integrating language between the metaphysical & the natural world. Her poetry hopes for a ritualistic experience within these realms, creating a ceremonal space for the ancestral, the revelations, and the omens. Makayla is a Louisiana native living in Portland, OR. Many of her offerings can be found in literary journals such as Sundog Lit, Pile Press, Lurch Zine, and in the in-between.
Armin Tolentino served as poet laureate for Clark County Washington (2021–24) and is the author of the collection We Meant to Bring It Home Alive (Alternating Current Press). He is a phenomenal clapper, a passable ukulele player, and a bumbling, but enthusiastic, fisherman. More info at www.armintolentino.com.
Eric Tran is a queer Vietnamese poet and the author of Mouth, Sugar, and Smoke, winner of the Oregon Book Award and finalist for the Thom Gunn Award. His poetry has been featured in All Things Considered, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Best of the Net, among other publications. He is a psychiatrist in Portland, OR and co-organizes PDX Queer Asian Social Meet-Up.
Lisbeth White is an enchantivist writer based in the Pacific Northwest. She is the author of American Sycamore (Perugia Press, 2022), A Most Natural Thing: An Elemental Memoir (Red Mare Press, 2025), and co-editor of Poetry as Spellcasting: Poems, Essays, and Prompts for Manifesting Liberation and Reclaiming Power (North Atlantic Books, 2023).
Jane Wong is the author of the memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, 2023). She has also published two collections of poetry: How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James, 2021) and Overpour (Action Books, 2016). She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room, Artist Trust, Hedgebrook, Ucross, Loghaven, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and others. She grew up in a Chinese American take-out restaurant on the Jersey shore and is an Associate Professor at Western Washington University.
Charity E. Yoro (she/her) considers herself a steward of words and other beings. Her writing has appeared on The Rumpus, poets.org, Tupelo Press Quarterly, West Trestle Review, PRISM International, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere, and has been supported by Kundiman, Tin House, and Sustainable Arts Foundation. Her debut collection ten-cent flower & other territories (First Matter Press) received the Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry of the 2025 Oregon Book Awards. Born, raised, and educated on the east side of O’ahu, she currently lives west of Denver with her wild, loving family.