Join us for a poetry reading with Ghayath Almadhoun غياث المدهون, presented in conjunction with ALTA49.

Almadhoun's I Have Brought You a Severed Hand, translated from Arabic by Catherine Cobham and published by Action Books, was longlisted for the 2026 National Translation Award in Poetry. The shortlist will be announced October 6, with winners named October 23 at an awards ceremony during ALTA's annual conference.

“I am a free man, from an unfree country. I write love poems in the form of nightmares”

In a phalanx of notes and footnotes, A Severed Hand destabilizes the very hierarchies of the page, and in so doing transgresses the borders of the poem, the nation, the body, and even that zone between speaker and addressee. Written over the years 2017 to 2023, the poet takes us to Palestine, Syria, Germany and Sweden, reasserting the stakes for those unable to leave their states of imprisonment while proposing that hope may be inseparable from the absurdity of violence. He writes: “You say that I survived the war. No, my dear, nobody survives wars. It’s only that I didn’t die. I just stayed alive.”

“Ghayath Almadhoun has found a lyrical language that is appropriate to the Syrian civil war. He is the great poet of a great catastrophe.”
 


– Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“For a murdered person there is no resurrection except in poetry; for a murdered poem, there is no resurrection except in reading.” 


- Bookforum

“Almadhoun subverts lyricism and turns metaphor on its head to expose, transform, self-indict, confront.”


- Poetry Foundation

“Formally experimentally and emotionally explosive.”

– Asymptote

“Almadhoun caught me with his first line.”

– Jenny Holzer

Ghayath Almadhoun غياث المدهون is a Palestinian poet, born in Damascus in 1979. In 2008 he moved to Sweden. He has published five volumes of poetry in Arabic, most recently I Have Brought You a Severed Hand (2024), and his poems have been translated into more than thirty languages. He also makes poetry films, such as Évian, which won the Zebra Award for Best Poetry Film in 2020. Almadhoun has collaborated with several poets and artists, including US artist Jenny Holzer and German musician Blixa Bargeld. His collection Adrenalin (translated into English by Catherine Cobham) was published by Action Books in the US in 2017. Almadhoun was recently awarded a one-year residency in the DAAD Artists-in- Berlin program and now divides his time between Berlin and Stockholm.

Catherine Cobham taught Arabic language and literature at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, for many years and was head of the department of Arabic and Persian from 2011 until 2021. She has translated the work of a number of Arab writers, including poetry by Adonis, Mahmoud Darwish, Ghayath Almadhoun, Tammam Hunaidy and Nouri al-Jarrah, and novels and short stories by Yusuf Idris, Naguib Mahfouz, Hanan al-Shaykh, Fuad al-Takarli and Jamal Saeed. She has written articles in academic journals and co-written with Fabio Caiani The Iraqi Novel: Key Writers, Key Texts (Edinburgh University Press, 2013).

Saturday, October 24

6:00 pm and onward

ALTA afterparty at Mother Foucault’s Bookshop! Stop by the shop for a translation open mic and family style dinner, followed by readings by Jeffrey Diteman and four Zephyr Press translators: J. Kates (Russian), Dan Rosenberg (Slovene), Karen Kovacik (Polish), and AKaiser (Catalan). Refreshments and the reading are free, $20 for the optional family-style dinner. 

This event is presented in conjunction with ALTA49, the American Literary Translators Association's 49th annual conference.

Jeffrey Diteman is a literary translator, scholar and educator working with French and Spanish. He has translated many outstanding writers, including Oulipo founder Raymond Queneau and Colombian storyteller Amalialú Posso Figueroa, with work appearing in Harper's Magazine, Latin American Literature Today, and The Massachusetts Review. Diteman's translation of the historical novel The Anarchist Who Shared My Name by Pablo Martín Sánchez was published by Deep Vellum in 2018. His co-translation of the abolitionist novel The Maroons by Louis Timagène Houat (with Aqiil Gopee, Restless Books 2024) was a finalist for the French-American Foundation's 2025 translation prize.

J.  Kates, a minor poet and a literary translator, has published two books and three chapbooks of his own poems, and more than a dozen translations of Russian and French poetry. He has edited two anthologies of Russian translations and is a past president of the American Literary Translators Association. He was expelled from the board of directors of the New Hampshire Poetry Society for allegedly threatening another member, whom he has never met, with decapitation.

Dan Rosenberg co-translated Slovenian poet Miklavž Komelj’s Hippodrome, and his translation of Komelj’s new and selected poems, Night Is More Abstract, was just released by Zephyr Press in 2026. Rosenberg’s own poetry collections include Bassinet, cadabra, The Crushing Organ, and three chapbooks. His work has won the American Poetry Journal Book Prize and the Omnidawn Poetry Chapbook Contest. A former Tompkins County Poet Laureate, Rosenberg currently co-hosts the Yetzirah Reading Series, serves as poetry editor for Pinyon, and teaches writing, literature, and translation theory at Colorado Mesa University.

Karen Kovacik, a poet and translator of contemporary Polish poetry, is the recipient of a Fulbright Research Grant to Poland and two translation fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her translation of Jacek Dehnel’s Aperture (Zephyr Press, 2018) was a finalist for the 2019 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. With Antonia Lloyd-Jones and Mira Rosenthal, she translated Krystyna Dąbrowska’s Tideline (Zephyr, 2022). Kovacik is also the editor of Scattering the Dark, an anthology of Polish women poets (White Pine, 2016), and the author of three collections of poetry. Her poems and translations have appeared in American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Granta, World Literature Today, and others. A former Indiana Poet Laureate (2012-2014), she is Professor Emerita of English at Indiana University Indianapolis.

AKaiser is the Pushcart Prize-nominated author of <glint> (Milk & Cake Press) and an NEA-awarded translator of Catalan, French & Spanish. AK’s doctorate is in Translation & Intercultural Studies, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, under tutelage of Poet & Translator, Francesc Parcerisas. Poems, translations, photos and academic work have appeared in, among others, Allium, l’Avenç, Amsterdam Quarterly, Feral, Four Way Review, Ginosko, Harvard Review, MPT, with podcast, Pen + Brush: In Print, POETRY, Poetry International, and The Rumpus. "Astronaut, or Blues Singer" (<glint>) breathes in song thanks to Mel.lif.lu.ous. Translation of <Unnameable>, poems by Anna Gual (Zephyr Press, 2025). https://akaiser.org & @ak.approximations

Join us as we welcome poet-translators ChloeMartinez and VivekNarayanan for an evening of readings and conversation exploring two South Asian literary icons: the sixteenth-century poet-saint Mirabai (translated by Martinez in Blue Like My Beloved) and the epic poem Ramayana (inspiration for Narayanan's book After).
The conversation will be moderated by translator Sadia Khatri and presented in conjunction with ALTA (American Literary Translators Association).

Chloe Martinez is the translator of Blue Like My Beloved: Poems of Mirabai (New Directions, 2026); coeditor, with Lisa Van Orman Hadley, of Chaos, Creativity, Completion: New Approaches to Writing and ADHD (Chicago, 2026); and author of the poetry collection Ten Thousand Selves (The Word Works, 2021) and the chapbook Corner Shrine (Backbone Press, 2020; reissue forthcoming 2027 with Bull City Press). She is the recipient of a 2026 NEA Translation Fellowship and the Anne Frydman Prize in translation; residencies from Hedgebrook, SWWIM and the Vermont Studio Center; and fellowships from SSRC/Mellon-Mays, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. She is assistant editor at Beloit Poetry Journal and works at Claremont McKenna College.

Vivek Narayanan's most recent books of poems are After (New York Review Books) and The Kuruntokai and its Mirror (Hanuman Editions), and he is currently working on a complete translation of the Kuruntokai, an Ancient Tamil anthology of four hundred and one short eco-erotic poems. Narayanan's honours and fellowships include a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, a 2026 NEA Translation Fellowship, a Cullman fellowship at the New York Public Library (2024-25) and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University (2023-24). His poems, translations and reviews have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, Lana Turner, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem and elsewhere. He is a trustee and advisory board member for Modern Poetry in Translation, a Co-Editorial Director of Poetry Daily and teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program at George Mason University.

Sadia Khatri is a writer and translator from Karachi, Pakistan. She was a 2026 ALTA emerging translator mentee, mentored by Arshia Sattar. Sadia translates South Asian mystic poets and runs Amrit Pyala, a film and translation project archiving Bhakti and Sufi poetry in Pakistan.

Join us for a reading that features some of our most recognized translator-poets reading poetry in English translation from shithole countries—those named and unnamed. It serves as a way to resist the imperialist, racist, sexist, and anti-LGBTQ+ ideologies which divide us and to recognize how English language poetry in translation plays a prominent role in making works of poetry available and creates international networks for political and social solidarity and change.

The event is free to attend.

Presented in conjunction with the with ALTA49, the American Literary Translators Association's 49th annual conference.

Ready to fall in love with the rhythm, depth, and poetic cadence of Spanish? Join us at L'école buissonnière for an immersive course, conducted entirely in Spanish for advanced speakers, that explores how art shapes our world.

Each 120-minute session (with a cozy 10-minute break) is a laboratory of expression. We break down the walls between subjects, approaching several distinct topics in every class to give you a fuller sense of Latin American identity.

Through the lens of culture, we dive into literature, music, painting, film, and more. You'll explore the minds of masters like Julio Cortázar and Violeta Parra, among others, and discover the psychological and historical weight behind their masterpieces.

Through interactive exercises, you'll practice reading, writing, and speaking. The heart of our class lies in conversation circles, giving you the floor to engage in deep, meaningful debates.
Come stretch your fluency, satisfy your curiosity, and experience the pulse of Latin American culture!

Limited to 10 participants.

Sessions

Oct 7 — On Tears & Gratitude
Julio Cortázar, «Instrucciones para llorar» · Violeta Parra, «Gracias a la vida»

Oct 21

Nov 11

Nov 25

Dec 9

Jan 6

Jan 20

Feb 10

Feb 24

Practical Information

When: Twice monthly on Wednesdays, October 7 – February 24

Time: 5:30–7:30 pm

Where: L'École buissonnière, above Mother Foucault's Bookshop

Level: Advanced

Instructor: Consuelo Miranda Albónico, a Chilean native, a writer, a language admirer, a pet lover, and a music devotee.

Group size: Up to 10

Price per class: $50

Join us for a reading and celebration of Chris McNally's Fragments of an America, Volume II, a collection of poems and essays offering a fierce meditation on the American character — moving from political critique to intimate reflections on love, loss, and what remains. Titles range from "Liz Cheney's Horse" and "A Reexamination of Exodus 7:3 in the Trumpist Fever" to the tender, philosophical "Love Like This" and "Alcazar."

Following his first volume (2016), McNally presents a challenging composite of contradictory experiences, viewed through a stance of courage and erudition — a playful but serious, honest, and necessary work for our era of civil fracture.

Chris McNally was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1960. He studied history at UC Berkeley, with additional study at the Université du Benin in Togo and in Bordeaux, France, and later earned an MFA from New York University. An avid historian, in 2012 he completed the essay Principles for a Profound Leadership: The Self-Worth of a Nation, and in 2016 published Fragments of an America, Volume I, all while helping raise two sons and running a construction project management firm for fine homes. He lives outside Hudson, New York with his wife Tamara.

Join us for Writing with a Strong Voice: An Intensive for Writers, Musicians, and Other Artists.

Nothing captures a reader like a powerful voice. Voice is charisma on the page. It is sonic and propulsive, and whether it belongs to a character or a narrator, the ability to bring a voice to life is essential.

This is a 4-week, generative workshop for writers who want to dive deeper into voice, and for artists interested in transitioning to writing. Classes are designed with a decidedly a Rock 'n Roll flair. They will be a mix of mini craft lectures, creative prompts, and fun assignments to explore new voices that fascinate us. There will be surprise guests and occasional prizes.

All writers and artists at any level of experience are welcome.

Vanessa Veselka is author of the novel, The Great Offshore Grounds, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, Zazen, was awarded the 2012 PEN / Bingham Prize for debut fiction and was re-released as a Vintage Classic. Her short stories are in Tin House and Zyzzyva, and her essays appear in The New York Times, GQ, and The Atlantic. She has been at various times, a musician, a homeless teenager, a union organizer, and a night cab driver.

Duration: September 22 – October 13
Time: Meets Tuesdays from 6:30–8:30 PM
Location:l'école buissonnière, 715 SE Grand Ave, Portland, OR
(upstairs of Mother Foucault's Bookshop)
Cost: $275
Available Spots: 20

Please note: There is no elevator. While our intention is to make workshops accessible, we have some limits. Please reach out with needs and we will attempt to accommodate to the best of our ability.

l'école buissonnière

Join us for the book launch of The Queen of Bad Influences by Jim Shepard, and a conversation with Karen Shepard

Twelve compressed masterworks from this great American writer of catastrophe fiction, in which lives are upended as much by broken hearts as by collapsing dams, hideously mismanaged wars, gargantuan wildfires, and apocalyptic storms

“Jim Shepard is a fantastic writer—compassionate, funny, and fearless—[whose work] does what great writing always does: inspires us to look more closely at life, and be more caring.” —George Saunders

“A deft, audacious artist.” —Norman Rush, National Book Award-winning author of Mating

In Richard Ford’s view, Jim Shepard’s “talent is so various and canny he can write about seemingly anything and make it thrilling to us,” and in these stories spanning six centuries we find viscerally evoked worlds as wildly diverse as a mercenary’s corner of 16th century Madrid, a young apprentice’s pre-Revolutionary Boston, and Edward Hyde’s London.  With civil engineers and destitute veterans we encounter the devastating 1935 Labor Day hurricane in Florida, and we read the 1864 letters between Lucy in Boon, North Carolina (“Three privates are currently sleeping soundly on our porch in their muddy blankets”) and her great love, William, on the march in Tennessee (“I can’t write much for it seems we are looking for a fight every minute”), while the title story introduces us to the stubborn Constance, who had “no gift for flirtation” with men, preferring Minna, her best friend and “queen of bad influences,” as their vexed devotion unfolds in part on the liner Lusitania.

With irony, compassion, and withering humor, these stories evoke the terrible ease with which cataclysm, human-engineered or otherwise, can sweep away all we find most precious, and expose those limitations we’ve refused to address. At the same time, Shepard celebrates what is best in us: the love and friendships we sustain, and the passions and grace we grant one another.

“In a dozen bravura historical short stories, Shepard again summons his rare and prodigious gift for imagining the thoughts and feelings of people caught in catastrophes. Ardent research provides the facts; empathy and literary prowess transmute them into tales of nearly overwhelming intensity. . . . 

These magnificent, all-consuming stories of unflinching precision, breathtaking artistry, deep compassion, and lifeline humor pit the merciless might of nature against the transcendence of love.”

—Donna Seaman, starred review, BOOKLIST

JIM SHEPARD has written eight novels, including The Book of Aron, which won the Sophie Brody Medal, the PEN/New England Award, the Ribalow Prize, and the Clark Fiction Prize, as well as six story collections, including Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which won the Story Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Eight of his stories have been selected for publication in The Best American Short Stories, two for The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and four for The Pushcart Prize. He’s the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with his wife, the fiction writer Karen Shepard, and a Pittie mix and a beagle.

Karen Shepard is a Chinese-American born and raised in New York City.  She is the author of four novels, An Empire of Women, The Bad Boy’s Wife, Don’t I Know You?, and The Celestials, and one story collection, Kiss Me Someone. Her short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and Tin House, among others, and her nonfiction has appeared in The Paris Review, O Magazine, Buzzfeed

Join us for an evening of Americana singer songwriters with Nick Gamer & Sequioa

Donation - $10 (cash / venmo at doors)

RSVP Online - Cash or venmo tickets collected at doors

Doors @ 7 pm

Music at 7:30 pm

715 SE Grand

Nick Gamer

Oregon’s Nick Gamer writes dark, cinematic Americana songs that sound equally at home in the western cosmos of Lucinda Williams and The Byrd’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo. A former guitarist for Japanese Breakfast and frontman of Le Rev, Gamer has traded indie pop hooks for the high lonesome wail of the pedal steel.

Sequioa

Sequoia spent his early life in transience and instability, relocating several times before landing in rural Vermont. Growing up in a family full of wanderlust, adulthood maintained the same momentum, moving consistently, seeking belonging. Havingrecently returned to his adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon, he spends months on the road, touring nationally as a solo artist. Offering these stark, vulnerable, performances has afforded closeness in several musical communities. To have these relationships, built through songwriting, is a cherished experience. To him, there is a no greater feeling of place. Seeing and living in so many parts of the country has offered a diverse perspective on what it means to be American, and his writing embraces this with often floral descriptions of environment that mirror emotional experiences. Travis picking and timeless lyricism anchor these songs in the folk tradition, while melodic chord progressions and unpredictable song structure challenge the genre with sincerity. The recordings, first and foremost, serve the songs, but often take risks with orchestration to shape a sound entirely of its own. Listening is a sojourn of painted moments that brood hopefulness, pain, and the haunting melancholy of life.

Ready to fall in love with the rhythm, depth, and poetic cadence of Spanish? Join us at L'école buissonnière for an immersive course, conducted entirely in Spanish for advanced speakers, that explores how art shapes our world.

Each 120-minute session (with a cozy 10-minute break) is a laboratory of expression. We break down the walls between subjects, approaching several distinct topics in every class to give you a fuller sense of Latin American identity.

Through the lens of culture, we dive into literature, music, painting, film, and more. You'll explore the minds of masters like Julio Cortázar and Violeta Parra, among others, and discover the psychological and historical weight behind their masterpieces.

Through interactive exercises, you'll practice reading, writing, and speaking. The heart of our class lies in conversation circles, giving you the floor to engage in deep, meaningful debates.
Come stretch your fluency, satisfy your curiosity, and experience the pulse of Latin American culture!

Limited to 10 participants.

Sessions

Oct 7 — On Tears & Gratitude
Julio Cortázar, «Instrucciones para llorar» · Violeta Parra, «Gracias a la vida»

Oct 21

Nov 11

Nov 25

Dec 9

Jan 6

Jan 20

Feb 10

Feb 24

Practical Information

When: Twice monthly on Wednesdays, October 7 – February 24

Time: 5:30–7:30 pm

Where: L'École buissonnière, above Mother Foucault's Bookshop

Level: Advanced

Instructor: Consuelo Miranda Albónico, a Chilean native, a writer, a language admirer, a pet lover, and a music devotee.

Group size: Up to 10

Price per class: $50

Join us for an evening of readings and conversation with Chris Vanjonack, Weston Morrow, and Callum Angus.

OUT OF BODY by Chris Vanjonack:

A wildly inventive collection of interconnected speculative stories—spanning the multiverse, demonic attachment, and life after death—from an electrifying new voice in fiction. Throughout this apocalyptic collection, an aimless ghost haunts his ex-girlfriend for evidence that she's actually upset about his death, three friends discover a device that purports to predict the best day of its users' lives, and a drunken posse descends into the woods in search of the clowns that have been terrorizing their small town. Morbidly funny and brilliantly observed, Out of Body is an atmospheric, dead original feast for the senses.

"Chris Vanjonack is a freight train of talent, and he's at full-throttle in Out of Body. This is a mind-bending, world-splitting, wildly entertaining debut--a significant event on the landscape of contemporary fiction."
— Patrick Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of Buckeye

Chris Vanjonack is a writer and educator from Denver, Colorado. A recipient of an AWP Intro Journals Award, his fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in One Story, Volume 0, Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and he teaches creative writing at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. Out of Body is his first book.

CLOUD BUILDER by Weston Morrow:

What do we owe the dead? This is the question at the heart of Cloud Builder, in which National Poetry Series winner Weston Morrow interrogates the burden of legacy and the ever-watchful gaze of our deceased loved ones. His search takes him from the landscapes of the late Romantics to the soccer fields and baseball diamonds of present-day Washington State, along the way reanimating figures from his own and our collective past. These poems reawaken long-dead painters and musicians, collapsed bridges, derelict ferries, and dormant volcanoes, confronting him with his failure, at times, to ask what it is we owe the living.

"A tender, achingly pensive debut; a feat of a collection…"
—Ariana Benson, author of Black Pastoral, winner of the Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize

Weston Morrow is the author of the 2025 National Poetry Series winning collection, Cloud Builder. His recent poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Boulevard, The Adroit Journal, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. He holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an M.A. in English Literature from Central Washington University. A former print journalist, he teaches writing at The Ohio State University.

A NATURAL HISTORY OF TRANSITION by Callum Angus

A Natural History of Transition is a collection of short stories that disrupts the notion that trans people can only have one transformation. Like the landscape studied over eons, change does not have an expiration date for these trans characters, who grow as tall as buildings, turn into mountains, unravel hometown mysteries, and give birth to cocoons. Portland-based author Callum Angus infuses his work with a mix of alternative history, horror, and a reality heavily dosed with magic.

"Callum Angus is one of the younger writers I'm most excited by, with a mind full of marvels and an ear to match. Every story surprises; every sentence strives gorgeously toward music. This is writing as transition, as entrancement, as transcendence."
—Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness and What Belongs to You

Callum Angus is a trans writer, publisher, and teacher. He is the author of the short story collection A Natural History of Transition (Metonymy Press, 2021) which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, an Edmund White Award in Debut Fiction, and an Oregon Book Award. It was also an honorable mention for the Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree). His next book, Stream, is a work of experimental nonfiction forthcoming from Curbstone Books in 2027.

In 2019, Cal started smoke and mold, an online literary journal with an expiration date that publishes nature writing, broadly defined, by trans and Two-Spirit writers. The journal is still going strong with a team of 20 editors and readers, and publishes two issues per year (along with a smattering of interviews and visual art) until 2031, when the project will be archived in print and online. You can read new and back issues at smokeandmold.net.

Since 2014, Cal has taught creative writing in a variety of universities, workshops, and independent organizations. After burning out on adjuncting and becoming generally disillusioned with the false promises and conservative politics of universities, he started hosting his own online classes and workshops focusing primarily on speculative literature, unusual forms, and of course, trans nature writing, and in 2025 he launched the celium workshop at celiumlit.net. If you're interested in taking a class with Cal, that's the place to go.

Join us for Writing with a Strong Voice: An Intensive for Writers, Musicians, and Other Artists.

Nothing captures a reader like a powerful voice. Voice is charisma on the page. It is sonic and propulsive, and whether it belongs to a character or a narrator, the ability to bring a voice to life is essential.

This is a 4-week, generative workshop for writers who want to dive deeper into voice, and for artists interested in transitioning to writing. Classes are designed with a decidedly a Rock 'n Roll flair. They will be a mix of mini craft lectures, creative prompts, and fun assignments to explore new voices that fascinate us. There will be surprise guests and occasional prizes.

All writers and artists at any level of experience are welcome.

Vanessa Veselka is author of the novel, The Great Offshore Grounds, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, Zazen, was awarded the 2012 PEN / Bingham Prize for debut fiction and was re-released as a Vintage Classic. Her short stories are in Tin House and Zyzzyva, and her essays appear in The New York Times, GQ, and The Atlantic. She has been at various times, a musician, a homeless teenager, a union organizer, and a night cab driver.

Duration: September 22 – October 13
Time: Meets Tuesdays from 6:30–8:30 PM
Location:l'école buissonnière, 715 SE Grand Ave, Portland, OR
(upstairs of Mother Foucault's Bookshop)
Cost: $275
Available Spots: 20

Please note: There is no elevator. While our intention is to make workshops accessible, we have some limits. Please reach out with needs and we will attempt to accommodate to the best of our ability.

l'école buissonnière

This fall and winter, L’École Buissonnière invites you to a monthly Café Littéraire, a French conversation class rooted in literature, seasonal culture, and thoughtful exchange.
Inspired by French cafés as places of ideas, debate, and imagination, these gatherings offer a slow, intimate approach to the French language.
Each 90-minute session opens a thematic doorway through short literary texts, guided conversation, and gentle creative practices.
The focus is not performance or fluency at all costs, but presence, curiosity, and pleasure in thinking together.
Each month highlights a seasonal cultural moment in France, including traditions that shape language and collective imagination.

Harvest, Wine & Poetry
Les vendanges : terroir, ivresse et poésie
Discover the world of French vineyards through literature, poetry, and sensory language, and explore how landscape, taste, memory, and the idea of terroir have shaped French culture for centuries.

MUSIC FROM

ALEX WILKERSON

&THEM

MEGAN DIANA

Of Women is a collection of translations of Japanese waka-poems from the seventh century to the twelfth century, featuring twenty female poets from this period, when Japanese women’s literature flourished. This book includes poems by famous writers from the era, such as Sei Shonagon (The Pillow Book) and Murasaki Shikibu (The Tale of Genji), and introduces some lesser-known female poets as well. 

Waka compacts much information in a short form: words with double meanings, unfamiliar phrases, habits foreign to non-Japanese speakers, and hidden historical backgrounds. Direct translations would fail to capture the author’s full intent, so Of Women takes several approaches to capture the original sensory images, including text collage and haibun, as well as short essays that provide historical context and introduce the author before each waka.

Naoko’s work has already garnered impressive praise from established voices:

Of women gathers the poems of twenty Japanese women, many unnamed, from the 7th to 12th centuries, who wove longing, politics, beauty, and defiance into the compact form of waka. Fujimoto makes brilliant use of a “thick” approach, contextualizing her elegant translations with haibun-style reflections and visual art that both honor and explode the forms of the originals. In these pages, forgotten voices are reclaimed and reimagined, speaking with clarity and grace to our time. 

–Geoffrey Brock

Of Women: 20 Japanese Female Poets / 20 Waka Poems translated by Naoko Fujimoto is an astonishing collection that steals us into the most intimate chambers of the heart, its diamond-like facets illuminated by women poets of the Heian era, each as brilliant and original as Fujimoto’s remarkable renderings. Her haibun approach carefully nestles these Waka poems in striking historical and social contexts while providing both visual and phonetic interpretations that reveal not only the breath of each poem but the forbidden heat of each poet’s afterlight with sensorial pleasure. These poems transcend what one might know of translation, operating as layered maps through emotionally fraught labyrinths that swell with color and surprise, breathless when whispering: “So show me / your tears, / your crimson / forlorn.” Humid with longing or haunted by desires smoldering in the thick of personal and political entanglements, Fujimoto parts the clouds of anonymity so that each poet emerges majestic and full like the moon, gifting us monuments of spiritual fortitude and literary mastery that accompany us in the heavens through the long and pulsing night. 

—Monica Ong

Here’s more information about the translator and her achievements:  

Naoko Fujimoto was born and raised in Nagoya, Japan. She is a poet and translator. Her poetry collections are "We Face The Tremendous Meat On The Teppan", winner of C&R Press Summer Tide Pool Chapbook Award by C&R Press (2022), "Where I Was Born", winner of the editor's choice by Willow Books (2019), "Glyph:Graphic Poetry=Trans. Sensory" by Tupelo Press (2021), and four chapbooks.

She is a RHINO associate & translation editor and Tupelo Quarterly translation editor. She is a Bread Loaf Translation full scholarship recipient and the 2023 Visiting Teaching Artist at the Poetry Foundation. Her first translation chapbook is available from Toad Press in the fall of 2024. 

Charity E. Yoro (she/her) is a poet whose writing has appeared on The Rumpus, poets.org, Tupelo Press Quarterly, West Trestle Review, PRISM International, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere, and has received Pushcart Prize and Orison Anthology nominations. Her debut poetry collection ten-cent flower & other territories (First Matter Press) was named the 2025 Oregon Book Award winner for the Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. Born, raised, and educated on the east side of O‘ahu, she currently lives west of Denver with her wild, loving family.

Join us for Writing with a Strong Voice: An Intensive for Writers, Musicians, and Other Artists.

Nothing captures a reader like a powerful voice. Voice is charisma on the page. It is sonic and propulsive, and whether it belongs to a character or a narrator, the ability to bring a voice to life is essential.

This is a 4-week, generative workshop for writers who want to dive deeper into voice, and for artists interested in transitioning to writing. Classes are designed with a decidedly a Rock 'n Roll flair. They will be a mix of mini craft lectures, creative prompts, and fun assignments to explore new voices that fascinate us. There will be surprise guests and occasional prizes.

All writers and artists at any level of experience are welcome.

Vanessa Veselka is author of the novel, The Great Offshore Grounds, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, Zazen, was awarded the 2012 PEN / Bingham Prize for debut fiction and was re-released as a Vintage Classic. Her short stories are in Tin House and Zyzzyva, and her essays appear in The New York Times, GQ, and The Atlantic. She has been at various times, a musician, a homeless teenager, a union organizer, and a night cab driver.

Duration: September 22 – October 13
Time: Meets Tuesdays from 6:30–8:30 PM
Location:l'école buissonnière, 715 SE Grand Ave, Portland, OR
(upstairs of Mother Foucault's Bookshop)
Cost: $275
Available Spots: 20

Please note: There is no elevator. While our intention is to make workshops accessible, we have some limits. Please reach out with needs and we will attempt to accommodate to the best of our ability.

l'école buissonnière

On Saturday, September 26, Films on the Green in Portland, OR, will make its debut with a screening of Persepolis.
This event is organized by Villa Albertine and the Albertine Foundation and L’école buissonnière.
With the support of TV5MONDE and JCDecaux

Villa Albertine’s Films on the Green festival is dedicated to providing free access to French cinema across the United States with outdoor screenings. Learn more.

This event is free and open to the public. We encourage you to RSVP, but no ticket is required.

Persepolis
Directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
Starring Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux
In French with English Subtitles.
2007, PG-13, 1h35, France

A coming-of-age story told through the eyes of Marjane, a young Iranian girl growing up in Tehran and Vienna. She avidly follows the events that lead to the Iranian revolution and the downfall of the Shah’s regime. With the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Marjane comes to see herself as a revolutionary…
Based on the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, L’Association, 2000, France.

#FilmsOnTheGreen
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In partnership with

Villa Albertine

Reinventing artists’ residencies, Villa Albertine is creating a network for arts and ideas spanning France and the United States. It offers tailor-made residencies for global creators, thinkers and cultural professionals. Explore our magazine, events, and programs for professionals.

Albertine Foundation

Albertine Foundation is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting French American relations through innovative cultural and educational programs.   In close partnership with Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education, Albertine Foundation administers grant programs across diverse creative disciplines including visual and performing arts; cinema; and literature, while also supporting exploratory residencies for creative professionals and thinkers across the United States. Albertine Foundation also contributes to promoting French language learning in the United States and funds new opportunities for students, professors, and researchers in the spheres of secondary and higher education.  Albertine Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation by Internal Revenue Service determination. Contributions from corporate, foundation, and individuals are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.  

L’école buissonnière

L’école buissonnière is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating the conditions for art, literature, music, and subversive play to thrive. Its mission is to build, hold, and promote spaces for art, literature, literary translation, and scholarship, with the goal of increasing expression, connection (spiritually, emotionally, communally), and other forms of relational action, and to encourage the development of new writers, artists, photographers, scholars, translators, and, most crucially, readers.

This fall and winter, L’École Buissonnière invites you to a monthly Café Littéraire, a French conversation class rooted in literature, seasonal culture, and thoughtful exchange.
Inspired by French cafés as places of ideas, debate, and imagination, these gatherings offer a slow, intimate approach to the French language.
Each 90-minute session opens a thematic doorway through short literary texts, guided conversation, and gentle creative practices.
The focus is not performance or fluency at all costs, but presence, curiosity, and pleasure in thinking together.
Each month highlights a seasonal cultural moment in France, including traditions that shape language and collective imagination.

To start this Fall program, we will explore how French has become a language of creation far beyond France, inspired by the screening of Persepolis for the first edition of Films on the Greene organized by Villa Albertine and the Albertine Foundation , and  L’école buissonnière.

Join us for an evening of Indie Rock / Dream Pop & Punk at Mother Foucaults Bookshop with Odd Blossom (Last Show),The Mannies & The Kelevras

Donation - $10 (cash / venmo at doors)

RSVP Online - Cash or venmo tickets collected at doors

Doors @ 6:30 pm

Music at 7 pm

715 SE Grand

Odd Blossom:

Odd Blossom is an indie rock/dream pop trio from Portland, OR. They blend distorted guitar tones, lyrical bass lines and cutting drum rhythms with a distinctive songwriting sensibility and vocal harmonies that’ll bend your ear! With three years of collaboration, an album and a whole lotta fond memories, Odd Blossom ends their run as a band with a Mother Foucault’s farewell show that will culminate in their final EP release.

The Kelevras:

The Kelevras! A punk trio that calls the Pacific Northwest home. They can’t stop delivering a dissonant (yet whimsical) experience that delights fans of both “rock” and “roll” no matter HOW many times people have tried to stop them.

Want to engage with a sonic concoction? Try listening to The Kelevras! A trio of dog-golems bent on producing a cacophonous stream of conscience that often causes problems.

Contemplative songwriting? Sure! Energetic rhythms? They sweat! All this without nary a mention of the catchy hooks, their chaotic nature, and the existential torture(s) they endure.

You can listen to The Kelevras wherever music is streamed OR you’ll be able to get the gist of them if you place your ear in the dirt beside a babbling brook.

Mannies:

2-piece alt-rock for people who like the cold side of the pillow

Craft Printing House invites you to a book release celebration

for

The Fiddler

a short story by Herman Melville

a limited edition chapbook printed letterpress from types cast

at the C.C. Stern Type Foundry.

on

September 23, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Featuring

fiddle music by:

Dave Mount

readings by members of:

Call Me Herman: A Melville Book Club

www.craftprintinghouse.com

Join us for Writing with a Strong Voice: An Intensive for Writers, Musicians, and Other Artists.

Nothing captures a reader like a powerful voice. Voice is charisma on the page. It is sonic and propulsive, and whether it belongs to a character or a narrator, the ability to bring a voice to life is essential.

This is a 4-week, generative workshop for writers who want to dive deeper into voice, and for artists interested in transitioning to writing. Classes are designed with a decidedly a Rock 'n Roll flair. They will be a mix of mini craft lectures, creative prompts, and fun assignments to explore new voices that fascinate us. There will be surprise guests and occasional prizes.

All writers and artists at any level of experience are welcome.

Vanessa Veselka is author of the novel, The Great Offshore Grounds, which was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award and won the Oregon Book Award. Her first novel, Zazen, was awarded the 2012 PEN / Bingham Prize for debut fiction and was re-released as a Vintage Classic. Her short stories are in Tin House and Zyzzyva, and her essays appear in The New York Times, GQ, and The Atlantic. She has been at various times, a musician, a homeless teenager, a union organizer, and a night cab driver.

Duration: September 22 – October 13
Time: Meets Tuesdays from 6:30–8:30 PM
Location:l'école buissonnière, 715 SE Grand Ave, Portland, OR
(upstairs of Mother Foucault's Bookshop)
Cost: $275
Available Spots: 20

Please note: There is no elevator. While our intention is to make workshops accessible, we have some limits. Please reach out with needs and we will attempt to accommodate to the best of our ability.

l'école buissonnière

Spanish Conversation Classes
Join us for Spanish conversation classes, held every two weeks (2 hours per session),
with Consuelo, a Chilean native, a writer, a language admirer, a pet lover, and a music devotee.

Level: Intermediate–Advanced
We'll talk about: literature, painting, film, politics/human rights, food

Intro class: Friday, September 18, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Price: $50 per session
Location: Mother Foucault's Bookshop, 715 SE Grand Ave, Portland
Small group. Limited space. Registration required in advance.

Conversamos en Español
Únete a nuestras clases de conversación en español, cada dos semanas (2 horas por sesión), con Consuelo — escritora chilena, amante del arte y los idiomas.

Nivel: Intermedio–Avanzado
Hablaremos de: literatura, pintura, cine, política/derechos humanos, comida

Clase de inicio: viernes 18 de septiembre de 2026
Horario: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Precio: $50 por sesión
Lugar: Mother Foucault's Bookshop, 715 SE Grand Ave, Portland
Grupo pequeño. Cupos limitados. Registro requerido con anticipación.

Consuelo is organizing a trip to Chile this December: "The Land & The People of Chile — A Spanish Immersion Journey Through Wine, Flavor & Wonder,"  the land of Neruda, Bombal, and Bolaño.
As Consuelo describes it, this is a chance to "go beyond ordinary sightseeing with a cultural journey through Chile" taste premium Carménère wine, explore the country that shaped so much of Latin American literature, and improve your Spanish through guided conversation and cultural immersion.

Extinction Song combines fixed poetic forms with longform meditative lyrics to explore questions of agency in the Anthropocene. The book begins with a tender depiction of early parenthood, as the speaker cradles his newborn son while imagining a dystopian climate future. The poems open into a broader consideration of overlapping and interrelated systems, from the confines of received knowledge to the closed circuit of ideology to the circularity of pollutive environmental cycles. Attentive at the levels of sound and of visual architecture, these poems highlight both destruction and unseen possibilities. By turns meditative and probing, and sometimes slyly funny, these poems highlight the perils and the joys of our precarious climate future.

John James is the author of two collections of poetry, The Delusion of Being Absolute (Milkweed, forthcoming 2028) and The Milk Hours (Milkweed, 2019), selected by Henri Cole for the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. He is also the author of three chapbooks, most recently Extinction Song (Tupelo, 2026), winner of the Snowbound Chapbook Award. His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, New England Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere, and his work has been supported by fellowships and awards from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, the Academy of American Poets, and the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University. He holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia and is completing a PhD in English at the University of California, Berkeley.

"The feeling and thinking in Extinction Song arise from the experience of fatherhood in a time of climate crisis. An immaculate craftsman, James has fashioned a prosody that holds in productive relation 'the real and imminent,' the provocative fact that life 'tends/in directions/almost infinite' even during the Sixth Extinction. Most intimate in their meticulousness, each syllable bearing his measured touch, these agile lines track the syntax of 'thought as it motions/through the channels of the mind' until the experience of 'feeling/thinking' comes alive with riveting immediacy. Calling upon the power of a visionary tradition that includes Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Duncan, and Inger Christensen, Extinction Song reveals the peril and terror within the way we love this world." —Brian Teare, author of Doomstead Days and Poem Bitten by a Man

Sabrina Görlitz is a writer, hospice companion and palliative care lecturer from Hamburg, Germany.
She has invented "palligraphy", a short biography written at the end of life that captures the most important stages and formative memories of palliative care patients - a wonderful opportunity to securely record personal thoughts about life and death for family and friends.

Introducing her special approach based on Joseph Campbell's "the hero's journey" to the US for the first time, Sabrina will tell us more about the palligraphy process and share some very moving patient stories with us. They illustrate how the power of story can bring peace, healing and relief - even in the midst of utter heartbreak.

A discussion about Time, Place, the nature of Belonging, and the role of the picture book. Signed copies available!

Moderated by: Claudia Zoe Bedrick of Enchanted Lion

With: Nelly Buchet - author,Elizabeth Haidle - illustrator

September 8th,
Doors open at 6:30
Starts at 7:00pm

715 SE Grand Ave, Portland, OR

Free event

Celebrate indie publisher Black Ocean’s 20th Anniversary and the launch of Zachary Schomburg’s Wool Moon with readings by poets Zachary Schomburg, Carrie Olivia Adams, Lisa Ciccarello, Josh Foman, Nathan Hoks, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson.

Black Ocean is an independent literary press founded in 2006 and based in Boston and Chicago. Black Ocean exists to foster a community where innovative voices in contemporary poetry and literature can thrive, offering access to boundary-pushing, transformative works that challenge conventional narratives. As a nonprofit, Black Ocean seeks to uplift underrepresented authors and create a platform for meaningful literary engagement that resonates with readers around the world.

Carrie Olivia Adams lives in Chicago, where she is the executive editor for the nonprofit press Black Ocean and the promotions and marketing communications director for the University of Chicago Press. Her books include The Book of Marys and Glaciers, Be the thing of memory, Operating Theater, Forty-One Jane Doe's, and Intervening Absence in addition to the chapbooks "Proficiency Badges," "Grapple," "Overture in the Key of F," and "A Useless Window." She writes the "Poetry & Biscuits" newsletter on Substack and curates a house reading series by the same name. When she's not making poems, she's making biscuits.

Lisa Ciccarello is the author of At Night (Black Ocean) as well as 11 chapbooks, most recently a micro-chapbook released as part of Ghost City Press' Summer Series. Her poems have appeared in over 60 journals, including the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day, Tin House, Denver Quarterly, the PEN Poetry Series, Handsome, The Volta, & Sixth Finch, among others. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Arizona.

Josh Fomon is the author of Our Human Shores and Though We Bled Meticulously, both published by Black Ocean. His poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including Afternoon Visitor, Caketrain, DIAGRAM, DREGINALD, The Georgia Review, jubilat, mercury firs, Poetry Northwest, TYPO, and Yalobusha Review. He lives on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples in Seattle.

Nathan Hoks is a poet whose books include Nests in Air, The Narrow Circle, Reveilles, and most recently, Moony Days of Being. His poetry has been awarded the National Poetry Series, the Tomaž Šalamun Prize, and the Iowa Review David Hamilton Prize. He has also published translations of work by Vicente Huidobro, Henri Michaux, Tristan Tzara, and Christian Dotremont. He teaches poetry writing at the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and lives in Chicago with his family.

Zachary Schomburg is the author of seven books of poems, all published by Black Ocean, including the award-winning The Man Suit. He is also the author of a novel, Mammother. He is also a founding editor of Octopus Books and a painter. He lives in Portland, OR.

Joshua Marie Wilkinson is the author of Swamp Isthmus and Meadow Slasher (both from Black Ocean). The final book in his No Volta pentology, Bad Woods, will be out from Sidebrow this month. A new novel, Inner Sunset, is forthcoming from Buckman Publishing. He lives in Portland and works as a psychotherapist.

A week-long celebration of songwriters in PDX. Portland Songwriters Guild is holding the first ever Songwriters Week in Portland. Modeled after some of Portland’s favorite weeks: Burger week, Pizza week, Beer week, Songwriters week brings two shows a day across the city ranging from $0-$10. Get a taste of the music makers in PDX and come join us for a show or two or 14.

Max Marcos

Max Marcos is an independent singer, songwriter, and producer crafting atmospheric indie-pop built around vivid imagery and emotional momentum. His 2024 singles “Waiting For Thunder” and “On the Sun” showcase a style that blends warm melodies, reflective lyrics, and cinematic natural imagery—storms, sky, and light—to explore anticipation, hope, and the feeling of moving toward something bigger. Writing and producing much of his own work, Max creates songs that feel intimate yet expansive, inviting listeners into moments of wonder, patience, and forward motion.

https://maxmarcos.bandcamp.com/

VHS Ghost

Here's to the afterlife

https://vhsghost831.bandcamp.com/

 
More Info: https://portlandsongwritersguild.com/events/portland-songwriters-week

Join us for the book launch of Undead: A Memoir of My Suicide by Madeline Vosch, featuring a live musical set from MAITA.

A revealing memoir about the complicated truths of surviving a suicide attempt and rethinking the concept of "suicide prevention" to create a world that people want to live in.

Madeline Vosch did everything she was supposed to do when the suicidal thoughts started. Or she tried. Between studying, working three jobs to make rent, navigating the impossible bureaucracy of Boston's welfare system to access food stamps and nominally affordable mental health care, there was not a moment she was not fixated on survival. One night in April 2018, weeks before her graduation from Harvard Divinity school, she walked home from a party with a single intention: to take as many pills as she could stomach, and never wake up.

But then she did. And she was left with a question: what now?

In Undead, Vosch deftly weaves together lyric prose, memoir, and cultural commentary to tell the story of what happens after a suicide attempt. Here, she sets off on a journey to find her kindred spirits in surviving the end of a story, investigating the various scripts she encountered in the weeks and months after her attempt—from other works of art that touch on the topic of suicide, to Christian theology, to medical texts, to episodes of ER, to the news cycle as reports of increased suicide rates confirmed her suspicion: she was not alone in her attempt, even if she had no one to talk to about what came after. She might be changed, but what did that matter if the world that had ground her down wasn't?

Vosch turns the concept of "suicide prevention" on its head, asking what it might look like to reconceive suicidality as a response to a social problem. She challenges us to incorporate "prevention" into a larger social vision that intersects with increased access to housing, to food, to healthcare—in short, creating a world that people can and want to live in.

"Harrowing, completely without flinch, Madeline Vosch's Undead may be the most uncomfortably human book I've ever read."
— Peter Rock, author of My Abandonment

"Madeline Vosch's Undead is a rare, ferocious memoir—scrappy, brilliant, and impossible to put down."
— Greg Marshall, author of Leg

Madeline is a writer, translator, and professor. Her first book, Undead: A Memoir of My Suicide, was published by Beacon Press. An excerpt of Undead was selected as the winner of the Ploughshares Emerging Writer's Contest in 2021. She is the recipient of a Fulbright grant and was an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow in 2021. Madeline is represented by Ayla Zuraw-Friedland at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency.

Madeline teaches at a community college and feels an affinity with all monsters.

Japanese-American singer-songwriter Maria Maita-Keppeler only writes songs she intends to finish, and once the debris has been blown away, the melodies remain — vibrant, sharp, and often heartbreaking. Her project MAITA’s latest LP, want, which was released in 2024 via Fluff & Gravy Records, is all of the above. A razor’s edge look at a relationship in turmoil, the record serves to strip away everything undesired in Maita-Keppeler’s life, leaving behind only that titular word: want.

“The album allowed me this opportunity to be a little more courageous about my feelings,” Maita-Keppeler says. “I grew up feeling very much like the peacekeeper. Now, I have to be really assertive about what I want for myself.” 

MAITA's first record, Best Wishes, was released via Kill Rock Stars in May 2020 — but it was bittersweet, as the album came out peak-pandemic and they were unable to tour. As restrictions loosened MAITA began to see the benefit of rave reviews from KEXP, SPIN, FLOOD Magazine, and NPR’s Bob Boilen. They toured the US and Europe and played shows opening for the likes of Mirah, Blind Pilot, Horse Feathers, Typhoon, and garnered featured slots at SXSW and Treefort as well. Meanwhile, the band was working on polishing up their third LP, want, which Maita-Keppeler penned during the isolation of the pandemic. Recorded at Echo Echo in Portland, Oregon in the winter of 2022, the record serves as the most crystallized of MAITA’s works thus far. “We felt like the songwriting had a kind of visceral quality to it,” she says. “I love high highs and low lows.” Through it all, though, runs the theme of wanting. “These songs all explore desire within the framework of a long-term relationship where you're just trying to push and dig deeper,” Maita-Keppeler says. “I feel like not a lot of songs really get to the core of those struggles and how nuanced they actually are.”

www.maita.bandcamp.com

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4vS7F8WLAPxQyMNAAHt9pn