Two readings today.

Bernard Avishai, a Canadian-born Israeli, is at Elliott Bay Book Company this afternoon reading from The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace at Last. This book has a tremendously boring cover.

And at the Hugo House, Blue Begonia Press, a poetry press out of Yakima, is having a party to celebrate the release of their fall line. Authors named Cal Kinnear, Kim-An Lieberman, Terry Martin, Bill Ransom and John Graber will be in attendance. Here is the beginning of a poem by Kim-An Lieberman. I like it a lot.

Mrs. Willard, expecting catalogs, fainted.

Hearing thuds, Mags & Benno ran to the porch.

Their mother was woozy, breathing damply

in the shade of the beast’s ponderous tongue.

The rest of the poem is here.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here.