Art Chowder November | December, Issue 18 | Page 32

AN INTERVIEW WITH
ZAN AGZIGIAN
Who are your favorites?
My favorite poets are Irish and Armenian; classics like Rumi;
Beat like Ginsberg and Snyder; regionals like David Wagoner
and Robert Wrigley; Native like Lois Red Elk and Joy Harjo;
locals like Alex Manzoni, and performance poets like Canadian,
Shane Koyczan. I like Spokane Arts’ and Artist Trust’s
newsletters. I read Cook’s Illustrated, and Lion’s Roar, and get
the Saturday and Sunday Spokesman-Review. A kickass concert
is always great, in an intimate place like the Bartlett or the Bing.
The guests via Laboratory blow my mind. It is a blast to pitch
during Spokane Public Radio’s Pledge Drive campaigns. The
message always seems relevant, timely, and necessary.

Do you have any new publications or recognition?
My buddy, Vic Charlo, and I have poetry in the anthology Bright
Bones: Contemporary Montana Writing, recently released by
Open Country Press in Missoula. 

What other interests do you have and does this inform
your work?
We are so blessed to have Yasodhara Yoga Center here, in
Spokane. Their reflection workshops are what bring me back to
core. I’m a member of the Northwest Montana Chapter of Forest
Fire Lookout Association, and if and when I have time, it is a
keen hobby to be involved in the restoration and preservation of
lookouts. I hope to continue lookout work, as I absolutely love
the wilderness and forest hiking. Lookout work gives you the
360-degree perspective, which takes the lid off the imagination. 

Please frame how your teaching or other involvements
relate or don’t to what you write about. 
My day job is working for the Better Business Bureau
Northwest and the Pacific, as a standards review consultant. I
screen applicants seeking accreditation based on the standards,
which are ethical principles based on trust, and doing the right
thing. My job challenges and engages me. It exposes me to
ways that people entrepreneur. It keeps my communication
skills sharp, and me, honest. It holds a rhythm all its own and
has a direct effect on how I write: how “honestly” I interpret my
world.
Tune into Soundspace with Zan each Sunday from 9pm-11pm
(91.1 FM on the dial, or stream at KPBX.org) and follow her on
Facebook at Soundspace with Zan Agzigian.
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ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE