Mark Anderson was appointed Spokane Poet Laureate in October 2017 and will serve for two years . Anderson is the city ’ s third poet laureate , following Thom Caraway and Laura Read . In 2016 , he won “ Best Slam Poet ” at the Bartlett Awards and was awarded the 2016 Spokane Arts Award in Leadership .
THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER AT MICA CEMETERY
What are you most excited about as you begin your term ? It ’ s a huge honor to be selected as poet laureate . I hope I can live up to it . I want to reach out to people who haven ’ t been approached and invite them in . We are starting to be known as an up-and-coming city for arts , but many in Spokane don ’ t realize it . I go to other cities and hear Spokane is on the radar as a place to be , then I come home and people say , “ Well , if Spokane ’ s so great why didn ’ t I get the memo ”? I want to give everyone the memo .
What would you like to accomplish ? I ’ d like to widen the audience and inspire people to try out writing . It would be great if reading something you wrote at an open mic became a bucket list item , like The Bloomsday Run . Everyone knows you have to run Bloomsday at least once if you live here — you ’ ve got to at least give it a go . Getting up to a microphone and sharing something you ’ ve written can be a terrifying experience , but it ’ s incredibly empowering . It ’ s a pivotal experience , having the tangible sensation of being listened to and expressing deeply something important . Not everyone can get a degree in the arts ( though I definitely don ’ t discourage that ) but everyone can learn to write a poem that connects them to what it means to live their life .
How will you be engaging Spokane ? I want to teach people who are just getting into writing and people who want to deepen their poetry skill sets . I plan to teach workshops on performance for those who want to bring their poems to life on stage . I plan to create events that let people try out poetry in a safe , stress-free environment , and events that push more experienced writers to grow in their careers .
What brought you to poetry ? I ’ ve been interested in poetry since I was very little . Even before I knew how to write I ’ d dictate stories to family members , then they would write them down . I ’ d illustrate them and bind them with yarn into books . The stories revolved around giant monsters , inspired by Godzilla . When I had a hamster , I made up a super hero called Super Hamster . Then I got a gerbil . I ’ ll let you guess what the next hero was . I believe there was a horror story about a monster with horns that chased me across the world . That one was inspired by Goosebumps and a scary dream I had . Then in second grade , once I ’ d learned to write by myself , I wrote poems inspired by Shel Silverstein . I remember trying to decide what made something a “ poem ,” and deciding it had to do with patterns . I knew it didn ’ t have to rhyme but I thought there had to be some underlying pattern to the lines that tied them together . And now , when I ’ m stuck on a poem , I still look for the pattern . If there ’ s not something tying it together into a unified whole , I ’ ll abandon it . It won ’ t feel right to me . I was interested in poetry , and every two or three years I ’ d revisit it , but then when I was about eighteen I came to a poetry open mic at a cafe called Empyrean .
It is difficult to make a living as a shoemaker in the Mica Cemetery .
No one has been buried here for forty years . But everyone knows elves make the best cobblers
and there are plenty of those . Plenty to service these little , red bricks
almost covered by wild grasses : no letters on them . A mother walking with her son frowns
before the markers as the boy asks what they are . The elves
below are single celled organisms called paramecium or “ tiny slippers ,” hammering away at first pairs
of shoes for lost children . Times were hard , the mother explains .
Children died so often . Parents couldn ’ t afford headstones . The spring sun will be setting soon , burying
the yellow sky behind wiry branches , a fairy circle almost ready
to blossom . She looks homeward , but it ’ s better now . They walk off home as elves continue the tired shoemaker ’ s job .
He will arrive in the morning , amazed . His job is nearly done . Soon , even the nameless
will walk out from this place in peace .
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