Reunion

I first moved to Seattle (from the San Francisco area) in 2002. In my effort to find a new literary community, it didn’t take long to hear about Hugo House and to find its triggering towns. In those days Hugo House was still in the old Victorian funeral home, but the place was more creaky than creepy. I loved the bar area and the cabaret’s square tables with glass tops that covered sometimes creative literary displays, the gallery, the illogical rooms and staircases, the black paint covering the performance space. I always felt welcome in any part of the building, including the upstairs classrooms. It was a quirky labyrinth, but it felt open and comfortable, like an old home that had been in one’s family for generations. Some of that quirk has been lost, but instead the new building feels more professional, more serious—or rather, it’s a place that takes writing and creative expression seriously, even when having fun. I remember the challenge of a poetry critique session with David Wagoner in the library (all those zines!), hearing David Guterson and other novelists, poets, and performers in the theater, and organizing some of my own poetry events in the cabaret. The old space is gone but not forgotten. The new space is still earning its own unforgettableness, its new sense of home. It’s not the space itself that matters, though, but the people behind it—the staff that makes the house inviting, inclusive, and inspiring, the teachers who share their rich expertise, and all the fellow members and visitors, whether experienced or still improving their writing, who have added so much color over the years—and who will continue to make Hugo House a home.

             reunion . . .

             the smell of fallen leaves

             in our hair