In Person at the Library: Poets in Conversation

Join local poets Carol Prismon-Reed and Bill Mawhinney at the Library for an engaging evening of poetry and conversation.

Carol Prismon-Reed has been writing poetry since junior high, and early adopted an imagist, minimalist, and lyric style, though she will occasionally adopt more extended structures as the situation demands.  Her goal is to invite the reader (or listener) to share a moment of insight and the environment it happens in — a sort of ‘stream of consciousness’ participation.  In recent years she has been drawn to the classic poetry of China and has translated many of her favorites. This translation work also sparked an ongoing study of the traditional calligraphy of Chinese and Korean poets. Her first chapbook was published in 2018:  Footsteps in the Night Sky. 

Bill Mawhinney was born in Avalon, Pennsylvania in 1939.  He earned an English degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1963 and moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he worked various gigs as a proofreader, preparatory schoolmaster, and construction estimator.

After 18 years at Raytheon as a facilities engineer, technical writer, newsletter editor, and corporate trainer, he and his wife, Wanda, an abstract painter, retired to the forest west of Show Low, Arizona.  While there, he led monthly poetry circles at a local library, volunteered as a poet in elementary school classrooms, and offered poetry workshops and readings throughout the Southwest.

Chased from the woods by a wildfire, he now lives in Port Ludlow and talks with herons while combing Olympic Peninsula beaches.  He’s performed poetry in local retirement homes through an Arts to Elders program and for 13 years organized and hosted the Reading Series at Northwind Arts Center in Port Townsend.

The Port Townsend Arts Commission named him Angel of the Arts for 2011.