Friday, September 5, 2025

Subtext Reading Series audio collection: Online at PennSound!

[this article published on Jacket2] 

An introduction to the Subtext Reading Series audio collection at PennSound

The Subtext reading series was a collaborative effort by Seattle-area writers and readers interested in new writing. July 2009 marked the fifteenth anniversary of the Subtext reading series. Each month Subtext paired established and emerging writers from around the country with a Pacific Northwest writer and put them in front of a Seattle audience.

The core group of curators for Subtext were: Laynie Browne, Jeanne Heuving, Herb Levy, Ezra Mark, Bryant Mason, Robert Mittenthal, and Nico Vassilakis. This core expanded when C.E. Putnam moved to town, and contracted when Herb and Laynie and C.E. left town. In addition, we had a number of guest curators including (apologies if I’ve forgotten folks): Curtis Bonney, Daniel Comiskey, Joe Donahue, Kreg Hasegawa, Drew Kunz, Will Owen, and Lou Rowan.

In large part, the Subtext Reading Series came out of a poetry reading group which had started in the late 1980s from a small core of writers & friends who were interested in contemporary poetics. Sometimes connections were made randomly, for example, on a Metro bus, someone was discovered reading a Clark Coolidge book, & at a party someone quoted a Basil Bunting quip (“always carry a corkscrew and the wine shall provide itself”). Hard to say if these connections are more or less fragile than what gets established today via social media. 

 

After a few years, more than half of the reading group went north to attend the “Recovery of the Public World” conference in honor of Robin Blaser’s 70th birthday in Vancouver. We returned full of energy - and combining with others in the community, we decided to start a regular reading series, with a focus on presenting poets from out of town. It was clear that if we wanted to hear the new writers we were excited about, no one else was going to bring them to town. This was pre-internet, and there was little exposure in Seattle to the various alternative poetries flourishing at that time in US/Canada. I had been going up to Vancouver for literary events for a number of years, so this was an opportunity to get Kootenay School poets I knew and loved to read in the US.

We came up with what turned out to be a sustainable format for the series. Two person readings, once per month, on the same day, for example, the 3rd Thursday, at the same venue. One local writer, and one from out of town. Regardless of what was raised via donations at the door, we would pay the readers a nominal fixed amount, plus a small travel stipend for the visitor. We had no budget and no funding, so we focused primarily on the west coast, & tried to coordinate with writers who were traveling thru the Northwest. 

 

Jeanne Heuving was periodically able to secure funding to bring more established writers to the Bothell campus of University of Washington, and as part of their paid visits to the university, they would give public readings at Subtext. Happily, after many years, Jeanne was able to launch an on-going MFA graduate program in Creative Writing & Poetics at University of Washington Bothell.  

We had good luck finding venues to host/cosponsor the readings. Starting at what was one of the very first internet cafes in the US, the Speakeasy Cafe. This became a dynamic community space, a three-ring circus of activity. Happy insanity served daily. Around the time of a fire at Speakeasy, which closed the cafe, we moved to the Richard Hugo House, and after surviving a number of management changes there, and thanks to Steve Peters of Nonsequitur, we were able to be part of the opening of the Wayward Music Series at Chapel Performance Space.

Over 15 years, approximately 180 readings were captured on early Sony digital and DAT tape recorders by Herb Levy and Bryant Mason, respectively. Unfortunately, this is only about half of the events that occurred. The original media had to be converted to current digital formats, and then adjusted to improve sound quality. Thanks to Bryant Mason for work on the audio improvements and filtering. Final editing and organization of data by Robert Mittenthal. 

Thanks to Robert Mittenthal, a vast collection of Subtext audio recordings, is now available on PennSound, here.

Link to Subtext’s historical blog with descriptions of all readings, here.
Link to short Subtext YouTube videos from a very old anniversary group reading, not otherwise part of the audio archive,
here.

There are readings in archive from these writers:

Aaron Shurin

Aaron Vidaver

Adriana Grant

Alan Halsey

Alicia Cohen

Anselm Berrigan

Anselm Hollo

April DeNonno

Belle Randall

Bernadette Meyer

Bethany Ides

Brandon Shimoda

Brenda Iijima

Brett Ralph

Brian Carpenter

Brian Evenson

Bryant Mason

Buck Downs

Cathleen Shattuck

CE Putnam

Charles Alexander

Charles Altieri

Chris Mann

Chris Stroffolino

Christian Bok

Christine Deavel

Christine Stewart

Christopher DeLaurenti

Craig Van Riper

Curtis Bonney

Dan Farrell

Dan Raphael

Daniel Comiskey

Danika Dinsmore

Danny Snelson

David Abel

David Bromige

David Buuck

David Matlin

David McAleavy

Deborah Meadows

Diana George

Dodie Bellamy

Don Mee Choi

Donato Mancini

Donna Stonecipher

Dorothy Trujillo Lusk

Doug Nufer

Drew Gardner

Drew Kunz

Ed Foster

Ed Roberson

Eric Baus

Ethan Fugate

Ezra Mark

Fred Wah

Gerald Burns

Geraldine Monk

Hank Lazar

Interrupture

Jacqueline Turner

Jacqueline Waters

Janet Rodney

Janet Sarbanes

Jean Day

Jeanne Heuving

Jeff Derksen

Jim Jones

Jocelyn Saidenberg

Joe Keppler

Joe Safdie

Joel Felix

John Olson

Jonathan Brannen

Joseph Bradshaw

Joseph Donahue

Joseph Zitt

Judy Radul

Jules Boykoff

JW Marshall

Kaia Sand

Karen Weiser

kari edwards

Kathryn MacLeod

Kerri Sonnenberg

Kevin Killian

Kreg Hasegawa

Laura Feldman

Laura Moriarty

Laynie Browne

Leonard Schwartz

Leslie Scalapino

Lidia Yuknavitch

Lindsay Hill

Lisa Jarnot

Lisa Robertson

Lou Rowan

Lucy Corin

Maged Zaher

Mark Tardi

Martha Ronk

Martin Corless Smith

Mary Burger

Mary Margaret Sloan

Maryrose Larkin

Matthew Stadler

Maxine Chernoff

Meg McHutchison

Meredith Quartermain

Michael Cross

Mickey O'Connor

Mike Katell

Myung Mi Kim

Nancy Shaw

Nathaniel Tarn

Nico Vassilakis

Noemie Maxwell

Norma Cole

Paul Hoover

Peter Culley

Peter O'Leary

Peter Quartermain

Philip Good

Rae Armantrout

Rebecca Brown

Rhoda Rosenfeld

Rob Fitterman

Robert Mittenthal

Roberta Olson

Robin Blaser

Ron Silliman

Ron Starr

Rusty Morrison

Sarah Mangold

School Seattle

Shin Yu Pai

Sianne Ngai

Stacey Levine

Stacy Szymaszek

Steve McCaffery

Steven Farmer

Steven Shaviro

Susan Clark

Susan Landers

Susan Schultz

Tom Raworth

Will Owen

William Fox

Zhang Er

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