The Common Good: Poetry Moves 8-15-25

My guest today is Elmo Shade a poet and author of The Dark Side of White Bread- Surviving Our Fathers: A Poetry Chapbook; Atmosphere Press; 2023, as well as three (3) additional poetry collections. He is a Certified Mindfulness Teacher-Professional (CMT-P) and is the founder of Poetry Street PNW (formally Camas Open Mic), in Camas, Washington. His work has been published in The SubjectivJournal, Pointed Circle, Nine Cloud Journal, Western Washington Poets Network Anthology, Artstra Poetry Moves, and elsewhere. He lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest and is Artsta’s new Poetry Moves Director.

Poetry Moves is a yearly contest to chose 9 winning poems to be displayed on C-Tran buses for a full year. Anyone from the Vancouver/Portland area can enter. Winners come a theater, currently the Magenta theater in downtown Vancouver, to read their winning submission. The theater event always includes several local prominent poets to also read their poetry. Another prominent local poet serves as the judge for the contest and then gets to submit one of their poems as the 10th submission for Poetry moves. Poetry Moves is a collaboration between Artstra and C-Tran that celebrates poetry and seeks to address a human need of cultural enrichment by giving riders a glimpse into a world they might not have access to. 

For more information, visit artstra.org and click on Poetry Moves. Information is available about the contest and how to submit your own poetry.