Join us at noon each market Saturday through 15 October, to enjoy a wide spectrum of expression from over 50 participating poets! Each reading is emceed by a different poet, who in turn selects guest readers. It's like opening a new magazine each week. The Market Day Poetry Series is cosponsored by the St. Johns Farmers' Market, and curated by Portland poet Dan Raphael. Today's host, Leanne Grabel, has invited Suzanne Sigafoos and Joanna Rose to read with her.

Suzanne Sigafoos began her writing journey, in earnest, at age 50. Relocating to Portland in 1999, Suzanne has presented week-long creative writing workshops to students in third, fifth, and seventh grades as part of Community of Writers in Portland’s Public Schools. She currently volunteers as co-facilitator of a support group for elders that emphasizes finding and maintaining emotional well-being while living with the challenges of aging. Her poems have appeared in the journals Battery Review and Manzanita Quarterly, and in an anthology: Regrets Only: Contemporary Poets on the Theme of Regret, from Little Pear Press in Massachusetts.
Suzanne has been touring this fall in support of her first poetry collection, Held in the Weave.

Joanna Rose has taught with a variety of organizations including PSU's Haystack Summer Arts Program, the National Literary Council, Winter Fishtrap (1999), and COW and Writers in the Schools. She also teaches private workshops with the writing group known as the Dangerous Writers. Her 1997 novel, Little Miss Strange, won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Fiction Prize, and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in fiction. Her short stories have been published in journals such as ZYZZYVA and STORY Magazine. She is a regular reviewer for The Oregonian, and has a new novel in the works. Her poems have recently appeared in the Bellingham Review, the Oregonian and Windfall, and online at Marco Polo Quarterly. There have been stories and essays too, and one novel (Little Miss Strange). Another novel is waiting for her to let go of it. She is the co-host of the prose critique group Pinewood Table, and the steward of 3 small dogs.

Leanne Grabel is co-founder of Cafe Lena, site of Portland's longest running poetry open mike. Known for her poetry-based theatrical performances and illustrated poetry chapbooks, including Anne Sexton Was A Sexpot and The Last Weekend of Sylvia Plath, Grabel is currently teaching fulltime in a treatment center for incarcerated teenage girls. A performance based on this experience called "badgirls" is in the works and will debut in November 2011, along with a chapbook of prose poems based on her teaching. Grabel's memoir Brontosaurus will be published in late 2011. Recent poems have been published in Cloudbank, Perceptions, 2GirlsQuarterly, and Northwest Literary Review.